A student who is a math major is like the humanities major of STEM. Math is as much cerebral and conceptual as it is tactile, and it is a lot less ‘career oriented’ than, say, a major in mechanical engineering, computer science, or biology. Please note, we are not at all saying that students who major in math do not have a strong career future. It’s just a little harder to differentiate yourself from other applicants with straight-As and strong SATs. But that is why we are here.
Standing out as an applicant interested in a math major, especially when applying to a top-tier school, requires some creativity beyond hard coursework. It’s not as simple as plugging in a technology or engineering internship and a tech-y summer job, then pressing repeat. Instead, you need to show yourself as a math mind, a creative thinker, a strong community member, and a passionate mentor and friend.
In this post, we will break down what you need to be doing as a junior interested in pursuing a math major to increase your chances of admission to a top-tier university. You don’t need to check every one of these boxes to get into a top school, but you should. Why? Because going to exceptional lengths is a requirement for outstanding outcomes.
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As a math person, you probably feel really comfortable around numbers. It’s possible, although not necessarily true, that you’d rather be around numbers than around people. The problem is that colleges are communities, so you need to prove to schools that you aren’t just a mind they want in their classroom — you are a person they want in their dorms, student centers, and dining halls.
MATH TEAM
First, you need to be on a math team. That means doing math competitions at a city, region, state, or national level as part of a team that supports, cheers for, and challenges each other. We love it if you are winning a lot of things, but you still need to compete even if you aren’t winning. You don’t, after all, need to share the scores. But sharing the experiences you have and the relationships you build is crucial.
Being on a Math Team gives you something to show for your efforts, which is really helpful for a major that doesn’t inherently have a lot of places to show wins. If your school doesn’t have a Math Team, there are two routes you can take. First, you could pursue competitions independently — and you can do this either way. The other option is to start a Math Team. Yes, starting a club, and especially a competitive team, is hard, but it can also make a big impact on your application. Recruit some friends, find a faculty mentor, and get the ball rolling.
TUTORING
The next thing that we want to see a student interested in math doing is to work with younger students to help them through math challenges to find success and confidence. Ideally, you would work with freshmen and sophomores rather than students who are much younger than you, as you’ll still be doing ‘hard’ math, underlining your abilities. It also shows your ability to communicate through tough things with close peers. Talking to a 10-year-old is much different than navigating a stressful subject with a sophomore, and tutoring high school students shows off your skills as a communicator and collaborator.
We also love tutoring that isn’t simply you working with one or two independent clients. Rather, we want to see our students working through a school-run tutoring program (paid or volunteer), working for a local tutoring company, or even starting your own tutoring company with a few friends.
RESEARCH & WRITING
Studying the field of math and researching the origin and growth of concepts can be fascinating. The challenge is that there aren’t many publications for sharing your independent work (as compared to those focused on humanities research or the sciences), and there aren’t many places to present that work either.
So, let’s create one. Speak with the editors of your school paper. Maybe there is an avenue through which you can write articles about what is happening in the world of math, or fun ways of contextualizing math within your community for each issue of the publication. Has anyone ever measured how many miles of hallway are in your school, or how many brownies are sold at lunch on a Monday versus a Thursday, or how far a student may walk in a given day? None of this is really ‘math’, obviously, but it is numbers. It’s engaging with numbers for an audience, and maybe you can add in some layers that elevate mere raw data and fun facts to something a bit more sophisticated.
SUMMER COURSES
One of the most valuable things that you can do, beyond showing that you don’t spend all day at a desk with a calculator, it to take additional coursework through summer classes. You need to push your academics in math as far as you can, doing the most advanced coursework available at school but then even more. Showing that you are willing to go out and look for opportunities to go further as a student and scholar is nearly as important as the grade you get in the class (which should, for the record, be strong).
Take accredited online or in-person courses through a local university or college. Many colleges are open to high-achieving high school students taking summer courses, or even auditing courses during the year. If you can get college credit, that’s awesome — but don’t expect it to give you a head start when you get to college. The college credit is most useful as a way of underlining your excellence, not in skipping courses freshman year.
You are an impressive math student. Now you need to make yourself an impressive person. You need to be more than math. You need to be a community member, a team player, and a passionate learner. So, show them that you’ve got this.
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