<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergrad math:
Princeton
UC Berkeley
Harvard
MIT
U Chicago
Stanford
NYU
Yale
Wisconsin Madison
Columbia
Michigan Ann Arbor
Brown
Cornell
UCLA
Illinois Urbana Champaign
Caltech
Minnesota
U Penn
Notre Dame
Georgia Tech
U washington
Purdue WL
Rutgers NB
Indiana U Bloomington
U Maryland College Park
Rice
UC San Diego
Northwestern
Texas Austin
carnegie Mellon
Johns Hopkins
Washington U St Louis
Ohio State
SUNY Stony Brook
Penn State
UVA
RPI
Illinois Chicago
U Colorado Boulder
U Kentucky
UNC Chapel Hill
Dartmouth
U Rochester
U Utah
SUNY Buffalo
Tulane
USC
UC Santa Barbara
U Massachusetts AMherst
U Oregon
Duke
Louisiana State Baton Rouge
U Arizona
case Western
Michigan State
U Pittsburgh
Brandeis
US Air Force Academy</p>
<p>Very interesting combination: I would say Yale, Williams, and Brown would be the best places to study a combination of these two subjects</p>
<p>I heard Berkeley is pretty good at both (along with everything else).</p>
<p>Combining the lists in posts # 20 and #21, the schools that make all 3 (Ruggs for art history, Gourman for art history, Gourman for math) are, listed alphabetically:</p>
<p>Brown
Case Western
Chicago
Columbia
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
Michigan
NYU
Penn
Princeton
UCLA
UNC Chapel Hill
Wash U St. Louis
Yale</p>
<p>A very impressive list of schools, and not too dissimilar from my NRC-derived list in post #6 with some notable exceptions like UC Berkeley and Stanford, neither of which made the Ruggs list. But I also wouldn't overlook the excellent LACs mentioned by other posters and in the Ruggs list, which is more LAC-oriented than Gourman. I think the right LAC could be a fine place to study art history, math, or both.</p>
<p>If you're really serious about studying math, I wouldn't recommend an LAC. The curriculum, while comprehensive, can't really compete with that of HPSM. But if math is just a side interest, then I think the lists the other posters have proposed are a good starting point.</p>
<p>Unless you're a Putnam Fellow caliber math student or ready to take graduate level courses, I don't see how LAC math majors would be at a disadvantage. How are you defining "serious math student"?</p>
<p>Don't forget, there's also a school like Harvey Mudd that can accomodate elite math students.</p>
<p>By serious math student, I meant someone who is capable of majoring in math at HPSM. I recognize now that this was a poor choice words, but I stand by what I said. The math curriculum at these schools is a cut above those of LACs (though you're right that Mudd is very good), and you don't have to be a Putnam fellow to benefit from it. My basis for saying this is that I'm a math major at Princeton.</p>
<p>My basis for saying this is that I'm a math major at Princeton.</p>
<p>And how many top LACs have you attended?</p>
<p>"And how many top LACs have you attended?"</p>
<p>I've gone through the math course guides for a couple of the top LACs, just to see what they offer. I believe there was only one that was close to having enough classes to keep me occupied for 4 years. Without a graduate school, you have a cap on the level of class you can take that most competitive students from a research university will have surpassed. It's not like that's the end of the world, but it seems like you'd be needlessly setting yourself behind and limiting your options by going to a LAC.</p>
<p>It's obvious that LACs in general are much smaller than research universities, and have a more limited course selection; this affects all academic disciplines, not just math. If the bachelor's is going to be your terminal degree, then it's true that this could be a significant limitation. You won't get the same academic depth, or exposure to state-of-the-art research, at a LAC as you would at a larger university.</p>
<p>In practice, though, the bachelor's is usually <em>not</em> the terminal degree for students at LACs -- they routinely go on and get graduate or professional degrees from research universities. And it turns out that grad schools typically aren't too concerned about the depth of your undergraduate coursework, or your exposure to state-of-the-art research -- because the grad school process is expected to take care of any deficiencies in those regards.</p>
<p>What the grad schools do care about is (1) your grasp of the fundamentals, because they don't want to deal with someone who needs to review basic concepts, and (2) your ability to have a close working relationship with a faculty advisor, particularly if you are pursuing a PhD. And they know that LACs excel at both of these points: they are very strong at preparing students with the fundamentals, and they provide great opportunities for student-faculty interaction (in the absence of grad students). </p>
<p>If you plan to pursue an advanced degree in a particular academic discipline, you typically aren't going to suffer by going to a selective LAC as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>My point was that many people coming from top research universities will already have taken the basic graduate courses and some more. Not only will they be ahead of students from an LAC in terms of completing pre-reqs, but they'll also likely have a better idea of what specific field they want to pursue from higher level topics classes.</p>
<p>To repeat, UChicago is top in both those.</p>
<p>I highy recommend UChicago.</p>
<p>Its probably the best for both. It is IS the Best for both.</p>
<p>I agree with Beefs.</p>
<p>Williams' art history is great.
