<p>My D is a math major at an LAC. The LAC's president's husband is a math professor (or was) at UC Berkeley. Once, when speaking with TheMom, he said that having seen both the way Berkeley does it (weed out) and the way D's LAC does it (full system support), he prefers the latter and thinks there is little, if any, qualitative difference in the students at the end of the process.</p>
<p>Right now she's in an abroad Math program with some pretty high-powered students from around the country. ("I've never been with a smarter group of people" was the most recent comment and that's saying something.) She's more than holding her own with students from Harvard, Yale, etc. Well...she says the Yalie is brilliant. But she is doing very well in the proof-based problem sets, actually seeming to have an advantage over some who have come from "weed out" schools.</p>