<p>Your initial assumption is flawed. Harvard math is not a 'sidekick' department by any means.</p>
<p>According to USNews, Harvard is tied for the #2 ranked graduate math department in the country (MIT is #1). According to the 1995 NRC ranking, Harvard was ranked 4th with a 4.90 score, vs. MIT ranked 3rd with a 4.92 score. A 0.02 difference in score is meaningless. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.stat.tamu.edu/%7Ejnewton/nrc_rankings/area31.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/area31.html</a>
<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/phdsci/premium/mat.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/phdsci/premium/mat.php</a></p>
<p>Whether you see Harvard as having the 2nd or the 4th strongest graduate math department, it is hardly a 'sidekick' department. How can you have such a strong ranking and be a 'sidekick'? </p>
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I think MIT math & applied math department is about 5 times bigger than that of Harvard. and almost everyone at MIT is doing some kind of applied math( enginnering, physical sciences etc..)</p>
<p>Harvard Math is admitting about only 7 math PhDs per year and MIT is admitting about 30 PhDs per year.
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<p>I also fail to see what this has to do with the Putnam competition, which is available only to undergrads. What does the size of the department or the number of graduate students have anything to do with a competition that is open only to undergrads? </p>
<p>Look, the truth is that the Harvard math program is probably very good for the kinds of things that are tested in the Putnam. Heck, I see that the Harvard math department has a specific website devoted to the Putnam. The MIT math department does not seem to focus on Putnam. Nevertheless, the MIT department is still ranked (slightly) higher than the Harvard math department in the 2 most respected graduate rankings (NRC and USNews).</p>
<p>Secondly, liberal arts includes sciences. If you look at the definition of 'liberal arts', you will see that mathematics (arithmetic and geometry) was part of the liberal arts. So it makes perfect sense for a liberal arts school like Harvard to be extremely good at mathematics. This is not strange at all, and certainly math is no 'sidekick' department. </p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts</a></p>
<p>In fact, what would be weird is for a liberal arts school to NOT have a strong mathematics program. If you're not strong in math, then you're not really a balanced liberal arts school.</p>