<p>Please rank in order of prestige. Also any particularly good for Math?</p>
<p>I guess I’d put Wesleyan and Middlebury at the top with the advantage going to Wes in terms of Math because it has graduate level classes. If you are really looking for a NESCAC college with a rep for Math, Williams is, by consensus, the go-to place.</p>
<p>With all due respect to Mr. Wesley, I feel he may be a bit biased. I think Middlebury is the clear leader in this group. As far as math goes, Williams may be the clear leader, however Midd has an annual competition with Williams for the green rooster (I believe that’s what it’s called). It’s a math competition. The victor maintains a green rooster. You can find out about it on either the Midd or Williams site. It moves back and forth between the two schools regularly. I’d say this puts Middlebury near the top.</p>
<p>Not in a position to comment on math, but in terms of “prestige” I suppose Middlebury holds a very slight edge over Wesleyan, with a larger gap between Wes and Colby, and Trinity trailing in this group. As for actual quality, though, as opposed to prestige, I’d say it’s a toss-up between Midd and Wes. All good colleges, though.</p>
<p>
As opposed to the unbiased Middlebury alum? We all have our biases.</p>
<p>It may be useful here to compare course offerings.</p>
<p>Middlebury: <a href=“https://jade.middlebury.edu/PNTR/saturn_midd.course_catalog_utlq.catalog_page_by_dept?p_term=201190&p_course_subj_code=MATH[/url]”>https://jade.middlebury.edu/PNTR/saturn_midd.course_catalog_utlq.catalog_page_by_dept?p_term=201190&p_course_subj_code=MATH</a>
Wesleyan: <a href=“Wesleyan University”>Wesleyan University;
<p>It’s true that Wes has more offerings, but Midd has decent offerings for a college without a graduate program.</p>
<p>Sorry, urban, but I don’t don’t think I even see Middlebury on this list:</p>
<hr>
<p>Here are the top-50 undergrad schools in per capita PhD and Doctoral production from 1994-2003. Rank, followed by name, followed by number of PhDs per 1000 undergrads. This covers all PhDs and doctoral degrees included in the NSF data base. </p>
<p>Per Capita Undergrad Production of PhDs and Doctoral Degrees </p>
<p>Academic field: Math and Computer Science </p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: 1994 to 2003 from NSF database </p>
<p>Enrollment from 2004 USNews </p>
<p>Formula: PhDs divided by undergrad enrollment times 1000 </p>
<p>1 California Institute of Technology 107
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 63
3 Harvey Mudd College 55
4 Harvard University 32
5 Reed College 31
6 Rice University 28
7 Princeton University 25
8 Carnegie Mellon University 20
9 University of Chicago 19
10 Pomona College 19
11 Swarthmore College 18
12 Yale University 18
13 Brown University 17
14 Williams College 16
15 Stanford University 16
16 Grinnell College 16
17 St Olaf College 16
18 Haverford College 14
19 Oberlin College 12
20 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 12
21 Carleton College 11
22 Amherst College 11
23 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 11
24 Cornell University, All Campuses 11
25 Bryn Mawr College 10
26 United States Military Academy 10
27 University of California-Berkeley 10
28 Mills College 10
29 Kalamazoo College 9
30 Knox College 9
31 Dartmouth College 9
32 Cooper Union 9
33 Brandeis University 9
34 Duke University 8
35 United States Air Force Academy 7
36 Wesleyan University 7
37 Bowdoin College 7
38 Polytechnic University 7
39 University of Pennsylvania 7
40 Case Western Reserve University 7
41 Vassar College 7
42 Johns Hopkins University 7
43 Wellesley College 7
44 Birmingham Southern College 7
45 Whitman College 7
46 Columbia University in the City of New York 7
47 Union College (Schenectady, NY) 6
48 College of Wooster 6
49 Lawrence University 6
50 University of Rochester 6
51 Stevens Institute of Technology 6
52 Washington University 6
53 Northwestern Univ 6
54 Smith College 6
55 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology 6
56 Bucknell University 6
57 Hendrix College 6
58 Furman University 6
59 University of Bridgeport 6</p>
<p>[Taken from another thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/60986-phd-production-math-computer-science.html][/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/60986-phd-production-math-computer-science.html][/url</a>]</p>
<p>No idea about math, but I’d say Middlebury seems to be a tad more prestigious than Wesleyan (no real reason why), then Colby, and then Trinity.</p>
<p>^^ I never know quite what we’re supposed to infer from these tables of “undergrad production of PhDs,” especially when it’s confined to one or two fields. Wouldn’t the math and computer science PhD production be just as much a function of the percentage of the student body engaged in those fields, as of the quality of the program? So, for example, it’s no surprise that the top 3 in math/computer science PhDs are Caltech, MIT, and Harvey Mudd, given the overwhelmingly math/tech-heavy character of those schools. But are we supposed to infer that Caltech is much better at math than MIT, and 3 times better than Harvard? Or is it just that MIT has a broader undergrad curriculum than Caltech, and Harvard even broader than MIT, so that math and computer science majors make up a larger fraction of Caltech’s student body, leading to a higher percentage of math/computer science PhDs while more Harvard grads might be going on to earn PhDs in economics or history or whatever. If so, that tells us something about the size of the program relative to the size of the school, and not necessarily anything about the quality of the program.</p>
<p>Also, if we’re talking math, can we disaggregate that from computer science? Because combining the two doesn’t really tell us anything about math, per se.</p>
<p>Finally, these tables make no distinctions as to the quality of the PhD programs involved. I wouldn’t be surprised if a high percentage of the Wesleyan grads get math or science PhDs from top programs. But just looking at the data here, I can’t tell that. And although Mills, Knox, and Kalamazoo College are very good LACs, I’m not going to assume, based on this data, that their math departments are stronger than Wesleyan’s, Penn’s, or Columbia’s, just because their PhD production percentage is higher. Some of their grads could be getting math PhDs from Northern Illinois or Western Michigan, for all the data tell us.</p>
<p>So I just don’t find the table very useful.</p>
<p>^^It’s nearly sixty colleges and universities. Middlebury’s absence says more than it’s inclusion might have.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah–it says that a large percentage of Middlebury grads who major in math and computer science decide to do something else with their degrees after graduation. Perhaps the idea of going to school for another 6-7 years doesn’t appeal to them. Maybe they have no interest in teaching. Perhaps b-school or other more practical careers are simply more appealing to them. I doubt it’s because they couldn’t get into a decent doctoral program. If the OP had said that getting a PhD in math was a priority later in life, I’d say go with one of the top PhD-producing schools. The prevailing culture at those schools likely is more geared toward spitting out PhDs. If you might want to do something else with your degree, then the number of PhDs your alma mater produces years down the road shouldn’t be as important as the well-rounded liberal arts education you’ll receive at any of these fine schools.</p>