<p>I know that Duke consistently ranks in the top three for the Putnam, yet I never see it ranked in the top 15-20 math departments in the nation. So how strong is it really?</p>
<p>Because rankings are dumb. They overrate Berkeley and its biased. </p>
<p>I know I’m going to get a lot of negative responses, but its true. Think about it.</p>
<p>Come on, PizzaDude, its Duke. Duke is one of the top schools in the country. Even if the math department is relatively weak, it will still be stronger than that of most schools in the country. Disregard the rankings… those are graduate program rankings.</p>
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<p>Putnam is an awful indicator for the strength of an entire department. Putnam team rankings indicate the top few (possibly only 3) students as well as the department’s ability to identify these few students.</p>
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<p>I’d think about more if you actually offered reasons for “bias” as well as why you think Berkeley in particular is so “overrated”… If you think Berkeley is overrated, you must have your own rough rankings in mind. What makes those more valid than actual rankings with a real (albeit flawed) methodology?</p>
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<p>I will mostly agree with your assertion about the rankings, but I must maintain that this argument is terrible. The original poster is shocked at the fact that Duke is missing from the “top 15-20”. Clearly he is not looking for it just to be “stronger than that of most schools in the country.”</p>
<p>@Omega Sanction:</p>
<p>The ranking methodologies are based on surveys, especially the U.S News Rankings. It doesn’t take teaching quality, research opportunities, professor-student interactions, etc into consideration. Actually, even if some rankings did take these into considerations, how exactly can you measure teaching quality? It seems rather shady.</p>
<p>For instance, I truly believe that the student body at Pratt School of Engineering is VERY strong and intelligent. They’re definitely at the top, and I’m sure the professors are amazing (they’re after all Duke professors). Yet schools like Georgia Tech and UIUC (which the general public have not really heard of) have engineering programs that are ranked at the top 5.
How?
Rankings here fail to consider that UIUC is HUGE. Georgia Tech is HUGE. Pratt is SMALL. You can’t compare a small school that offers 4 majors with big-in-sheer-numbers engineering schools. It doesn’t work that way, and hence, its biased.</p>
<p>The issue I have with Berkeley…well, its a strong opinion I have (A lot of people may disagree with it), but honestly, every California high school sends people to Berkeley. For a typical CCer, its not at all hard to get in. Some even consider it a safety.
Personally, I know a lot of underachievers who get into Berkeley. Sub-par leveled people and Ivy-League rejects albeit some genuinely interested in Berkeley end up at Cal. </p>
<p>I just can’t and never will consider Berkeley among the top with the Ivy+ level…to me, its just another UC, a safety. I believe UCLA is a better school just for the location, atmosphere, and better focus on diversity.</p>
<p>I can understand to John117’s view about Berkeley, as I too come from california. Regardless of its reputation outside of the state and outside the U.S, the fact is that Berkeley simply isn’t really considered an exclusive or elite school to california students since almost any good, hard working student here gets in, while the same can’t be said for private schools like Duke that constantly reject even the best students. As for the rankings, I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on it as I’m sure you’ll find everything you need to fulfill you academically at Duke.</p>
<p>^Yes, exactly. If a kid in California says he’s going to Berkeley, people will just nod and say “cool.” But if you say I’m going to Harvard, MIT or Duke, they all wow at you.</p>
<p>But if you go to China and scream that you’re a Berkeley grad, then you’ll be treated like a king.
Berkeley’s just been getting on my nerves recently…its overrated in the rankings and its prestige is falsely depicted.</p>
<p>In fact, I get annoyed when people say Berkeley is the second best university in California after Stanford. To me, its actually Caltech, whose overall prestige is underrated unfortunately.</p>
<p>In fact, my dad, a software architect of Yahoo, rejects a bunch of Berkeley engineers from time to time for SJSU ones. They work harder and better.</p>
<p>Rankings for specific departments are usually not good rankings. Especially since most rank graduate departments and don’t represent undergraduate strength.</p>
<p>As a student who has taken many math classes, I can anecdotally tell that our math program is great. Classes are very small (some of mine were about 15 students. My largest math class was 25 kids). At schools like Berkeley (I’m Californian so I share many of the same sentiments as above posters), my friends tell me their intro math classes are close to 700 people. I can’t imagine how you can learn MATH with such an impersonal environment. I value that my professor knows my name and can realize during lectures that what s/he is disucssing is of particular interest or struggle to me. It makes the class and experience all the much better. Also, I’ve leaned A LOT. The professors are great, and they really know what they are talking about.</p>
<p>Many of my international friends who are math majors chose it over “higher ranked” schools becuase they understood that the strength of the department wasn’t fairly reflected in rankings. In fact, two of my professors rejected tenure at Harvard (a good school, but nonetheless a school eeryone just naturally and blindly thinks is great at everything, yay -_-) to be at Duke and teach math</p>
<p>feel free to PM me if you have any other specific questions :).</p>
<p>IMHO, I don’t think departmental rankings mean anything at all when it comes to actual school rankings and their respective reputations. If you graduate from duke as a math major, no company/grad school is going to reject you just by saying that “oh look, the math program that you graduated from isn’t even ranked in the top 20 in the nation!”. On the contrary, they’ll see that you’ve graduated from DUKE or BERKELEY and that’s all that will matter because they will realize that regardless of departmental rankings, they will know that you’ve worked your tail off to get a duke or berkeley education. That’s exactly why Pratt kids almost always have a job in their hands right after they graduate even though pratt’s engineering program is not “ranked” as highly as other engineering programs.</p>
<p>Just to echo some comments above, departmental rankings are typically rankings of graduate programs, not quality of undergraduate education. Don’t confuse them. They really are very different things. In fact, at the departmental level the two can very plausibly be negatively correlated. This is because (a) one of the ways universities attract absolutely top-notch researchers is by letting them avoid teaching too many undergrads, because it’s a waste of their time; and (b) even if they do teach, first-rate researchers are hired first and foremost because of their research profile, not their teaching ability. </p>
