My son who is a junior in high school is looking at both programs.

Anyones thoughts and perspectives would be welcome.

I am class of 1990.

I'm a senior APMS major at A&M right now. I don't know anything really about other math programs, as I came into A&M as an AERO, but changed at my NSC.

The math department is fairly small as far as number of majors is concerned, but there's a nice feel to the department. Any paperwork, assistance, help I need is always handled promptly by an advisor, and I've never really run into any issues.

Do you know what your son wants to do after graduation? I'm looking at being an actuary right now, so if he is considering that, I can answer any questions you might have.

Feel free to reply here, and if you want to ask anymore questions, feel free, I'd be more than happy to answer them.

Thanks for the assistance...

My son is currently a junior at Strake Jesuit. My son and I were discussing how to mesh his academic strengths with what he might enjoy doing as a profession. After some research we ran across applied mathematics. It sounds really great with broad application to science, engineering, economic, medical, statistics and goverment.

Do you see this potential of employment for yourself?

Do you know anyone else that is taking APMS at a different university?

Do you know anything about the Rice U program?

What does NSC mean?

NSC=New Student Conference

APMS majors...are you satisfied with the program?

Yes, I was

I went the actuarial route but there's tons of options.

Not to be nosey...but where you able to have options for employment with decent pay?

I was APMS, was a programmer for a while and now do HR Compensation.

My brother has the same degree. He got a MS in pure math and is a programmer now.

One of my good friends did an MS in Operations Research at UT and is a software product manager.

Another friend got his PhD in Statistics. Seems like a lot of people I knew in the program did a MS in stats, either at A&M or Iowa State.

It's a versatile degree. And like someone else mentioned above, math is not a major with a ton of people in it. It's almost like you're going to a small school in some ways - my largest math classes were Calculus I-III with about 40 people; my smallest were senior-level math courses with 8-12 people.

As far as Rice vs A&M, I believe you should go to the best school you can get into (within financial reason, of course). That's Rice, in this case.

I ended up working for a company in a different field entirely for now...so......we'll see I'm a pretty bad example, sorry.

I don't know much about math majors beyond that I have casually known a couple.

I do know, however, that engineering degrees are in general 2-3 courses away from adding a math minor. Since you seem to be concerned with employability, I would think engineering is something to look into, because engineers consistently have the highest average pay straight out of college.

The drawbacks to going with engineering are the larger class sizes, though its still easy to make friends and by the second year (which I'm in now) it feels much much smaller than my high school. I feel like i see the same 60 people in all my classes basically. Another drawback would probably be that math majors can probably pick and choose what classes interest them a lot more for the other classes required for getting an MS, but engineers have a pretty solidly laid out degree plan...I would say you average only one 3 hour course per semester that you get to just pick from the whole course catalog, because the rest are already laid out for you.

Hope this helps.

Tell him to consider majoring in physics, a physics degree will open a number of doors for graduate programs across a broad range of disciplines.

I have an applied math degree from A&M. I work for a large bank, and some of my college classmates with the same major did the same. I remember getting a lot of job postings for government jobs (NSA, FBI, Navy, Bureau of Labor Statistics, etc.). A lot of my classmates became actuaries, and a lot became teachers.

If I had to give my two cents, I would say that someone who is that early in the process should think about what they want to do in life and choose a degree/school that helps him/her get there. However, it's also good to have a degree that is flexible in case you decide to change your mind along the way. A&M is a good school and I think the math program is respectable, but I think the biggest benefit is access to the A&M alumni base, which is truly a special thing to be a part of.