Anonymous
04/24/2025 13:42
Subject: So many math majors
If the ship has sailed for CS and Business, why are they flocking to math?
Anonymous
04/24/2025 13:36
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is this a new thing? The kid from New Jersey who thought he was screwed, endless questions here for next cycle or disappointed parents from this cycle whose math kids have to go to Europe.
What is going on with math… When did it become the hottest major?
It's a way to get into tech/FAANG without the competitiveness of CS. It may be competitive, but not as competitive as CS. Students use it as a proxy.
Not necessarily, few of my children's friends who went into math or physics, all had honors CS and honors business acceptances in top colleges.
Agree. That ship has sailed, it's been at least a generation, odd if it's just now hitting the college advice podcasts.
Not sure what ship you mean. At my kid’s ivy and the other feeder ivies I checked that publish data by major, math and physics are very common majors among those who end up at top finance(quant), tech industry. The number of math majors is on the rise at these schools. Engineering is a fixed group at those with separate undergrad schools, and on the rise at those that allow anyone to major. This is why elite/ivy considers major and looks for evidence the interest is valid based on HS coursework and EC despite not technically admitting by major. They do not want math/physics/CS/bio to be completely overrun anymore than they already are. Sure one can try to fool AOs and apply as Art History yet intend to be math or bio but it rarely works
Anonymous
04/24/2025 11:55
Subject: Re:So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:This is old but the trend hasn't reversed. Rise of math major (and other STEM) at UCSD: https://ir.ucsd.edu/_files/stats-data/enrollment/ugmajor.pdf
That’s because they started offering a Math+CS major that is easier to get into than the regular CS major.
Anonymous
04/24/2025 11:43
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is this a new thing? The kid from New Jersey who thought he was screwed, endless questions here for next cycle or disappointed parents from this cycle whose math kids have to go to Europe.
What is going on with math… When did it become the hottest major?
It's a way to get into tech/FAANG without the competitiveness of CS. It may be competitive, but not as competitive as CS. Students use it as a proxy.
Not necessarily, few of my children's friends who went into math or physics, all had honors CS and honors business acceptances in top colleges.
Agree. That ship has sailed, it's been at least a generation, odd if it's just now hitting the college advice podcasts.
Anonymous
04/24/2025 11:39
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is this a new thing? The kid from New Jersey who thought he was screwed, endless questions here for next cycle or disappointed parents from this cycle whose math kids have to go to Europe.
What is going on with math… When did it become the hottest major?
It's a way to get into tech/FAANG without the competitiveness of CS. It may be competitive, but not as competitive as CS. Students use it as a proxy.
Not necessarily, few of my children's friends who went into math or physics, all had honors CS and honors business acceptances in top colleges.
Anonymous
04/24/2025 11:37
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Is this a new thing? The kid from New Jersey who thought he was screwed, endless questions here for next cycle or disappointed parents from this cycle whose math kids have to go to Europe.
What is going on with math… When did it become the hottest major?
Kids who aren't interested in STEM but are high achieving, often take math as it opens many doors. However, math is neither easy nor interesting if you aren't into it and can limit options.
Anonymous
04/24/2025 11:32
Subject: Re:So many math majors
This is old but the trend hasn't reversed. Rise of math major (and other STEM) at UCSD: https://ir.ucsd.edu/_files/stats-data/enrollment/ugmajor.pdf
Anonymous
04/24/2025 11:27
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:what is the goal of an applied math major? wouldn't learning the real math foster better facility with math issues in the work place? Is this a way to broaden the pool of who is capable of majoring in math?
Applied is real math, it's the study of math with applications (including gnarly things without closed form solutions, PDEs, numerical analysis...), not necessarily math being applied to applications. "Pure" math is a term of disparagement, that no one self assigns.
Anonymous
04/24/2025 11:11
Subject: So many math majors
what is the goal of an applied math major? wouldn't learning the real math foster better facility with math issues in the work place? Is this a way to broaden the pool of who is capable of majoring in math?
Anonymous
04/24/2025 11:01
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Elite schools have open majors so you don't need to apply to a specific school or major in the first place.
lol.
So cute that you think that’s how this works.
All of the cynicism in the world doesn’t change the fact that most highly selective schools do not admit by major.
Yup--my High stats kid applied to 14 schools (12 in the T75) and only 1 admits by major (Our large state flagship ranked in T50-60). Otherwise my kid was specifically searching for schools where they can easily switch majors if desired (turns out it was not desired/needed). They didnt want to play Hunger Games 2.0 to get into the major they wanted and I agree with that. Outside of the large State Universities, most do not Admit by major
How many privates in the T25 was he admitted to?
Anonymous
04/24/2025 11:00
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Elite schools have open majors so you don't need to apply to a specific school or major in the first place.
lol.
