Any real difference in education?

[cellardweller]

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the Putnam prize participants only represent a relatively small number of math students. And this is true even at Harvard, Princeton, and MIT.

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<p>That is definitely not true at MIT and most likely not true at Caltech, Harvard and Princeton. At MIT over one third of all math majors or over 100 students participate in the Putnam. If you remove the double majors, the number is closer to 50%. 30-50% is no small number and certainly not the exception. </p>

<p>

In fact, if you’re simply good in math, but not at the Putnam level, maybe you’d be more likely to complete a math major at a lower-ranked school because you wouldn’t select yourself out of the field out of concern that you’d never measure up to the best.

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<p>Well, that is precisely the point isn’t it! Strong math students who do select MIT, Harvard, Caltech or Princeton are the ones willing to measure up to the best. They do expect top notch faculty that will be able to challenge them. Their undergrad education is qualitatively very different from that of math students at nearly all other schools.</p>