<p>Hello. I'm an international student really interested in math, but I only have quite limited financial resources. For this reason, top liberal arts colleges look like good places to apply, as they give a consistent amount of FA. So my question is: how useful is the preparation you receive at, say, Amherst or Williams, for a further research career in pure math? Needless to say, I don't expect them to be on par with MIT/Berkeley/most of the Ivies, but are they, for instance, below or above Northwestern, Johns Hopkins or Rice? I couldn't find anything very useful on the Internet regarding this matter, so I'm pretty confused here.</p>
<p>Another(slightly related) question: what about maths at Dartmouth? The need-blind & full-need policy they have at Dartmouth looks more than attractive, but the fact that I couldn't find Dartmouth in any math top 200 looks a bit discouraging. And what's even stranger, they're are almost as selective as other Ivies. Of course, I'm aware of the fact that rankings are for graduate maths only, but even so, why is Dartmouth so low?</p>
<p>Williams has an excellent math department. I would put it on the same level as the top names (and better than some of the Ivies). The size and scope of the department is the key point of differentiation between a small LAC and a medium sized private with a graduate program; however, Williams has an excellent record of getting its students into good PhD programs.</p>
<p>I would focus less on the need blind aspect of admissions and look for schools that promise to cover full need for internationals. Meaning, if they accept you they will help you pay. Of course, what they think you need may not match what you think you need. Run a few price calculators to make sure the estimated contribution is workable for your family.</p>
<p>If you are already quite advanced at math, look at Harvey Mudd. Their “basic” math program is very thorough and the “accelerated” sequence is for hard core mathematicians only.
Overall, it depends how much math you’ve already had.
Look at the department’s offerings: where would you start? Do they have a path already in place for students who scored a 5 on Calculus BC? (it means they have enough such students that they had to create a path for them - absolutely not the norm in American colleges.) What percentage of students are science majors? How does the college rank in term of percentage of students getting PHDs (not just getting accepting to PHD programs, but also actually getting the PHD.)</p>
<p>LACs are not ranked on Graduate School surveys because they have no graduate students. Their focus is undergraduates only, thus providing them with a very intense, interactive experience that involves a lot of contact with professors, etc. No grad students to take the professors’time, research assistantships, etc. But that also means no grad courses (if you’re very very advanced) UNLESS the college is part of a consortium.
It’s a trade off.
For the vast majority of students, I think LACs would provide a better education (and the vast majority of students would disagree because they would really miss being able to skip lectures or tailgating among tens of thousands for football games ), but very advanced math students are one of the exceptions.</p>
<p>Actually, seek out b@r!um for math-specific advice beyond what is noted in #3.</p>
<p>The lack of graduate level offerings (and a wide range of advanced undergraduate offerings) at LACs seems to be more commonly an issue with math majors than other majors, due to many of them entering undergraduate study already at an advanced level in math. Such students may not gain as much as others from the usual LAC advantages of small faculty-led classes (which are the norm for advanced undergraduate math courses in even the biggest research universities; the frosh/soph math courses can be huge at big universities, but the advanced math students will be skipping them anyway).</p>
<p>Unless you are very advanced in math already, the math offerings at LACs will be sufficient for your needs as far as coursework goes. And depending on what LAC you attend, there may be nearby graduate schools at whih you can take math classes - for example, if you went to one of the Five Colleges there is UMass Amherst; if you went to Swarthmore or Haverford there is Penn; in the Claremont Colleges, there is Claremont Graduate University. I’ve also seen friends at my own LAC arrange to cross-register for classes at other universities in our city; I went to an LAC in Atlanta, and so friends and classmates took classes and did research at Clark Atlanta, Georgia State, Georgia Tech and Emory. Certainly not as convenient as taking them at your own campus (and I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone advanced enough in math that half or more of their undergrad math curriculum will actually be grad classes), but possible for students really committed to the idea of an LAC.</p>
