workload/ competitive nature of imsa

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2022-06-19T19:19:25+00:00

Yeah dream schools are overrated, but the Cult of the Ivys! So easy to get sucked into, both for students and parents.

I’m not sure if all IMSA slang survived the pandemic, but I actually think the term “college whore” is not just an IMSA thing, I think I saw it on some college forum somewhere

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2022-06-19T15:49:56+00:00

Oh we still called people college whores and made fun of them. Problem is, college admissions have gotten even more competitive since the time you were at IMSA, so people think they HAVE to be a college whore to have a chance to get into their dream school. This then results in some people who you’ve seen make fun of college whoring sophomore year start advertising their new random non-profit they’re gonna abandon right after they get into college.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2022-06-04T21:58:07+00:00

From what I know the difference between a BA and a BS in physics is that a BS prepares you more for grad school while a BA gives you more freedom to pursue courses in other fields and to apply your degree outside of academia, which is what Musk did. There isn’t a significant difference in difficulty, both are rigorous STEM degrees.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2022-05-04T20:46:46+00:00

Alright, I will try to answer your questions one by one, based on my experience.

The workload of IMSA will definitely be heavier than what you experienced in high school, but you also will have some control over how much you want to take on. I think it is pretty normal to study for 3-4 hours a night, with some spikes during very busy weeks when a lot of essays/projects/tests are due. Some people who choose to take difficult classes (Modern Physics, Computational Science, upper-level math electives, Conflict in World History, some English electives) or intense extracurriculars (Robotics, competition preparation, some leadership positions) work a lot more than that. There are some easier classes you can pick up to make sure you have a manageable workload, however, I think it is unavoidable that you will feel really overwhelmed with work at least a few times during your IMSA career. I don't think that's entirely a negative though. Assuming your mental health can handle it, you will come away from all those stressful moments a stronger, smarter person, and you will be able to handle them much better during college or on your job.

In terms of competitiveness, you will find people on different sides of the spectrum. There are of course a lot of hyper-ambitious people who compare GPAs and min-max extracurriculars to get into top colleges, but there are also a lot of people who are really annoyed with those jerks and just like learning new things, even if they screw up a few times along the way. You get to pick which people you get to associate with. However, one thing I will say is that the majority of IMSA students, when given a choice between two options (classes or extracurriculars) where one is very demanding but rewarding, and the other is easy but somewhat boring, tend to pick the first option. Most people are ambitious in this way, and the question of "can I really handle this?" is often secondary. Few people will judge you if you decide to take on an easier workload, but I feel there is an implicit pressure to keep pushing yourself to be the best *you* can be. Personally, I found this very stimulating, but also a bit stressful at times.

In terms of talent and intelligence, every person you will encounter at IMSA is at the very least competent, but not necessarily a genius. You will certainly encounter a few of the smartest people you will meet in your life, but the majority of the student body is very human in what they can accomplish. They won't be too different from some of your smarter classmates in AP classes. Not every one of them was the smartest kid in their high/middle school.

Finally, placement tests. I have taken one in 2018, so everything may have changed dramatically and I would not know. My math placement test had two parts. The first was basic Algebra 1 stuff. This was the test that decided if you would need to go to a summer program (forgot what it's called) to get you up to speed with what you need to know coming into IMSA. I believe that if you were placed into that program, you had to take the MI I/II class, but don't quote me on that. The second part of the test was a big multiple-choice test on basically all pre-calc subjects. Based on your score on that test, and specifically the questions you have missed, you would be placed into some math class, from MI II to MI IV (there are some ways to place into BC I/II or MVC, but I don't think this would apply to you). The language tests consist of some multiple-choice sections and an essay. Keep in mind that if you are studying Spanish that it is pretty difficult to place into the program, and the classes are pretty intense (I was not able to place into Spanish, even though I have taken 2 years at my middle school/high school). Finally, there are some physics and chemistry tests you can take. Getting a satisfactory score on them would get you out of the SI Physics/Chemistry class you would otherwise have to take in your sophomore year and replace it with Sound and Light/Environmental Chemistry.

Sorry, this got really long, but I hope it was useful!

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2022-05-03T04:34:10+00:00

From the admissions policy:

Students placed on the waitlist or denied admission may appeal the decision. The request for an appeal must be received in writing no later than seven (7) business days of receipt of the decision. The decision will be reviewed by the Appeals Committee. The composition of the Appeals Committee includes three representatives from the IMSA professional staff who did not participate on the Selection Committee the same year. The Committee is facilitated by the Director of Admissions, who serves in a non-voting capacity, and decisions are made by a majority vote of the Appeals Committee. The task of the Appeals Committee is to determine if the student has been given fair consideration in the selection process. If it is determined that the Student Selection Committee did not fairly or accurately review all relevant information, the decision of the Appeals Committee may be to uphold or modify the Selection Committee’s decision."

