<p>Looking for feedback on best colleges and universities for a student who excels at math but has not decided on a path -- pure math, engineering, computer science, etc. Excellent and well-rounded student but we are not shooting for MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc. Would prefer a school with strong music and theater availability. Looking at Northeastern, Columbia, NYU, BU, Carnegie Mellon, U of Michigan, Northwestern, U of Chicago. Any other choices or advice? Thanks so much. Just starting the journey.</p>
<p>It’s hard without more academic details about the student (GPA, SAT, approx. rank) and general college preferences (size, area, type), as well as financial situation (need financial aid, merit-aid, full pay).</p>
<p>Case Western? Rose Hulman? Northeastern?</p>
<p>If you are looking at Chicago and Columbia, then you should also look at Brown, ranked 3rd and 13th in Math and Applied Math in the NRC graduate school rankings.</p>
<p>and, of course, there is UC Berkeley, UCLA, Wisconsin and Univ. of Texas - all with top Math departments, particularly UCB.</p>
<p>this is USNWR top 50 Graduate Math Departments to give you an idea:</p>
<p>Save Rank
College name
Score</p>
<p>#1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA
5.0<br>
#2 Harvard University
Cambridge, MA
4.9<br>
#2 Princeton University
Princeton, NJ
4.9<br>
#2 Stanford University
Stanford, CA
4.9<br>
#2 University of California–Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
4.9<br>
#6 University of Chicago
Chicago, IL
4.8<br>
#7 California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA
4.6<br>
#8 University of California–Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA
4.5<br>
#8 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI
4.5<br>
#10 Columbia University
New York, NY
4.4<br>
#10 New York University
New York, NY
4.4<br>
#10 Yale University
New Haven, CT
4.4<br>
#13 Cornell University
Ithaca, NY
4.3<br>
#14 Brown University
Providence, RI
4.2<br>
#14 University of Texas–Austin
Austin, TX
4.2<br>
#16 Northwestern University
Evanston, IL
4.1<br>
#16 University of Wisconsin–Madison
Madison, WI
4.1<br>
#18 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN
4.0<br>
#18 University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
4.0<br>
#20 Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey–New Brunswick
Piscataway, NJ
3.9<br>
#20 University of California–San Diego
La Jolla, CA
3.9<br>
#20 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, IL
3.9<br>
#20 University of Maryland–College Park
College Park, MD
3.9<br>
#24 Duke University
Durham, NC
3.8<br>
#24 Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD
3.8<br>
Math </p>
<p>#24 Stony Brook University–SUNY
Stony Brook, NY
3.8<br>
#27 Pennsylvania State University–University Park
University Park, PA
3.7<br>
#27 Purdue University–West Lafayette
West Lafayette, IN
3.7<br>
#27 University of Washington
Seattle, WA
3.7<br>
#30 Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA
3.6<br>
#30 Indiana University–Bloomington
Bloomington, IN
3.6<br>
#30 Ohio State University
Columbus, OH
3.6<br>
#30 Rice University
Houston, TX
3.6<br>
#30 University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC
3.6<br>
#30 University of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT
3.6<br>
#36 Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
3.5<br>
#36 CUNY Graduate School and University Center
New York, NY
3.5<br>
#36 University of California–Davis
Davis, CA
3.5<br>
#36 University of Illinois–Chicago
Chicago, IL
3.5<br>
#40 Brandeis University
Waltham, MA
3.4<br>
#40 Texas A&M University–College Station
College Station, TX
3.4<br>
#40 Washington University in St. Louis
St. Louis, MO
3.4<br>
#43 Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI
3.3<br>
#43 University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ
3.3<br>
#43 University of California–Irvine
Irvine, CA
3.3<br>
#46 Boston University
Boston, MA
3.2<br>
#46 University of California–Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA
3.2<br>
#46 University of Colorado–Boulder
Boulder, CO
3.2<br>
#46 University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN
3.2<br>
#46 University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA
3.2</p>
<p>^^did you read the subject heading?</p>
<p>^^^ what about the subject heading?</p>
<p>I think it specifically said, “undergraduate” Math</p>
<p>As a a general rule, colleges with the strongest graduate math departments also have the strongest undergraduate departments as well. Checking results for the Putnam Competition largely confirms that. Among LACs, Harvey Mudd may be the sole standout.
