<p>I think it’s possible to ask any math department where there grads went, both in business and in pursuit of higher degrees. I’d ask any school you were interested in for the list and compare the lists to see if there’s any real difference in the quality of schools grads go on to. </p>
<p>The quality of the grad school often determines the level of school you can get a job at in academia, though those in academia can chime in on exactly how that works. For actuaries, that’s more a matter of passing the tests rather than where you went to school, so just about any quality school will do, if you can pass the tests.</p>
<p>There are big differences in the curriculum offered by these schools.</p>
<p>Many of the more selective flagship state and private universities offer an honors track in math. The honors classes focus on theoretical foundations and proofs, while the regular classes are more directed at problem solving and applications. The honors classes provide better preparation for students who might want to go on to a PhD in math, and also may be more satisfying for students who are unhappy with the lack of rigor in regular intro college courses.</p>
<p>Of the schools you are applying to, Chicago and Michigan students start these theoretical courses freshman year, and take very few ‘regular’ math classes. At Ohio State and UIUC, freshman/sophomores can take honors versions of the regular classes, but these classes don’t appear to be as abstract/proof-based as the Chicago and Michigan classes. Then at Ohio State and Illinois, students at an intermediate level (after completing multivariable calculus and linear algebra, most likely as sophomores or juniors) start to take more abstract proof-based honors classes. For instance, at Ohio State, Math 4181H and 4182H (“Honors Analysis”) uses Spivak’s “Calculus”, which is the text for the freshman honors class (called “Honors Calculus”) at Chicago and Michigan. Then the next course in the undergraduate honors sequence at Chicago (Math 207-08-09), “Honors Analysis” uses (or used to use) Rudin’s “Analysis”, which is the text for the introductory graduate level Analysis course at Ohio State. Minnesota also offers many honors courses (and has a good math department), but I’m not too familiar with their curriculum.</p>
<p>Case doesn’t offer any honors classes at all. They do offer a general destination survey that you might want to look at to see what their graduates do.</p>
<p>You might consider getting Spivak’s “Calculus” text and looking through it – to see how much you like a more abstract, proof-based approach to math, if it isn’t that familiar to you.</p>
<p>It is the “Principles of Mathematical Analysis”. This was the text for Math 207-209 at Chicago (I’m not absolutely sure if that is still the case.), and is listed on Ohio State’s website as the text for Math 5201.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s math department seems to leave the choice of text to the discretion of the instructor. This year (2013-2014), for Math 104 (Introduction to Analysis, a junior/senior level course for math majors and some statistics, physics, and economics majors), one out of six in the fall and one out of six in the spring list Rudin’s book as the textbook. For this year’s Math H104 (Honors Introduction to Analysis), no textbook is required.</p>
<p>I was deferred from Chicago, btw.
With Michigan’s honors math sequence (the 295 one), do they only take one math class per semester for the first two years?</p>