How underrated is Case Western Reserve?

I’m a prospective Math/Statistics major and am very pleased with how Case advertises their Math and Science programs, more than any school that I’ve looked at. They’ve got a ton of faculty and great job placement out of college. The thing is, Case Western Reserve isn’t exactly a household name and I can’t seem to find them at the top of any math rankings (#95 on US News Math rankings). Are they not that great in Math, or are they just underrated? Thanks.

Case is much more well known with people who do hiring or at grad schools.
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Case Western’s problem is the Cleveland location. Much like Rochester, people aren’t attracted to these colleges due to the poor underlying economics of the cities they are located in.

Unlike schools in say Boston or Washington, DC students apply to Case because they like the school, not for the opportunity to live in Cleveland for 4 years. I believe that Case has a fairly high yield rate.

USNWR ranks CWRU 37th overall. That’s a pretty good ranking.

The math rankings you cited are probably graduate department rankings. People have begun to use them outside of their designed purpose, something I think is a bad idea. As for CWRU’s popularity, they attract about 22,000 applicants per year, so you can be assured that at least this number of people have heard of the university.

For Math, there were about 10-28 graduates the last few years. It might be good to compare that against other schools.(there is applied math and just math as well)

http://case.edu/ir/media/caseedu/institutional-research/documents/students/Degrees-by-Major-Trend-Data.pdf

I’m a sophomore math major at CWRU. I’m not involved in research yet, but I can talk about my experiences so far.

Logistically, it was easy to get transfer credit from AP exams and dual enrollment. I haven’t had to “retake” anything, and I haven’t had any problems with classes being full. Undergraduates can take any graduate courses, and there is an integrated B.S./M.S. program.

If you go [url=http://www.case.edu/registrar/registration/schedule-of-classes/]here[/url] and click “Schedule of Classes,” you can see the MATH and STAT courses that have been offered in each semester for the past few years. The philosophy department offers courses in logic and philosophy of math. Students can cross-register at Cleveland State, which offers some additional courses (for example, they have advanced classes in combinatorics and number theory whereas CWRU does not).

Overall, the mathematics and statistics department has an applied focus. The faculty members and their interests are listed [url=http://bulletin.case.edu/collegeofartsandsciences/mathematics/#faculty]here[/url], and [url=http://math.case.edu/research/]this[/url] page lists the main research interests in the department. Some professors do research in pure math, but it’s not emphasized.

That’s a Ph.D. program ranking, so you can’t really use it to draw conclusions about the undergraduate program.

It’s better for engineering and biology than it is for math. A lot of the math majors are double majors in one of those fields.

I really is not that it is underrated. Most people do not know it exists.

It is a great school and many students applying to the top 10 or 20 colleges use it as a safety. That means it is really good.

The whole egghead eight conference (UAA) is like that: Carnegie, Rochester, Emory, WUSTL, etc. The best academic conference after the Ivy League, without question.

“The best academic conference after the Ivy League, without question.” (#8)

NESCAC would be slightly stronger than the UAA if considered by the number of schools in the top 50 as measured by standardized scores.

I do like the UAA model, however, with respect to the emphasis the conference places on academics in relation to sports.

My son is a junior majoring in math and physics, a special double major that allows one less physics lab course so one can take all the math needed for the double major. Case has a National Mathematics Putnam Exam Team and math club.
There are strong statistics faculty, pure math and applied math faculty. My son can take many graduate level math and physics classes with small class sizes and loves the program. Lots of guest speakers in math on campus, and lots of research opportunities in math.

The professors have some graduate students but are open to undergraduates doing actual math research and since the grad program is small, undergraduates get a lot of attention from the math faculty.

My son has been able to do applied math research for a biophysics professor after sophomore year, for the summer and still works for this professor during his junior year, modeling noise in biological cell signals with nonlinear equations, and considering applying next year to a math or theoretical physics PhD program. I think the Case math program is well known in the midwest, but the rank is competing with much bigger powerhouse GRADUATE math schools like Michigan or Illinois, the huge state schools. Case Western is well known in engineering circles and in chemistry, biology, physics and math circles. Its very well known to prepare UNDERGRADUATE students well for rigorous PhD programs while at the same time offering lots of job options to math, statistics and engineering majors, with a strong humanities and writing focus in the core Arts and Sciences program.

Cleveland is a hip urban environment, similar to Cambridge MA. Don’t let Cleveland scare you at all, its got art,music and sports for entertainment. A good place for four years, much more interesting than many small college towns.

"“The best academic conference after the Ivy League, without question.” (#8)

NESCAC would be slightly stronger than the UAA if considered by the number of schools in the top 50 as measured by standardized scores.

I do like the UAA model, however, with respect to the emphasis the conference places on academics in relation to sports."

The UAA has all 8 schools ranked in the USnews top 40 Universities. Only the UAA and the Ivy League can say that.

Re #11, I’m not sure why the university distinction would be relevant when the original comment (#8) related to collegiate athletic conferences. By student standardized testing, and using the suggested limit of 40, this is how the conferences compare:

Rank (nationally) School

UAA

2 Chicago
12 WUStL
24 CMU

NESCAC

17 Williams
20 Amherst
22 Bowdoin
24 Tufts
37 Hamilton
40 Wesleyan

(“The 610 Smartest Colleges in America” / Business Insider.)

