<p>"Students who take more than 12 courses at any level in the Mathematics Department, in addition to two prerequisite courses, must take more than the usual number of courses altogether in order to have at least 19 courses outside the department."</p>
<p>Princeton has one of the strongest math departments in the world. It baffles me as to why Princeton and/or the Princeton math department would place a cap on the number of math classes one could take. I understand that Princeton has a place for liberal arts/well roundedness in its heart, but with certain exceptions, Princeton is essentially driving away these type of folk:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>USAMO/IMO/Intel, Siemens math kids/massively accelerated math kids - MIT's/Harvard's letting me take more math classes if I so want to (likely), why should I go to Princeton?</p></li>
<li><p>Decent math folk who want a career in math - how the %^&* am I gonna catch up to the people described in 1. with the cap on math classes?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>It is true that some math kids choose Princeton each year for reasons of prestige/well-roundedness education/fit, but I am certain a fair number of them immediately decide against Princeton for Harvard/MIT/etc. what I described above. I'm not proposing that GE/Distributional requirements be abolished, but one should be allowed to take more math classes using their elective room if they so desire.</p>
<p>Of course there are going to be some students who don’t like the requirements. One of the reasons I wasn’t interested in MIT is that I would have to take physics, biology, etc. Not everyone is a good fit with every school - and part of being a good fit with Princeton is being interested in stuff outside of your major. </p>
<p>Yes, some of the top math students might want to take more than 2 math courses per semester, but those kinds of students are generally the ones taking more than 4 classes per semester on a regular basis. The way to think about this requirement is that you have to take 19 courses outside of your major, not that you can only take 12 or 14 math classes. </p>
<p>Also, remember that junior and senior year you have independent work, which if you’re serious about it, can easily be the equivalent of an extra math class.</p>
<p>OP, can you calm down please? It’s just a small requirement, relax.</p>
<p>You say that Princeton has one of the strongest math departments in the WORLD. Yet you’re hung up on that fact that you can only take a certain amount of math courses. You’re making it sound as though some mortal sin has been commited. Most people would be grateful to get into Princeton at all. You’re completely deriding the university for a minute requirement? LOL, get over yourself.</p>
<p>Because Princeton’s a pretty freakin’ sweet place to be, that’s how.</p>
<p>Seriously, the whole “cap” issue isn’t an issue at all. Anyone who takes more than 12 upper-level math classes probably takes well above the total number of required courses. Top math majors here tend to average five or six classes a semester over the first three years while most other students take four; that leaves plenty of room to go over 12 departmentals. Do we lose some super-tippy-top people to MIT because they want to do math all the time and not have to worry about a few joke HASS classes? Sure, but those people tend to want to be around math/science/engineering people all the time as well. They’re not going to get that at Princeton or Harvard. And we probably lose kids to Harvard because they can get all the good non-math stuff they want at Harvard and can also cross-list and research at MIT. If you’re worried getting a good math career, Princeton’s one of the very top starting points in the country for that. You don’t have to “catch up” to IMOers. Chances are you probably can’t, anyway, because they’re just that good.</p>
<p>12 math courses is a ton… I’m a senior in the econ department and I’ve only taken 8 econ courses so far (and I’ll take 2 more in the spring). Also, since most AB students at Princeton take more than 31 classes, this is really a non-issue. For example, I’ll have taken 34 courses when I graduate, so if the econ department had the same rule, I’d still be able to take 7 more econ classes in my one remaining semester.</p>
<p>Also, if you looove math so much (and suck so much at all other subjects), take some ORFE classes or math track Econ classes - very similar work. I have never heard a math major at Princeton complain about this, and I know a lot of math majors.</p>
<p>Regardless of whether it bothers anyone at Princeton or not, and regardless of the other wonderful things Princeton has, this cap on the number of math courses IS an odd rule. None of the other top math programs – Harvard, MIT, Chicago, Stanford – has such a restriction, and it is not unusual for a Harvard math concentrator to graduate with 14 math courses (or econ courses for an “EC” concentrator). Furthermore, the “liberal arts” argument is not persuasive; I don’t know of any other department at Princeton that has such a cap. You can take as many COS, ECO, ENG, or MUS courses as you like at Princeton. This is unique to the math department only, and at Princeton only (among top programs).</p>
<p>Some small LACs have such rules as 50% of courses must be outside the major department, and 25% of courses must be outside the general major area; this probably prevents advanced students from running out of courses. But this is clearly not the problem at the math department, which has enough courses to satiate anyone.</p>
<p>^^^ Wow, that’s certainly good to know. I’ve only found reference to it in the math department website, not in any other department’s website! Thanks for posting this information. I stand corrected (about Princeton; the statements about Harvard still stand).</p>
<p>On close reading, the rule seems to give you up to 14 courses in the major, which is actually quite reasonable.</p>
<p>The 2011 Val was a Math major who I was told took very high level courses. I’m guessing that Princeton is not out to hold anyone back, and that it may be possible to get pretty far into what is normally graduate level study for the right person.
