A school for a nerdy kid !

<p>When I talked about white drunk kid, I was actually thinking of LACs.
I guess research U have more diversity in their ranks.</p>

<p>Being european, I guess it is just different from what I know</p>

<p>I don't know anything about Harvey Mudd, but U of M is NOT a school for nerds. My S is also kind of nerdy, and he crossed it off his list because he thought he wouldn't find enough fellow nerds to hang out with. Carnegie Mellon is near the top of his list though.</p>

<p>Telayl, you probably need to look at bigger schools, where it'll be easier to avoid "drunken white kids." They exist in just about every school in the land. </p>

<p>It's just a peculiar American thing -- like peanut butter, salty pie crust and generosity with tipping ;)</p>

<p>In a more light-hearted vein, Huffpost composed a list of nerdiest colleges:</p>

<li> MIT</li>
<li> Caltech</li>
<li> University of Chicago</li>
<li> Carnegie Mellon U.</li>
<li> Harvey Mudd College</li>
<li> Reed College</li>
<li> WPI</li>
<li> Carleton College</li>

<p>The</a> NERDIEST Colleges</p>

<p>I would say that is a pretty good list.</p>

<p>Mudd doesn't take many transfer students, but it is worth trying. If you are just a freshman, it's unlikely you have satisified as much core as you think. Big state schools can work for nerds - you will just need to work to find your crowd but it will be there.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the additional information you provided.</p>

<p>As a matter of fact, I'll probably choose my schools for their math department rather than the nerdy aspect. I cannot apply to MIT and Caltech since they ask for SAT scores that I don't have.</p>

<p>Otherwise, I found that Cornell has an amazing math department with all the classes I want to take. I am absolutely not sure for Chicago and Carnegie in that they are very nerdy schools but their math department don't offer much in biomathematics but offer an operation research program that sounds fairly interesting. I also looked at Rose Hulman and once again, they also offer an operation research program.</p>

<p>The research operation focus seems a very interesting opportunity but I'll probably need to talk about it with my parents to get more insights.</p>

<p>For Mudd, I know that they don't take many transfers but their academic program is very appealing. Otherwise, they do accept a few transfers every year and every transfers that got accepted did apply. Hence, it cannot hurt too much.</p>

<p>If you think you'll like Operations Research (what's this bio-math thing anyway :-)) Purdue University could be another option. Nationally ranked engineering program (even after they let me graduate, sigh :)) and very strong choice of related courses from Math, Statistics, Management, and Industrial Engineering (which is the primary OR focus, look at <a href="https://engineering.purdue.edu/IE/Research/OR%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://engineering.purdue.edu/IE/Research/OR&lt;/a> for details, ranked up to #6 depending on who does the books, and so on). </p>

<p>Unfortunately, Purdue being a huge flagship state university in the middle of nowhere... social life tends to be a bit, ehem, you get the idea :). But the nerd-ness I encountered in my years there was more 'down to earth' nerd-ness rather than the haute coiffure nerd-ness of Harvey Mudd, MIT, Cornell, and the like. </p>

<p>Another awesome and relatively straightforward to get in and high quality school located in the slightly better middle of nowhere would be Univ of Wisconsin-Madison - awesome Math & Statistics department, good engineering, etc. </p>

<p>As for 'nerds in large flagship university' land, my own daughter (art/architecture nerd) is attending such a school... Sure, they're a minority of a few hundred kids in a land of tens of thousands, but they live in their own world, and that's all that matters to them. </p>

<p>Try to redefine your own nerd quotient and see what comes out - the advantage of huge schools with good engineering/math type programs versus smaller 'everyone is a nerd' schools is money available for the nerds :).</p>

<p>Cornell is a good choice. I heard it is relatively easy to transfer there with good grades in comparison to other good schools.</p>

<p>UChicago 10char</p>

<p>"I cannot apply to MIT and Caltech since they ask for SAT scores that I don't have."
Both schools accept international students as freshman, so I assume they use other scores that those students can provide. I would contact the admissions offices before you write them off entirely. That said, those 2 schools are among the most intensely academic UG colleges in the world. So going there may be akin to being thrown in the deep end without a lifejacket. You have to learn to swim really quickly.</p>

<p>Would second recommendations on Carnegie,based upon kids we know in similar situations who describe themselves the same way. Also, if you want a big school, have you thought of Georgia Tech? good luck-you do, in</p>