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathematical_Competition[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathematical_Competition</a></p>
<p>You could probably add Duke, WashU and Rice to your list. </p>
<p>Northeastern and BU seem out of place.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is a pretty reachy list – Columbia and Chicago admit under 20% (Northwestern is right around 20%). Not sure why BU and Northeastern are on the list, unless your S likes Boston. Chicago does not have engineering. Is financial aid an issue?</p>
<p>Look at Harvey Mudd if you want an LAC-type option, but they admitted 19% this admissions cycle. Would look at Rice and Duke, though again, a lot of top students with those HYPSM numbers are fighting for spots at these schools, too. A friend’s son is at UCSB and has absolutely blossomed.</p>
<p>S1 is a math major/CS guy and he applied to UChicago, Mudd, MIT, UMCP, Caltech, Cornell, and Harvard. Dropped Stanford, CMU and UMich after getting good EA results. If your S is interested in Math and CS, UMCP gets a lot of NY students and it is fairly easy to double major. Generous AP credit and if he has taken post-AP courses, UMD will allow placement testing in math and CS courses, too.</p>
<p>Math majors at CMU apply to Mellon College of Science, which is less competitive to get into than engineering or the School of Comp Sci. Cornell is strong in math, CS and engineering. Check the schools’ websites, because sometimes CS lives in engineering, sometimes in A&S (or both). Some of these universities require that you apply to a specific school (engineering, A&S, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, etc.)</p>
<p>Wisconsin has a very strong math department. S1 has a good friend who’s a math major at GaTech and is happy, though the place can eat its young.</p>
<p>Reed and Pomona send a lot of folks to math grad programs.</p>
<p>If your S decided to turn towards the applied side, Northeastern and its coop program make more sense than if he were a pure math major.</p>
<p>Of the schools mentioned by the OP in post #1, Columbia and Michigan are the strongest overall in all fields mentioned—math, engineering, computer science, computer engineering, and music. Chicago’s great in math and music, weaker in computer science, and it has no engineering. Northwestern is great in math, engineering, and music but weaker in computer science and computer engineering. BU and Northeastern are plausible back-ups (= “safeties” for a candidate with strong stats) in all fields but not notably strong in any of them. NYU is strong in math and music but weaker in computer science, engineering, and computer engineering. Carnegie Mellon is outstanding in computer science, computer engineering, and engineering generally, but weaker in math; its music program is unranked in the current NRC rankings, not sure what that means.</p>
<p>Some other schools that are strong across the board in all the fields mentioned by the OP: Cornell, Illinois, and Wisconsin (the latter perhaps a bit weaker in music). Duke is also pretty good in all these fields, but not at quite the same level as the previous group in computer science, math, engineering, and computer engineering. Johns Hopkins is at a level similar to Duke in most fields, but stronger in engineering overall. Minnesota also has some strength across all these fields, ranking well ahead of BU and Northeastern in every field, and rankings really quite similar to Duke’s in all these fields except music where it trails a bit; its low OOS tuition (= in-state + $4,000) could make it an attractive back-up.</p>
<p>I’d recommend looking at schools that are strong across a broad range of possible interests. HS students and even college students in their first years tend to have fickle interests.</p>
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<p>I agree. Students who are true math whizzes can burn through the undergraduate math curriculum pretty quickly and may be better served at a school with a strong math grad program, where they can take graduate-level math classes as undergrad upperclassmen.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>fully agree with this</p>
<p>this, however, does not mean that LAC’s have weak Math Departments</p>
<p>and, remember, our original intent was to get a list of excellent Math programs for the OP, not necessarily a true ranking of undergraduate Math programs…</p>
<p>by the way, it is my understanding that Williams’ Math Program is among the best for LAC’s</p>
<p>other top LAC math programs can be found here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html[/url]”>http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html</a></p>
<p>Reed
Pomona
Swarthmore</p>
<p>Well, if that’s the criterion, then Wesleyan is the only LAC with a doctoral program in Math; it also has a highly favorable undergraduate student/faculty ratio, something like 4 majors for every faculty member: [Wesleyan</a> University Mathematics and Computer Science Department](<a href=“Welcome, Mathematics and Computer Science - Wesleyan University”>http://www.math.wesleyan.edu/)</p>
<p>If you are considering LACs, don’t forget St. Olaf for mathematics. They have a very strong music department too.</p>