My father became a prominent engineer in the space program; my wife stayed academic; my cousin became a successful sales engineer. I am currently in a senior position in an IT department. Other key roles I know of filled by mathematicians? Quantitative analysts, actuaries, data scientists, sports analysts, programmers, economists, scientists... Mathematicians do well, because they know how to think about difficult problems.

I could even see it as a negative on a college application for some admissions counselors. IQ does not equate to performance or character. Boasting, however, does say something. I'd bet most counselors would just ignore it, and almost none would see it as a difference maker in the good way.

I think it depends on how active your local chapter is, and whether they engage in interesting activities for your child. Our local chapter seems to be most interested in promoting labels, so we haven't seen a reason to join. I know that some chapters put a lot of effort into group experiences for the kids, and I would venture a guess that they could be very much worth joining. The label itself does not mean much.

I suspect you will receive lots of replies, as several of us have degrees in math, and kids who are doing well in math. Probably the most common theme you will hear is, "don't rush, and don't try to push to some end goal." Take time to explore concepts - deeply. AoPS has a nice program here in that you can afford to spend two years on pre-algebra, two years on algebra, do number theory, probability, and so on. For a mathematician, theoretical concepts are key, so spend time exploring those ideas. Dabble in abstract algebra (just the beginnings), non-Euclidean geometries, topology, and other interesting topics. Just make sure that she finds them interesting. Her track doesn't need to look traditional in any way.

Yikes! I hadn't been checking for a while, but glad that was averted! Any news on when the scores come back?

Not a "trick," per se, but an expected method that obviates the need for technology. The method will be clearly described in class. Sorry, but I get picky about this difference. :) One thing which can be odd about the 408C/D sequence: if the destination school isn't familiar with the level of rigor involved, it may assume that the "Calculus III" portion is getting slighted. Most know better, but no guarantees.

Good question! I don't trust published lists a whole bunch, to be honest. Instead, I look to publications generated by the schools themselves - how often are they cited, how many of the classics originate at the school, etc. With math, classic publications tend to be old, but traditions are held with pride. Giant schools will not provide the same educational quality at the undergrad level as at the grad level. That doesn't mean their courses are for slackers, however. If there are "honors" sections available, then you can scratch this comment - smaller classes REALLY matter! The good thing is, for math, the differences in undergrad education is not that significant until you compare the elites to, well, anyone else. You can move from a solid second-tier undergrad program to an elite graduate program. Go with the school which provides adequate challenge and a comfortable, engaging experience.

By the way, any school on the "team winner" list here = top math schools... http://www.maa.org/programs/maa-awards/putnam-competition-individual-and-team-winners

A bit late to the party, but U Chicago has one of the top math programs in the world, on par with Princeton and Harvard. Other top math programs I would consider, but didn't see on your list: UNC, U-Texas, Columbia, and Cornell.

Correct. We haven't used it yet, but I don't think they check anything - you just buy the course, just like in TTUISD.

There are a couple of differences in that ACCD doesn't allow children under 16, and that it's UT-Austin, not a community college. Plus, it's open enrollment (no TSI that I can see, though that isn't an issue for us - SAT scores are high enough).

A&M is required to take anything with a UT name. They must hate it. :boxing_smiley: It looks like an interesting route to a serious calculus credit - the 408C / 408D sequence wallops any AP calculus course available... Government, economics, history, and psychology are also all well represented.

Yes, those I am familiar with, and we have used TTUISD. What I am referring to in particular is at https://courses.extension.utexas.edu/self-paced. Those give full college credit, but their forms allow you to simply "check a box" to count it as dual enrollment with a home school program.

Has anyone tried / used University of Texas Extension for early college or dual enrollment? They haven't got a huge array of courses online, but having open enrollment and a real UT transcript make those courses rather enticing. The only thing I can see that detracts from it at all is the "correspondence course" label that will be assigned to the transcript, and I'm not sure that matters much at the level of courses being taught. If you've used them, I'd love to hear your experiences!

That sounds about right. Depending on the shipper, the costs can really vary. For current edition texts, the price for a South Asian edition is usually much less than a local edition - shipping and all. There are rules for that, though.

You'd be surprised - I get books shipped internationally frequently. It's nowhere near as pricey as it once was. Often, it's cheaper to source internationally than get the same text locally. Companies may mark up based on the cash invested in shipping costs and transit time. I don't have to pay that markup. International Amazon is a great friend!

Exactly. Shop around for solutions manuals, and get a nice edition with all manuals. You can often get a full set for under $20 + shipping.

Very true. The freshman-level courses are at least AP level, and generally higher to much higher - some of the full video courses exceed general university education (graduate level). However, the instruction quality is so good that I would venture that any student prepared for the AP course would be well served by using the OCW introductory course instead.

Yep, physics is in a weird spot right now. We have copies of those, and they can still be found elsewhere online, but not on the OCW site. They formed the traditional 3-course introductory sequence: mechanics, electricity & magnetism, and light & heat. You can pair those with any classic calculus-based textbook - though I like Halladay & Resnick, we use Sears & Zemansky because we have the complete teachers kits. Any of the "scholar" courses are great. Other than those, we've found you need to look at how complete the videos are, and whether there is a syllabus and schedule provided. Once you have those, you're set to go. You should expect to form your own tests and handle grading yourself. We haven't found any to put in the "avoid" category, but we always look for a complete course. We've done Psychology, Fundamentals of Biology, Principles of Chemical Science, and Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. Bio only covers half of Campbell-Reece, but it's the tough half. We used self-study materials for the second half. Chemistry was the best chemistry course my wife or I have ever seen. It opens with quantum mechanics, and is calculus-based, so it's not to be used as an introduction to chemistry. SICP is one of the all-time great computer science courses, though it is falling out of favor and is tricky to set up. It's based on Scheme (a variant of LISP), and there aren't a lot of editor/compiler options for it. However, with the re-emergence of artificial intelligence and data science, the concepts in the course are still extremely relevant. MIT has moved on to Python-based courses for computer science, and the 3-course sequence online is still a good one. We haven't used the math courses, as we're qualified to teach math without the help of videos, but they have lots of good math available.

:hurray: Yes, yes, yes!

They'll know. It has much less to do with the time spent, and much more to do with the rigor / level attained. Most linear algebra programs are ridiculously light and easy. Very few are constructed to lead into formal abstract algebra. That's why the second course is often needed, to bridge that gap in rigor.

:laugh: ETA: you forgot to add QED (mic drop). :cheers2:

It's fun stuff, but I don't think you can possibly make an accurate 2-D rendering of the relationships without drawing lines to link things up, and then you'd see a bunch of lines but no topics. For example, separating differential geometry from theoretical physics has the effect of rendering Einstein's work on relativity null.

There probably is a complete curriculum available, but we just used the book and answer key (same w/McMurray Fay).

We used a basic college text (McMurray Fay) for older DS when he was 10, believe it or not, and it worked very well. He was working on algebra 1 at the time. He eventually worked through MIT's online courseware chemistry in 8th, but that turned out to exceed AP level. Younger DS went through Conceptual Chemistry in 3rd grade, and I honestly thought it was a decent text, as well. Anything below that, and you'd really be scraping the bottom of the barrel. I wouldn't worry too much about the experiments lining up - that's pretty easy to pull off with any text/curriculum. Based on our experiences, I'd say anything not labeled AP would be fair game. The math skills need to be pretty strong, though. Although the equations are not all that complex, your son will need a good feel for units and conversions. You can cover the basics of simultaneous equations and molarity when those topics come up. If his math is not that strong yet, you may want to wait a year to shore them up.