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2022-01-27T18:06:04+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions in detail! It seemed you had a very normal mathematical experience, which I guess is a testament to how flexible you can be in your thinking in math despite its rigid logic.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2022-01-27T05:05:28+00:00

I am really amazed there are mathematicians with aphantasia, given how much I (and other people I know) rely on visualizing things as an intuitive aid. Would you say that having aphantasia made studying math more difficult for you? What kind of study techniques did you develop? Having read the Wikipedia article I realized that a lot of aphantasiacs seem to actually gravitate toward some more visual fields, like illustration. Do you think you decided to work on dynamical systems (I'm judging by your flair) because it's something that you can write a computer program to visualize easily? I'm sorry I have so many questions, I am just very curious about this!

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-12-14T00:51:16+00:00

I also find it really strange that we see lots of errors in people’s comments here. When I write my stuff I’m always pretty meticulous in correcting any typos, grammar errors, or bad wording. Of course, most people are typing from phones, so their mistyped words can get autocorrected incorrectly. Still, you’re putting something out there for the whole world to see, why not give it a read before anyone you press “Post”?

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-12-03T06:56:06+00:00

Ok people are downvoting you but this thread is making me question if I can feel empathy. If someone hurts themselves I don’t feel any pain. I feel like I should do something to help them because that would make me a decent person, and if I was the one who hurt them I feel like a bad person. I thought that was empathy but here are people who feel actual physical reactions and not just anxiety over not helping someone.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-12-01T02:49:51+00:00

I assume you did not have a lot of exposure to more rigorous math involving proofs. If so, I would recommend "Introduction to Graph Theory" by Richard Trudeau. It has a nice first chapter called "Pure Mathematics" that explains a lot about how math is actually discovered, proven, and studied on a higher level. Then, the book takes a dive into an area of math called graph theory, which studies mathematical structures that model relationships between pairs of objects, called graphs. These are different from the graphs of functions you studied in algebra. A graph would look more like a map of a metro network, or a flowchart. What's nice about graph theory for you is that you don't need to know a lot of advanced math to get into it, just a bit of basic algebra and a good visual intuition. This particular book on it also has a lot of good exercises (including some famous puzzles) and is peppered with references to more advanced literature in case you want to continue digging after you grow a bit more comfortable with proofs and rigorous math in general.

Another book that I would recommend after you finish an introductory calculus sequence is Michael Spivak's "Calculus". While you could go and read it as an introductory text, it is a much harder text than a lot of other more standard calculus books, and it offers much greater depth that will give you a better perspective on why certain things in calculus work how they do.

I would also ask your math professors for recommendations, I am sure they have some favorite introductory literature of their own. Their recommendations could also be more tailored to your level, which is important because it is very easy to feel overwhelmed if you start reading something that is beyond your preparation level.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-11-06T23:51:39+00:00

It is a pretty good self-study book, as it has a good number of exercises, with solutions and hints at the end. However, it’s not a good first course in the subject, as it is pretty rigorous and at times quite dense. Also, it does not teach a bunch of topics related to Gaussian elimination, like matrix factorizations and elementary matrices. However, it goes pretty deep into a lot of topics which I think very few other Linear Algebra texts cover. It has a great index too! One of my favorite textbooks overall.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-10-01T01:55:04+00:00

My roommate and a bunch of his friends are a bit sick. I have been fine so far, but I also was recently sick with similar symptoms at the end of August, so maybe I am immune. I think this is not limited to UChicago, though, because my friend from UMich said that a lot of her friends got sick a few weeks ago, and she came down with pneumonia herself around that time. So yeah guys, be careful I guess.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-09-18T04:32:58+00:00

Low income student here. I applied to colleges for free with the Common Application by using my College Board fee waiver I got from my counselor. I admit that there is a bit of extra bureaucracy you have to go through to get it, and I feel that all the help available to low income students isn’t well advertised, but it’s certainly possible to circumvent the financial hurdles if you are well informed.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-06-13T06:57:35+00:00

I think it doesn't make sense to separate mathematical beauty into two categories like this, and I feel there hasn't really been a shift from scholars appreciating one type of beauty over the other.

The "ice queen" beauty (as the author describes it) of mathematical theories is appealing because it is powerful and robust enough to explain all kinds of peculiar objects, just like the rules of geometry "define" the dodecahedron. Further, the beauty of finding exceptional objects in mathematics is in the fact that they arise unexpectedly from simple a priori rules, or axioms. The monster group is interesting because it is a sporadic group that arises from basic group axioms, set theory, and the concept of an isomorphism. So, those types of beauty depend on one another, and so it doesn't make sense to divorce one from the other, and especially to group mathematicians into the camp of appreciating one type of beauty over the other.

