Applying for Undergrad Schools

[QuestionCactus]

I'll be a high school senior in the fall applying to college. I'm interested in quant finance (and data science more generally; no need to marry myself to a particular field yet, or even anytime soon). I'm applying to a few British schools, though, which require me to pick a course and make it difficult for me to change it. For Imperial College London, I'm comparing two courses, "Mathematics and Computer Science" and "Mathematics with Statistics for Finance." I can see the courses and their order easily:

Mathematics and Computer Science BEng | Study | Imperial College London

www.imperial.ac.uk

Mathematics with Statistics for Finance BSc | Study | Imperial College London

www.imperial.ac.uk

Which do you think I should prefer? I find it hard to tell, but it looks like Math+CS will be better.

For American schools, I guess I should just apply to the general set of top schools? Is there anything particular to look for (I'm more focused on getting into any good schools haha).

 

[Daniel Duffy]

I had a quick look at these programmes but they look very general (a bit of everything). Personally, The first looks like CS with some calculus thrown in. The hard (applied and numeric) maths are absent from these programmes. My 2 cents.

For programming, a good way to learn to be a "hands-on" programmer is to take the popular QN C++ course.

If it were me, I would do a pure+applied maths course for 4 years. The other topics are applications of maths in essence. I think it is important to learn the foundations early on in your career.

 

[binomial-torrent]

first one is best for giving you that optionality to join data science/quant/anything similar

 

[bigbadwolf]

Which do you think I should prefer? I find it hard to tell, but it looks like Math+CS will be better.

For American schools, I guess I should just apply to the general set of top schools? Is there anything particular to look for (I'm more focused on getting into any good schools haha).

Agree with Daniel Duffy. Difficult to summon up any enthusiasm for either of the IC programs. With US universities you have more flexibility to move around, even to change your major. For top tier, MIT and CalTech, followed (approximately and roughly) by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford, followed (roughly) by Chicago, Cornell, Duke, Brown, Michigan, CMU. I've missed a fair number and perhaps my ranking is subjective and not accurate either.

 

[Ken Abbott]

It’s too early to specialize. Stay general until you’re sure about what you want to do.