<p>I would like to go to a school that is good for math and science. I have a list of schools, but I am not sure if they are good for these subjects. I know they are good overall, but I am afraid that they are really good for other subjects, but not as good for math/science. I am looking for a school that focuses more on math and science. How can you tell?
Also, i found US News rankings, but they only rank graduate schools. I would assume that a school with a good graduate math/science program would have a good undergraduate program as well, but this still leaves out liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>US News ranks undergrad. If you are interested in science here is the list: [World’s</a> Best Universities: Natural and Physical Sciences Universities - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/worlds-best-universities/2009/10/20/worlds-best-universities-natural-and-physical-sciences-universities.html]World’s”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/worlds-best-universities/2009/10/20/worlds-best-universities-natural-and-physical-sciences-universities.html)
But that does still leave out LACs. I know that Carleton and Grinnell have good math and science programs… I’m sure there’s a list somewhere.</p>
<p>*I would like to go to a school that is good for math and science. I have a list of schools, but I am not sure if they are good for these subjects. *</p>
<p>Sometimes you can tell by the size of the department, the facilities, how many profs they have, where the profs got their PhDs, etc.</p>
<p>Check out the Washington Monthly rankings, but ignore the columns on the left and right (“social mobility” and “service”). Focus only on the sortable “research” section in the middle, which is rather science-oriented. </p>
<p>[Washington</a> Monthly](<a href=“http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings/liberal_arts_research.php]Washington”>http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/rankings/liberal_arts_research.php)</p>
<p>Be aware that the “research expenditures” are not adjusted for college size. Also, in the National Universities table, “Science and Engineering PhDs awarded” treats as equals schools with large engineering programs and schools with no engineering program at all. So this ranking, compared to USNWR for undergraduate schools, bumps up some large state universities (like Wisconsin) and bumps down some small-to-mid-sized private universities (like Brown and Chicago) that do have excellent undergraduate science programs. </p>
<p>So, if you make some mental adjustments, this ranking may be useful for you. It does have a table for LACs. Most of the top 10 for research do seem to be strong in science/math (possible exceptions: Amherst, Shimer).</p>
<p>Another ranking that might help you is the NRC-95, which is graduate only (no LACs) and dates back to 1995, but check it out anyway. Look for schools that have strength across several science departments (a condition less likely to change in 15 years than strength in just one).
[NRC</a> Rankings in Each of 41 Areas](<a href=“http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41indiv.html]NRC”>NRC Rankings in Each of 41 Areas)</p>
<p>Other resources include Rugg’s Recommendations (you have to go buy the book and it is not really a ranking) and the PhD productivity tables at the Reed College site (a little outdated, maybe):
[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>
<p>Very few people will argue that Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Stanford, Berkeley and Chicago have a superior math program. Having said that, the top 300 or maybe even 500 schools (on the US News) have decent-to-excellent math curriculum for undergrad mathematics education.</p>
<p>I do not believe SunShower212’s USNWR link pertains to undergraduate. The link itself says it is from </p>
<p>“U.S.News & World Report’s World’s Best Universities rankings, based on the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, identified these to be world’s top universities in 2009.”</p>
<p>so you see it is not even its own ranking, but “based on” another. I am confident the WUR are based on faculty research.</p>
<p>In which science are you interested?</p>
<p>Gourman Report ranking for undergrad math:
Princeton
UC Berkeley
Harvard
MIT
U Chicago
Stanford
NYU
Yale
Wisconsin Madison
Columbia
Michigan Ann Arbor
Brown
Cornell
UCLA
Illinois Urbana Champaign
Caltech
Minnesota
U Penn
Notre Dame
Georgia Tech
U washington
Purdue WL
Rutgers NB
Indiana U Bloomington
U Maryland College Park
Rice
UC San Diego
Northwestern
Texas Austin
carnegie Mellon
Johns Hopkins
Washington U St Louis
Ohio State
SUNY Stony Brook
Penn State
UVA
RPI
Illinois Chicago
U Colorado Boulder
U Kentucky
UNC Chapel Hill
Dartmouth
U Rochester
U Utah
SUNY Buffalo
Tulane
USC
UC Santa Barbara
U Massachusetts AMherst
U Oregon
Duke
Louisiana State Baton Rouge
U Arizona
case Western
Michigan State
U Pittsburgh
Brandeis
US Air Force Academy</p>
<p>Did Gourman even look at LACs?</p>
<p>This list is strange. There are many schools that I know are wonderful in math that are not on this list.</p>
<p>i/e St. Olaf has one of the best math programs in the country
Grinnell
Carleton
Pomona
Harvey Mudd
Claremont Mckenna
Swarthmore and so many others…</p>
<p>I thought I had read that the Gourman Report is very dated, possibly 10 years or longer. Unless it has been updated in the last few years I am not sure how much I would trust there rankings.</p>
<p>You may want to check with your high school GC. I know ours keeps separate lists of colleges that are known to be strong in a particular subject. I don’t know where the data is sourced from but it was very helpful for us.</p>
<p>I think that Gourman report may have been from 1997. Dated yes and I also looked up his report and there does not appear to be any liberal arts programs listed. Some of the best undergraduate math programs in this country are at some of the smaller LAC’s.</p>
<p>*I would like to go to a school that is good for math and science. I have a list of schools, but I am not sure if they are good for these subjects. *</p>
<p>What is your career goal? </p>
<p>That can make a difference.</p>
<p>Unless you are a math savant that will be solving world class problems as an undergraduate, I think you are approaching this the wrong way. There are literally many hundreds of schools that have excellent math departments fully capable of providing the bright undergraduate with a very complete education that would prepare them for grad school. I am not saying you shouldn’t at least look at the course catalog of a school and make sure they offer a healthy dose of upper level courses so that you have choices, but again there are hundreds of those. Public and private, urban and rural, huge and tiny, warm weather and frigid, big time sports and no sports at all, hugely expensive to much more affordable, and so on and so forth. And of course peer students right at or somewhat above your intellectual level on average, or a school where you are towards the top of the pyramid.</p>
<p>I promise you that if you focus on the factors that you think will make you happiest at a school overall, you will have a list of a dozen or more, unless you are trying to stay close to home. But assuming you have the entire country as a baseline, there will be plenty. They if you start looking at the math offerings, you should be able to narrow it down to 6-10 schools. At that point you can research all factors about these schools and make some visits. On these visits you can sit in on a class or two and talk to one of the math profs. A few favorite schools should start to emerge.</p>
<p>As one somewhat related data point, Rugg’s Recommendations on the Colleges purports to survey undergraduates at each institution and get their opionions as to which departments are thought to be relatively weak or strong at their school.
<a href=“http://www.ruggsrecommendations.com/rureonco20ed.html[/url]”>http://www.ruggsrecommendations.com/rureonco20ed.html</a></p>