But is its math that good?</p>
<p>Here are some of the recently offered advanced math courses at Williams: <a href="http://www.williams.edu/Mathematics/adv_courses.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.williams.edu/Mathematics/adv_courses.htm</a>. They seem pretty good. Perhaps surprisingly, 9% of the Williams Class of 2007 majored in math. Williams only has 18 faculty members in the math department, and their areas of specialization could use more breadth (very few interested in analysis or topology).</p>
<p>And just to reiterate what others have said, Chicago is an excellent choice. Its Honors Analysis sequence is especially well regarded.</p>
<p>I think Williams was the only one with a decent course selection. Generally LACs don't offer many courses like that, and usually only 1 or 2 per semester.</p>
<p>Courses:</a> Course Descriptions
-You can take any of these classes if you attend Harvey Mudd College, Pomona, Scripps, or Claremont Mckenna. ) (that would be 5 totaThere is also the Claremont Graduate University nearby that offers classes; though I cant think of anyone who has ever needed it because they ran out of stuff to do.</p>
<p>Other colleges offer similar options, for students up for it. Either way, quit extrapolating your "findings" on general LACs to ALL of them.</p>
<p>^ Seiken makes a good point re: math at the Claremont Colleges, but I don't see any of them showing up on the Ruggs or Gourman lists for art history. Another possibility is the Bryn Mawr-Haverford-Swarthmore-Penn "Quaker consortium." Bryn Mawr has an excellent art history program, as does Penn and, according to Ruggs, Swarthmore. Bryn Mawr and Haverford are a little over a mile apart and all courses at either school are cross-listed; classes are even timed to make the transportation workable. Swarthmore's a little further (25 min by shuttle) and Penn's a 20-minute train ride away, but if you're at Bryn Mawr (women only) or Haverford (coed) you could take any advanced math classes not available at either of those schools at Penn.</p>
<p>Those are predominantly applied mathematics courses, which is fine if you want to do applied math. If you're interested in more theoretical areas, you don't have quite as many options. Of the more theoretical classes, there's only a handful of pure math classes listed there that I haven't already taken in 3 years, and the only reason I haven't taken them is because I had more advanced topics courses available to me. The Claremont Graduate program appears to be much of the same, with a large amount of applied math courses, but not much in the way of logic/topology/algebra/number theory/combinatorics/analysis/geometry.</p>
<p>* but not much in the way of logic/topology/algebra/number theory/combinatorics/analysis/geometry.*</p>
<p>perhaps you should go through that list of courses again and sort them. MOST of the classes i see at Mudd are in those categories. </p>
<p>*Of the more theoretical classes, there's only a handful of pure math classes listed there that I haven't already taken in 3 years, and the only reason I haven't taken them is because I had more advanced topics courses available to me.
*</p>
<ol>
<li>You have not taken ANY of these classes. You have taken classes with similar titles at whatever university you go to. Which is that by the way? </li>
<li>What are these more advanced topics you speak of? It could be some of the many math classes that are available at one of the other colleges which we are allowed to take classes at.</li>
</ol>