<p>There are many strong departments in California.
Roughly, they would rank as follows: Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, USC, UCI, UCSD.
For smaller schools, check out the Claremont Colleges or U Santa Clara.</p>
<p>If you go north from CA, check out U Washington and Reed.
in the SW, U Texas is the best. Trinity U, Arizona, and Arizona St. are worth checking out.</p>