<p>Thanks for you ingishts. I only took the TOEFL twice and my scores are slightly below the requirements for Carnegie and UChicago. Moreover I won't be able to take it until spring break so i'll be a lot more of works. They also ask for a bunch of essays that I am fairly afraid of while HMC, Cornell and Umich are pretty straightforward.</p>

<p>I am considering only applying to Cornell, HMC and Umich now.</p>

<p>What year are you now in college? Your COLLEGE record is going to be VERY IMPORTANT, perhaps more important than your old TOEFL scores at this point. So if your GPA is very high, in difficult subjects, you have SHOWN that your can and have succeeded very well in college here in the US, which is what any college that considers you as a transfer student, will want to know.</p>

<p>I have a 3.47 as a stem major. The thing is if my GPA makes me fairly competitive, the TOEFL is a requirement. Carnegie and Chicago have fairly precises requirement about it and I don't meet them.</p>

<p>I wanted to edit but waited for too long, here is the full explanation.</p>

<p>My case is fairly special. I spent time in Europe before going to my current school. As a result I have a lot of credits but I consider that I don't have the classes I need to go on. My status is a junior but I want to do applied math and it is inaccessible in my school.
My current US GPA is 3.47 and 3.62 in math. I mostly got As in math but one B when I took a really heavy workload.
Considering that I am an international without financial aid, it makes me fairly interesting for school and I am interested in a very specific area of mathematics: Modeling and statistics in biology. As a result, Michigan and HMC are very appealing to me.</p>

<p>However, Carnegie and Chicago offer majors in operative research which covers my interests but not exactly related to what I want to do.
Moreover, at least for Carnegie, I will need to retake the TOEFL. I e-mailed Chicago about it and hope to get a response after the week end.
I would need to improve my overall TOEFL scores and especially my speaking skills that was low when I passed the test 2 years ago.
One of my problem with that is that I have already been in the US for a while with a decent GPA and that schools that appeals more to me don't need it. This is why, I wonder if I want to apply to Carnegie and Chicago</p>

<p>As a general question, how different are transfer requirements from normal post HS requirements for admission? I've never transferred (always finished one degree, started another) so I do not know if a 3.5 would be sufficient for the 'elite' schools. Likewise, the current school's academic rigor (or whatever) would have to be considered.</p>

<p>I know when we all visited UTexas while attending Cajun State 30 years ago the UTexas admission dude was not very thrilled with the prospect of any of us transferring there regardless of grades, TOEFL's, and the like...</p>

<p>I would need to improve my overall TOEFL scores and especially my speaking skills that was low when I passed the test 2 years ago.</p>

<p>this should be a piece of cake, as 1] you have been in the US, speaking english for 2 years, and 2] you have taken classes that are harder than those you took 2 years ago, yes? </p>

"Considering that I am an international without financial aid, it makes me fairly interesting for school"</p>

<p>"Interesting" is not the word I would use, as being international AND needing FA does not make you someone colleges are anxious to admit. Especially Public U's like Michigan, which are not generous to international students. You need to find colleges that DO offer FA to international students first, and then see if their programs are of interest to you. Otherwise, you app is likely to be rejected without so much as a second look.</p>

<p>I didn't enroll as freshman but it seems that the main variation is about high school grades and SAT scores, they don't matter as much compared to college grad. As a matter of fact, my case is simply unique. However, you can't really call me a slacker, I always took very heavy course load, my all time favorite was 8 classes including 5 maths.
My US GPA was lowered by the last semester where I took 5 classes, two of them having labs and well that was ugly. As a result, I am hopeful since it makes me interesting but I may seem too weird to some adcom I guess.</p>

<p>As a general question, how different are transfer requirements from normal post HS requirements for admission</p>

<p>they are usually even tougher, as there are far fewer spots open for transfer students than for the incoming freshman class. At elite colleges you have to supply both your HS transcript and test scores, as well as your college transcripts and LOR's from Profs.</p>

<p>"I am an international without financial aid"</p>

<p>THIS is going to eliminate your application from consideration at most US colleges, regardless of how "interesting or unique" it is ! Many colleges are only accepting international students that show proof that they can pay their own way! In fact, some colleges are using the $$ from full international students to help supplement FA programs for US students!!</p>