<p>But if you are like the vast majority of students who are starting with one of the classes in the calculus sequence, then you should find the math offerings at most LACs to be fine.</p>
<p>Vast majority of students overall, or vast majority of math majors? Note that the OP is an international student, and the normal math track for university-bound students in many other countries is more advanced than the normal, or even advanced, math track in the US.</p>
<p>How certain are you of a research career in pure math? That might make a huge difference. If you have low certainty, Id say go for it. LACs will be suitable for your needs and you might end up finding alternative interests more easily, and get a better overall education in the process. If youre a 50-50 or better for a PhD, Id be very careful about choosing a LAC for the reasons that ucbalumnus mentions. Grad programs dont seem to respect LAC math as much as Research University math, so the recs coming out of a LAC can be a problem. A notable exception is Williams.</p>
<p>4) Many different paths to take at Pomona. Instead of following one structed math path, you can choose 1 of 4- general, pure theoretical, and statistical. Furthermore, each of these tracks has multiple options. Many math majors end up completing several tracks.</p>
<p>Thank you for all your help. Now, to provide more info about myself: I’m 99% certain that I want to pursue a research career in math, so I plan to major in pure math(I may choose minors in computer science or neuroscience, I’m not sure). I’m particularly interested in number theory, discrete maths and abstract algebra. I have a quite solid background in number theory, so I would probably skip the “elementary” number theory course at most colleges. I also took a great deal of algebra(including some linear algebra), some calculus(differentiation and integration), and (rather basic)combinatorics and geometry. I can’t say how advanced I am though, as I know little about how much most future math majors know.</p>
<p>I browsed the site of Williams, Pomona and Harvey Mudd. I found that Williams has the advanced courses that suit me most, but some of them are “not offered this year”(namely Analysis and Number Theory, Algebraic Number Theory, Graph Theory). Does anybody know about how often they are offered?</p>
<p>One last question: how difficult is(for an international student without a lot of money) to get into Williams, compared to NYU, Northwestern, Rice or Johns Hopkins?</p>
<p>I’d suggest that you contact Williams math department directly. I’m sure this is a concern that they’ve dealt with before.</p>
<p>Williams is not need blind for internationals, but they are international friendly and generous with need based aid. The key point is to determine how much need based aid you might be eligible for. If you qualify for enough to make it work for you and you are accepted, then the chance is good that you will be able to attend. Ask your parents to use an online calculator to get an idea of where you stand.</p>
<p>I would say that Williams is somewhat more selective than the other colleges you list, but your international status may actually work to your advantage. Williams, like many small LACs that are not located in urban environments, often uses internationals to beef up their diversity percentages. This is also true of some excellent LACs in the midwest and south. The key here is to be of the demographic that they are looking for, e.g., not White, not Christian or Jewish</p>
<p>I would say that it’s harder to get into Williams than NYU or Northwestern, and roughly as hard (or perhaps harder?) than Rice and Johns Hopkins.
You should definitely apply to Harvey Mudd and/or Pomona though if you’re that advanced.</p>
<p>Check the Williams College math course listings in the links from this page:
[Class</a> Size Information](<a href=“Williams College”>Williams College)</p>
<p>How important is it for you, in your future career, to have a shot at working at a top research university? </p>
<p>If it is, I wouldnt look much beyond Williams and Mudd (Pomona?). Research unis, at least the top ones in math, seem to be populated with PhDs who did their undergrad work at other research universities. I would say that LAC bachelor degrees are under-represented among the faculty at top research universities. </p>
<p>I dont know how far down in the rankings one has to go before you find LAC grads represented in proportional numbers. Maybe other posters have input there. Also, LACs do seem to hire LAC grads, if you dont mind ending up in a job where you concentrate on teaching while doing less research.</p>
<p>So maybe you could clarify how important these things are to you.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. I’ll clarify things a bit: “ending up in a job where you concentrate on teaching while doing less research.” is not what I desire. Research is what I plan to do(and I’ll do my best to do it at a top university), and I’m not really attracted to teaching.</p>
