<p>As stated in the title, if you apply for graduate school as a stat/math major, which undergraduate school has more advantage? UW-Madison has better math program but it's a public school with lower overall ranking. Are there more chances for a math student from Vandy to be admitted by top graduate school's math programs?</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>Because of the overall ranking? @VeryHappy</p>
<p>@SamStan, I was being flip. My apologies.</p>
<p>Actually, I’m not sure there is much of a difference. UW is well-known and well-regarded and, assuming you are a WI resident, probably a hell of a lot less expensive than Vandy would be. When you’re ready to apply to grad school, what will matter is your GPA (and a high GPA from a less well-regarded school will not be discounted), your GREs, your letters of recommendation, and any research experiences you’re able to have as a undergrad. Given UW’s size, there might be more research opportunities there than at Vandy, but I am only guessing.</p>
<p>If I were you, I’d investigate the opportunities at each school for undergrads majoring in math and see which school provides better ones.</p>
<p>ETA: When I say “research opportunities” in math, I might not know what I’m talking about. I’m a parent, and S1 is in grad school in psychology – where there were research opportunities both as an undergrad and as an employee in various clinical settings. S2 is about to start grad school in materials science, where there is nothing but research to be done. So I may be a little unclear about what goes on in math.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter - go where you want to go.</p>
<p>Actually, let me elaborate on that. In very general, a student who wants to go to math grad school should go somewhere he or she can take a wide variety of math classes and has the opportunity to take a few grad-level math classes as a senior, maybe even earn a BA/MA if he or she so desires (although not necessary). Also, while pure math students don’t need math research experience in undergrad (or so I’ve been told by the math grad students on CC) - applied math and stats hopefuls should get some. So if your goal is one of those fields, you would also want to choose a place where you could get research experience in that field.</p>
<p>But in this specific example, UW-Madison and Vanderbilt are both world-class universities with excellent research facilities, great reputations, and (presumably) graduate programs in both mathematics and statistics. You can’t go wrong.</p>
<p>Furthermore, UW-Madison might have a slightly better graduate math program. However, 1) the differences are small. UW-Madison is top 10ish and Vanderbilt is top 15-20ish, and 2) those are graduate rankings, which don’t easily translate to undergraduate education.</p>