<p>I'm looking for a good college and I'm having trouble finding all these "rankings" in certain fields people always talk about.</p>
<p>Can someone tell me what schools are considered the BEST at math (undergrad), for example? Top...10 or so. Regardless of size, location, acceptance, etc. If possible, maybe the same thing for physics, too.</p>
<p>**Don't let it affect the previous answers, but I'm sort of taken with Cornell University. Be perfectly honest: is the math program there considered one of their strong suits?</p>
<p>Roughly top 10 in math are Princeton, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Harvard, Berkely, Chicago, Michigan, UCLA, Yale, NYU. Cornell is just a little bit past those, but they still have a strong math department, as far as I know. Keep in mind that most "rankings" aren't for undergrad programs, but for graduate programs and faculty research. If you plan on being far enough ahead so that you'll be doing graduate classes as an undergrad, or want to do research as an undergrad, then the rankings should have more weight.</p>
<p>Once you get up to top 10-15, there's not too much to really distinguish the different schools, so you have to start thinking about what qualities are most important to you, and which ones meet them best. MIT and Caltech and strong technology schools, so if you were thinking about doing something more engineering-like, that would be your best path. If you want to be able to branch out into non-science related subjects, then they might not be the best choice. Princeton/Harvard/Stanford all have very strong name recognition. Harvard/Chicago/Michigan are the only three schools I know of with an introductory theoretical math sequence.</p>
<p>In my personal opinion, here are the top undergraduate math departments:</p>
<p>GROUP I
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Princeton University
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley
University of Chicago</p>
<p>GROUP II
Brown University
California Institute of Technology
Columbia University
Cornell University
Duke University
New York University
University of California-Los Angeles
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Pennsylvania
Yale University</p>
<p>GROUP III
Johns Hopkins University
Northwestern University
Rice University
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
University of Maryland-College Park
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
University of Texas-Austin
University of Wisconsin-Madison</p>
<p>alexandre i think your a cool person, but your list is full of flaws. I also happend to see your departmental ranking for economics and some of the colleges where in improper order and some not listed.</p>
<p>abemartin, like I said, I am merely stating an opinion based on my experience and exposure. Care to tell me what schools I missed or missplaced? I am sure I missed some (there are thousands of universities out there) but I rarely missplace.</p>
<p>Munited, what does Engineering Physics have to do with Mathematics. Caltech is #1 in Physics, but it's math department isn't one of the top 5 or 6 in the nation. Chicago has a top 5 Physics and Math department, but they don't have a top Engineering program. Princeton's Econ department is arguably #1, but it has not Business school. Etc...</p>
<p>i know, excuse me, my comment could be seen acromonius. no offense. like UNC is not listed. anyways, your studying in UAE? i was born there; however, i am a syrian arab. are you studying down there?</p>
<p>I grew up in the UAE, but I spent a year as a boarding student in the DC are and I also went to college and graduate school in the US. I am now back in the UAE because it is the only reasonable place to live in the Middle East (most of my family lives in the area) and I want to be close to them.</p>
<p>As for UNC, it belongs in Group III for Math, as do Carnege Mellon and a few other programs. I also did not include LACs, many of which have excellent math departments.</p>
<p>since im of the opinion that alexandre tends to overrate public universities with strong graduate departments, a few privates id add to group iii: washu, brandeis, carnegie mellon and dartmouth. a few others (public and private) with solid math programs are notre dame, usc, rochester, lehigh, uc-sd, stony brook, purdue and washington.</p>
<p>among liberal arts colleges id consider williams, swarthmore, harvey mudd, haverford, wesleyan, reed, colgate, oberlin, bryn mawr, bucknell and holy cross.</p>
<p>Not really vossron. The %age of students who go on to get PhDs in meaningless. Whether it is as high as 7% or as low as 2% does not speak to the quality of department. St John's math department is not better than Harvard's or Stanford's or Cal's.</p>
<p>I would have to agree, especially when a school has what like seven majors to choose from [such as Harvey Mudd, though it is nonetheless an incredible school for math majors] of course the percentage of math majors will be higher than a school that offers 20x more majors, but yeah.</p>
<p>And I'm trying to remember, I forgot where I saw it, but I remember they ranked the best three math programs as:
MIT
Harvard
Caltech
and they gave MIT a score of 5.0/5.0 and Harvard and Caltech a 4.9/5.0 though I can't remember where I read this, anyone know, though I do believe that these three are definitely at the top [Note: comments contain bias ;)]</p>
<p>"One way to rate...", not <em>the</em> way to rate. The percentage is meaningful to a high school student who has the goal of earning a PhD; her chances are better at a school where 20% of math BS/BA graduates go on to earn a math PhD, than at a 10% school, regardless of school, class or department size. The data prove nothing about the quality of math departments, which may be better at a large university which grants PhDs. The data suggest that undergraduate PhD preparation is best at these high-ranked schools, but does not prove such. It may well be that math students attending Harvard or Stanford or Cal are not as interested in earning a math PhD as students attending the schools on this list, which may well be self-selecting by PhD seekers. </p>
<p>"I want a PhD in math, I see that a BS in math from CalTech provides the best statistical chance of it, so I want to go to CalTech. By the way, I <em>assume</em> that CalTech provides excellent preparation towards a PhD in math, and excellent preparation in math in general."</p>
<p>For whatever it's worth, which may not be much at all, these are the top 25 math PhD programs as ranked by US News. Yes, I realize these are graduate rankings, so no need for anyone to jump in and say how irrelevant they think these are.</p>
<ol>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.0</li>
<li>Harvard University 4.9
Princeton University 4.9
Stanford University 4.9
University of California–Berkeley 4.9</li>
<li>University of Chicago 4.8</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology 4.6
New York University 4.6
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor 4.6
Yale University 4.6</li>
<li>Columbia University 4.5</li>
<li>Cornell University 4.4
University of California–Los Angeles 4.4</li>
<li>University of Wisconsin–Madison 4.3</li>
<li>Brown University 4.2
University of Texas–Austin 4.2</li>
<li>University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign 4.1
University of Minnesota–Twin Cities 4.1
University of Pennsylvania 4.1</li>
<li>University of Maryland–College Park 4.0</li>
<li>Duke University 3.9
Johns Hopkins University 3.9
Northwestern University 3.9
Rutgers State University–New Brunswick 3.9
University of California–San Diego 3.9</li>
</ol>
<p>Try looking at the AOPS forum, which is far better suited for the math-inclined to answer this sort of question. The consensus there almost always seems to be: Harvard, MIT, Princeton (<- in alphabetical order).</p>