@merc81 you are talking about the test scores of the student they get. I am talking about the schools.

Every college in the UAA is World Class. All 8 are ranked in the top 40 by US news.

The Nescac also has some great schools that I would love to sent a kid to, but not all eleven of them. Jmho

Both are good conferences in terms of academics, but NESCAC still wins. Sorry. yes, the bottom of the Nescac is lower academically (not by much) than the bottom of the UAA, but the top and middle of Nescac are incredibly strong. NO reason to really compare them though as they really are completely different types of schools as a whole. Nescac (other than Tufts) is all small liberal arts colleges where the UAA is all research universities (albeit small ones). Tufts is really more like a UAA school in size and focus actually. But if you look at the rankings NESCAC. Let’s put it this way, average US News ranking in Nescac is 18.3 and UAA is 25. Nescac has 4 in the top 10, UAA has 1. You can’t go wrong really with any of the schools in either, but most kids who would like Case would not like most of the Nescacs, as much, and vice versa. My son was recruited by several NESCACs. One option fell through and he had he other options but faced the fact that he is glad he won’t end up there as he doesn’t want to be on a rural preppy campus (or even very small new england town). I suspect many kids going to those also wouldn’t want to go to a geeky school in a city (Carnegie, Case, Chicago, etc)…

Case is well known in collegiate circles, don’t make the mistake of thinking they don’t have name recognition.

As to the Math major, have you looked at the exact courses they offer and what the major requirements are? Have you maybe discussed it with your Math teacher? If they are offering what you want and have placement statistics to back it up, I don’t think you can go wrong.

The mention of Cleveland as a hip, urban environment brought back an old memory. Perhaps things have changed since my S went there some 20 years ago, but when I visited him there, I was shocked by the visible security on campus and the condition of the surrounding neighborhood. Shocked as in, I was thankful for having the security presence but was not used to being in an environment that required it.

However, as I said in another thread, there are quite a few excellent schools in less than ideal neighborhoods. It’s just another factor to consider, and if you attend such a college, it’s something to be smart about.

I do not know all the schools you have discussed to offer any comment on the ranking of these two conferences, but I have made two trips to Cleveland in the last 6 months to tour CWRU and the area around it, so I wanted to comment on the environment around the campus.

-The campus had several new and recently renovated buildings. There was a solid security presence, which in the post VA Tech era seems like a good idea to me- even on more rural campuses.

-On one side of campus we walked to the little Italy section, which was charming and had many great restaurants and artsy shops. This seemed like a very active area.

-On another side of campus is the University Circle area that had a group of museums. We went to the Art Museum and the Natural History Museum on one of our visits and they were wonderful. Lots of students and families walking around here.

-On another side of campus is the “uptown” area, which I understand is just a few years old. It had many restaurants, shops, bookstore, and bowling alley. Lots of folks walking around here.

-The campus has a direct stop for the train and busses to downtown Cleveland, about 4 miles away.

  • A short bus ride, (or longer walk?) to this other area where there was a fantastic Jazz Club (Night town) and many eclectic shops and other music venues, artsy films, and dance clubs.

-The downtown had building projects going on everywhere. There was lots to do downtown as well, and clearly a city on the rise. There were a lot of music and theatre venues, film theatres, shopping malls, lake activities, parks.

In addition, the huge amount of posters on the campus of CWRU suggested that there were a tremendous amount of activities hosted there as well.

My daughter wants a college experience with a lot of stuff to do nearby. So we toured quite a few colleges that we thought might fit the bill: Duke, Vanderbilt, Princeton, Hopkins, W&M, Wake, Tulane, and others. CWRU was by far her favorite and the place she thought she would be happiest and safest (without a car).

In Summary, I have no idea what the area around CWRU was like 20 years ago, but today it is an exceptional location for a college.

@Wizard2 great summary. We lived east side of Cleveland and are familiar with the area Case sits. My D got accepted but it’s not her first choice. I would be thrilled if she ends up going there.

UAA schools like Case Western, have a breadth and depth of challenging majors that are uniformly high quality. This allows students to not only gain a high quality liberal arts education, but also develop employable skills.

In contrast, most liberal arts schools are very limited on employable skills development. If there is a chance you may be interested in taking a break after you graduate from undergrad and work for a while, Case is an excellent choice.

“UAA schools . . . have a breadth and depth of challenging majors” (18)

“In contrast, most liberal arts schools are very limited in employable skills development.” (18)

This may depend somewhat on definition.

Some liberal arts colleges, such as Swarthmore, Hamilton and Bowdoin graduate math majors at a rate over 5 times the national average. Computer science is a well developed department at many LACs, as is geoscience and, particularly, economics. In comparison, some UAA schools are not as uniformly strong in these areas and may offer less in the way of the development of writing and other skills.

“Case is an excellent choice” (18)

For a lot of students and a lot of reasons, certainly so. However, this depends somewhat on how one feels about Connecticut.