<p>I think I made up my mind. I’ll apply to Williams and Harvey Mudd, and won’t apply to Pomona. But I would like to hear some words about Amherst before I make my final list of LACs. </p>
<p>One extra thing about Harvey Mudd: Before visiting its website, I thought that I would either do pure math or nothing, however the Harvey Mudd Mathematical and Computational Biology looks quite appealing to me, and I didn’t see anything similar at other schools. What are the prerequisites for this major? Do they ask for SAT scores in Biology and/or Chemistry? On their website, I found only that they require Math 2 for general admission, but found nothing about requirements in this specific field.</p>
<p>The following lists show the number of doctoral recipients in mathematics/statistics from 2006-2010 (inclusive) per baccalaureate institution, according to NSF data (source: webcaspar.com). The numbers in parens represent the number of full-time undergrads. </p>
<p>Top 10 LACs
19 Carleton (2000)
18 Reed (1400)
15 Pomona (1600)
14 Swarthmore (1500)
13 Williams (2100)
12 St. Olaf (3000)
11 Oberlin (2900)
8 Bryn Mawr (1300)
8 Wheaton (IL) (2500)
8 Whitman (1500)</p>
<p>Adjusted for institution size, Carleton College is generating more than 3X as many math/stat doctorates as Berkeley. Even in absolute numbers, Carleton is producing more alumni with math/stat doctorates than Duke, UNC, Penn, Northwestern, NYU, or Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>Perhaps. Maybe IPEDS (or some other source) has those numbers.</p>
<p>I’ve seen PhD production numbers for economics adjusted for program size (in Siegfried & Stock 2006). It seemed to me that the institution-size-normalized lists were more plausible. The program-size-normalized numbers are even more skewed toward LACs and small regional universities (with MIT the only prestigious research university to make the top 25).</p>
<p>For mathematics, by my own estimates of program sizes (using the CDS section J numbers), Carleton appears to generate almost 2x as many math PhDs as Berkeley after adjusting for the number of majors. Reed appears to generate almost 3x as many as Berkeley.</p>
<p>Adjusting for institution size (not majors) will tend to favor schools whose departments attract relatively many majors. I would expect a high-quality program that motivates and prepares students well to attract relatively many majors, and also to produce a relatively high rate of earned doctorates. Of course, there can be various confounding effects (for instance, if many majors are heavily recruited into higher-paying careers than academia).</p>
<p>Other confounding effects are the preferences of the students (i.e. pre-professional versus pre-PhD) and the effect of recruiting. Bigger schools are often favored by employers recruiting new graduates, since (a) they may be more well known in the first place, and (b) it may be more worth visiting a school with 200 potential recruits than a school with 20 potential recruits.</p>
<p>Math is very much a who you know field. I can see a LAC graduate being viewed with suspicion if she hadn’t any recommendation from a known or respected mathematician. These are at research universities, rarely at LACs. </p>
<p>This argues for a university rather than LAC. The university doesn’t even have to be a top 12, but it does need a very good mathematician in your topic on faculty. Then if you work with said mathematician and stay on the PhD track, s/he can help.</p>
<p>Go to AMS (American Math Society) site and check out who is working in your field. Email their departments - there is a directory of math departments on the site with phone and email info - and see if you can make contact.</p>
<p>Swarthmore’s math department posts a file entitled, “Advice on Math Grad School Application Process”. It apparently was written sometime before Fall 2007. It includes the following statements:</p>
<p>“If you are interested in a top school, we want you to apply there. The chance of getting in is always low, but you can’t get in if you don’t apply. Years back, every year or two a Swat grad went off to math grad school at a top place (Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley). This hasn’t been true in recent years and we want to change that. Once one of you goes to a school and does well, it makes it easier for students in the year or two following you to apply and get admitted. So we have an interest in helping you pick where to apply. (Note: It has always been the case, and this hasn’t changed, that some of our math majors continue to go to top places in cognate fields – econ, engineering, physics).”</p>
<p>So it does sound like something has changed in recent years in the chances of math majors at top LACs making it into math grad school at top places (for pure math, anyway). If this is the case at Swarthmore, I assume it must be the case, too, at Oberlin, Reed, or Williams (unless the trend has changed since 2007).</p>
), but very advanced math students are one of the exceptions.</p>