I don’t have knowledge about this, but perhaps someone who knows could.</p>
<p>Yep, the rule is for all A.B. students at Princeton, it’s just that in pretty much any other department, the idea of taking more than 12 (or 14 counting pre-req) classes in your major is ridiculous. Part of this is that in many other departments, you have to take courses outside of your department for your major (for example, bio majors have to take a good amount of chem, econ and physics majors need some math, etc). </p>
<p>But you can take more than that if you take more courses than required (which a ton of people do), and you have independent work, so junior and senior year you aren’t taking as many math courses as you would have at another school (although you’re learning a lot of math from your independent work). </p>
<p>Actually, the thing that I do think is a little problematic about the Princeton math department for the extremely advanced students is that there aren’t a lot of graduate courses offered, and the ones that we do have are at a very high-level (i.e, about recent / current research) and depend solely on which professors are interested in teaching grad classes. So we don’t have all the standard grad classes you’ll find at other top places, although a lot of our upper level undergrad classes would be grad classes at other top schools. This has to do with the math department’s philosophy on graduate school, which (I think) is a lot less based on taking classes than any other math graduate program in America.</p>
<p>How is it an odd rule? It’s to prevent people from coming to Princeton and learning only one subject. Forcing people to learn things outside of one field has been around in academia for literally thousands of years. Just ask Galen.</p>
<p>I would assume (hope) that kids like my son who’ve taken a number of college math courses in high school (calc I-III, Linear algebra, Dif Equ. lower division, Dif Equ. upper division, Dynamical Systems, stats, and is beginning Real analysis right now) will still have plenty of math for four years? Surely, their grad level courses would be offered to students who are ready and that these courses would be enough to satisfy? Isn’t Princeton known for having one of the best math departments in the country?</p>
<p>Absolutely. Off the top of my head I can think of at least twelve (I stopped counting around 15) 300+ level math classes your son could take and find challenging, and that’s in addition to all the “Advanced topics in algebra/analysis/geometry” classes that change by semester and some graduate classes that are offered to undergrads with sufficient preparation. Add in junior independent work and the senior thesis, and that’s more than enough math for anyone.</p>
<p>Your son would not be significantly ahead of other Princeton math majors - if the real analysis and linear algebra courses were very rigorous and proof-based (i.e, homework and exams consists of doing proofs), then he might possibly be able to skip the freshmen year courses, but that isn’t all that rare. </p>
<p>Princeton has a lot of math courses. And yes, a few students do take grad courses, but they require more prior knowledge than you’d get just from taking undergraduate classes (as they’re designed for graduate students who are doing research in the field). They also are very specialized, and so they wouldn’t really make sense to take unless you want to go into that particular field. Pretty much all other schools have grad classes which only require the knowledge from undergrad classes and go over more broad and fundamental material. </p>
<p>The 400-level math classes (many of which are equivalent to lower-level grad classes at other top schools) are usually really good and change every year, but there just aren’t a whole lot of them and what they cover isn’t very predictable. Some courses that are regularly offered at most top schools aren’t offered regularly at Princeton, like analytic number theory. There are grad classes that assume knowledge of analytic number theory, but if you want to take them you’ll have to learn the background on your own. </p>
<p>In the princeton math department, there’s a lot of emphasize on learning math outside of classes - by talking to people, going to seminars, doing independent work, reading math on your own during breaks, asking professors what you should read, etc. So if you want to dive into math, Princeton is a great place to do it and there are a lot of opportunities. But it’s a place where you have to take some initiative.</p>
<p>This sounds just wonderful and what one would expect from the math department at Princeton. I wonder why, then, the OP felt that math gifted students would feel slighted in some way by attending Princeton. And does one really need to “catch up” in order to have a deep mathematical undergraduate experience and be prepared for graduate school? Do math graduate programs at places like Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Caltech, etc. look down upon students who have taken fewer courses than other students? I wouldn’t think it’s the number of courses that’s ultimately important; rather, I would think it would be the depth, topic, and research that would really matter. But then, I’m just a mom who knows very little about math beyond algebra, so I’m no expert. :-)</p>