So cute that you think that’s how this works.
All of the cynicism in the world doesn’t change the fact that most highly selective schools do not admit by major.
Yup--my High stats kid applied to 14 schools (12 in the T75) and only 1 admits by major (Our large state flagship ranked in T50-60). Otherwise my kid was specifically searching for schools where they can easily switch majors if desired (turns out it was not desired/needed). They didnt want to play Hunger Games 2.0 to get into the major they wanted and I agree with that. Outside of the large State Universities, most do not Admit by major
They don't admit by major. But they consider major when evaluating your application at a private T25.
So your "applied math major" is compared, implicitly, against the other "applied math majors". And if they have a cohort where 50% of the class wants to be a math major (as an example, only), do you think it's easier or harder to be admitted to a selective private university as a math major?
There is SOOO much online content about this topic. It is obviously most relevant for selective private schools.
If you don't want to research this on your own, you do so at your peril.
Then you will be the one here complaining that your top stats, math and econ major boy didn't get into a private T25 and has to go to Europe for school or to a lower-ranked flagship when students from the same HS got into more selective private schools with different "majors".
Anonymous
04/24/2025 10:45
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Mom of a math major here. He just loves math, and always has. I don’t think math is a super competitive major at his school— he’s had no trouble getting the math classes he wants, and they tend to be small classes. He’s really enjoying it. It makes me happy to hear more kids are majoring in math. I hope some of them go into teaching — we desperately need more good math teachers in this country!
DS is a data science major who loves math and has focused his upper level electives in the advanced math classes. But, he's a terrible math teacher. It comes so easily to him that he's not great at explaining it or understanding where someone would go wrong in figuring out a problem. He applied for a job at the math tutoring center and didn't get hired because of this.
Being great at math doesn't mean you are great at teaching math. In contrast, DH is an engineer and really struggled with his math classes but through that struggle understands the challenges and is a great math tutor. He does that now as a volunteer.
My kid has been tutoring friends in math/science since MS. They are the go to when anyone has issues. It continues in College as well---currently helping a few LA major friends get thru Calc 1.
Anonymous
04/24/2025 10:43
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Elite schools have open majors so you don't need to apply to a specific school or major in the first place.
lol.
So cute that you think that’s how this works.
All of the cynicism in the world doesn’t change the fact that most highly selective schools do not admit by major.
Yup--my High stats kid applied to 14 schools (12 in the T75) and only 1 admits by major (Our large state flagship ranked in T50-60). Otherwise my kid was specifically searching for schools where they can easily switch majors if desired (turns out it was not desired/needed). They didnt want to play Hunger Games 2.0 to get into the major they wanted and I agree with that. Outside of the large State Universities, most do not Admit by major
Anonymous
04/24/2025 09:05
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Mom of a math major here. He just loves math, and always has. I don’t think math is a super competitive major at his school— he’s had no trouble getting the math classes he wants, and they tend to be small classes. He’s really enjoying it. It makes me happy to hear more kids are majoring in math. I hope some of them go into teaching — we desperately need more good math teachers in this country!
DS is a data science major who loves math and has focused his upper level electives in the advanced math classes. But, he's a terrible math teacher. It comes so easily to him that he's not great at explaining it or understanding where someone would go wrong in figuring out a problem. He applied for a job at the math tutoring center and didn't get hired because of this.
Being great at math doesn't mean you are great at teaching math. In contrast, DH is an engineer and really struggled with his math classes but through that struggle understands the challenges and is a great math tutor. He does that now as a volunteer.
Anonymous
04/24/2025 08:53
Subject: So many math majors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is this a new thing? The kid from New Jersey who thought he was screwed, endless questions here for next cycle or disappointed parents from this cycle whose math kids have to go to Europe.
What is going on with math… When did it become the hottest major?
Engineering applications outside of CS have soared to the point of being almost impossible if one wants a top15/ivy, with these schools having sub-2.5% acceptance rates for the E schools compared to the overall admit rates sub5%. Thus applying to math or physics has become the latest hot trend especially this recent cycle--there were a couple of college-counselor podcasts that encouraged math or physics as a slightly easier admit than engineering for quantitative kids who were not sure of engineering. Ivy/elites have a lot of options for interdisciplinary coursework, dual majors, minors, etc that make the job prospects for getting into tech consulting/tech industry or quantitative finance relatively similar for math/physics majors versus engineering/cs for these specific career goals. Also, most of these top schools allow transfer into engineering as long as math/physics the first year goes well. It is being used as a backdoor to E for some; for others it is a genuine interest.
So the kids who actually love math now have to compete with CS and Engineering majors looking for an easier way in? How terrible.
I’ve always been under the impression that math is for super passionate students, but I guess it’s turning careerist.
And it still is. If you talk to a math major, you will find out quickly which camp they are in.