<p>At the university level, of course, research quality is positively correlated with reputation as an undergraduate institution, because reputation is only partly a matter of teaching quality: endowment, history, selectivity, expenditure per student, median class size, private/public, etc, etc, all matter, and in ways that are positively correlated with (the ability to attract) first-rate researchers.</p>
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<p>So let me comment, since I’m reasonably acquainted with the various top math departments. First off, I agree with John and the rest who comment that most of Berkeley’s undergraduates are only ordinary students who did a half-decent (not even commendable) extent of work to get in.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s math department, I have to say, is several cuts above Duke’s in terms of the actual faculty strength both in breadth and depth. It is rather unique in the nation in the sense that its department is so enormous, yet full of exceptional mathematicians. If you want a specialized question answered, chances are you’ll find someone who knows. Departmental rankings certainly take all this into account, and rightfully so. Nobody’s saying that Berkeley is better than Duke as an undergraduate school. And nobody is saying there aren’t profs there who are of top notch caliber at Duke. </p>
<p>You have to remember that most of the math department at Berkeley has nothing to do with its undergrads except teaching a few classes. They are doing their own lofty things. The work they do is frequently above what undergrads from most top schools will ever set their eyes on or dream of doing. You’re probably talking of people who won the Putnam as undergrads, people with notorious histories for publishing brilliant work, etc. All of this extends far beyond the scope of traditional undergraduate strength.</p>
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<p>So my comment to this is that if you go to the top math schools, it can be a valuable thing to be exposed to those researchers early. It’s hardly necessary though, because a lot of your time as an undergrad should be spent learning fundamental things well, but it can be a great thing to add on to one’s education if really serious. </p>
<p>Duke does do really well in the Putnam…and guess what, some of its high-achievers at the Putnam (whom I know personally!) come to Berkeley’s math graduate program and might be part of what gives it the name it has. </p>
<p>In short, rankings for math do not overrate Berkeley in my opinion, however much they may overrate other aspects of the school.</p>
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<p>I will have to disagree with the general premise you’re upholding. It depends HUGELY on what you want out of undergrad. Talented undergrads can benefit a lot from the several top-notch researchers who are willing to help them develop their talents. To the undergrad with only average academic interest, of course, it’s true that the top-notch researchers probably won’t be too interested. </p>
<p>So in short, they are NOT different things unless you want to make them different things, which only some do. Others are of the opinion that graduate and undergraduate rankings should be closely related. I’m sure some posters on the MIT threads would agree with this.</p>
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<p>Yet the non-intros are often < 30 students.</p>
<p>Anyway, I will say this - going to Duke as a math undergrad is awesome, and you can train really well there. But I hope some of my dose of perspective may have helped demystify things a little.</p>
<p>Real math prodigies treat the Putnam with disdain; many do not even partipate in it. Doing well on it is simply a matter of studying for it (assuming you are relatively proficient in math). For example, this Yale student credits his top-five results from studying:</p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Media - Xiaosheng Mu ?13 began studying for the Putnam mathematics competition this past fall and finished in the top five.](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/media/2010/03/24/putnam-contest-top-five-dude/]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/media/2010/03/24/putnam-contest-top-five-dude/)</p>
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<p>Eh, this is very misleading. I don’t like math competitions myself and didn’t participate in the Putnam, and it is true that doing high level research mathematics is different from acing the IMO and Putnam. But uncanny attention to detail and ability to resolve technical points are very useful when you’re trying to be efficient about your learning, which is why the Putnam can be an indicator of talent.</p>
<p>There are highly proficient research mathematicians who do take an interest in the Putnam. There are also ones who don’t give a crap. It depends on taste.</p>
<p>Examples of people with good showing on the Putnam (well, Putnam Fellows) who also are terrifically talented mathematicians abound. Take a look at some of the faculty at the top schools.</p>
<p>@mathboy:</p>
<p>I don’t think we necessarily disagree. My argument is two-fold:</p>
<p>(1) The Putnam tests “efficiency” more than it does creativity. Creativity (or whatever you want to call it) is a necessary ingredient for higher-level mathematics and mathematical research. While some former Putnam competitors have become proficient mathematicians, the test itself is not necessarily an indicator of that proficiency. Assuming an adequate knowledge of math, one can study for the Putman. No amount of studying can help one solve the unsolved problems in mathematics, for example.</p>
<p>(2) The mathematical talent of a college’s student body is not necessarily reflected by the Putnam results. As we agreed, many of the brightest mathematical minds have no interest in math competitions, including the Putnam. They know that the Putnam tests “efficiency,” not creativity, which is what they value most.</p>
<p>Yes, we don’t disagree in spirit 
I just need to clarify some things to those who may be less familiar with this topic than you and I probably are! I didn’t want to go ahead and agree that real math prodigies treat the Putnam with disdain, because there are notable counterexamples!</p>
<p>Certainly Putnam results don’t correlate directly with mathematical talent, because many mathematicians have no interest in math competitions. That said, great fields medalists (for instance one at UChicago) have been IMO Gold medalists, and I would say there is a degree of creativity required to do well at these things, because they’re extremely hard problems. </p>
<p>This creativity does not have to correlate precisely with the creativity required by research mathematics, but certainly many of these high achievers do go on to do great research mathematics too, which I’d say we shouldn’t discount. That is, I would say doing great at the Putnam is a commendable thing and shows a certain kind of valuable talent, even if it shouldn’t be the end-all.</p>