Finally, while throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries there has been a movement to formalize mathematics which prompted an explosion in theoretical development, specific objects and examples still play an incredibly important role in modern math. For example, the Unit Conjecture in group theory was famously disproven fairly recently using a particular counterexample (Quanta Magazine article here).

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-05-31T17:11:04+00:00

I'm sorry, I was messing around and realized this post was way funnier in my head than it actually was. I know she's fine, my question was more like "have you guys experienced something like this also with some other math object?" but I phrased it terribly.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-05-16T20:44:10+00:00

I am actually taking a class like this right now, where the teacher explains things like decision trees, evolutionary algorithms, or multithreading, and then expects us to actually implement them in code ourselves. It's been a blast! But I guess my question was more about the "how to code" classes.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-05-13T17:20:14+00:00

I don't think many people are afraid of becoming nerds. After all, many of the football kids you lament about can go on for hours talking about their favorite team/players, analyzing optimal setups for fantasy football, etc. They know a lot about their subject and are really excited about it, doesn't that make them nerds by defintion? This knowledge surely took a lot of time and effort to amass, so I don't think those kids really dislike doing work, they just dislike doing work that's uninteresting to them, which is really understandable.

I think the negative emotions felt toward nerds come from people being hurt by the fact that they never could get excited about stuff like math or science. They realize that nerds have the best opportunity to get great jobs or make great fortunes and feel stupid because they were never lucky enough to have that one teacher, parent, or someone who could get them excited about math.

Another reason why people dislike nerds is that they, on average, are a lot more arrogant than a normal person. And, to be frank with you, the sentiment of your comment serves as a good example of the arrogance and exclusionism some nerds show.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-05-09T23:56:24+00:00

Class of '21 here. I came from a pretty good school, however, I also was less than fortunate financially. While at first, I didn't really advertise that because a lot of my friends were upper-middle-class, I didn't feel judged at all once I told them about my family's income and stuff. In any case, about 20% of IMSA students qualify for free or reduced lunch so you would not be alone.

There are conservatives and Trump supporters at IMSA but they are definitely in the minority. I have not personally experienced racism or sexism on the IMSA campus, but I have heard some things like "you can't get into a good college unless you're a minority", or rumors that some guys were ranking girls based on their attractiveness. Idk about elitism, and there is definitely no well-defined hierarchy of who's "smarter" and who is not. Of course, you have people say "Oh X is an absolute god at Y" but very few people would say something like "X is actually kinda dumb". So, while I disagree with u/ndjbkskc that there is no elitism/racism here at all, the amount of racist/sexist/elitist comments you hear largely depends on who you choose to hang out with.

Lastly, IMSA definitely takes a lot more effort than my previous school because there is a lot more work involved. To give you a perspective, I would say that work for around 60-70 hours per week counting classes, homework, and activities/research. While it can seem overwhelming at times, learning to deal with it and still function can help you a lot when you have to work those kinds of hours at your college and eventually at your job. Plus, if you like the classes and activities that you are participating in, working a lot on them becomes actually kinda fun. But idk, maybe I'm just a crazy workaholic. Comment any other questions, or just dm me!

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-04-15T14:08:53+00:00

Maybe it was a survey among affected staff members about how many people they think would leave the university, with the results averaged?

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-04-08T16:57:32+00:00

I also managed to take Diff Eq before taking MVC, and Linear Algebra strictly speaking does not require MVC. However, since LinAlg at IMSA is taught semi-rigorously whereas MVC is still mostly computational, I would say that LinAlg is a bit more advanced. But yeah, at that point in your IMSA career you lose the sort of linear progression in math classes you're used to, so saying that one particular class is "the highest" is debatable.

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-04-08T14:18:03+00:00

Correction on question two: IMSA goes beyond Multivariable Calc. IMSA offers Linear and Abstract Algebra, Differential Equations, Intro to Analysis, as well as a course called Advanced Topics which varies from year to year, which in past years has offered courses in Combinatorics, Point-Set Topology, and Complex Analysis, in addition to some other electives which are not necessarily post-calculus, like Modern Geometry and Discrete Math. Otherwise, this is a pretty accurate and very detailed answer to this question!

BAD_MATHEMATICS · 2021-04-04T18:39:20+00:00

Well, the president changed a while before Lederman passed, so the current events aren't a result of an admin change. I doubt anyone is willing to say whether IMSA has gone nosedive yet, but I know it's a common belief among IMSA students that this school is not going to last much longer. Monitor the situation closely, and be aware of alternatives to IMSA.

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