<p>such maths physics,chemistry,computer science.....
thank you very much in advance!</p>
<p>What are you looking for? Your post is a bit confusing.</p>
<p>I think they are asking for Best Undergraduate Math Programs, Best Undergraduate Physics Programs, etc.</p>
<p>Not a ranking, but at least it gives you what the editors think are the top 12%: [Rugg’s</a> Recommendations on the Colleges 30th Edition](<a href=“http://www.ruggsrecommendations.com/rureonco28ed.html]Rugg’s”>http://www.ruggsrecommendations.com/rureonco28ed.html)</p>
<p>However, Soochow, please do not then think that - wow, there are opportunities at #1 that aren’t present at #2. You cannot think hierarchically like the situation in other countries. In the US, there are a lot of schools that are excellent and the opportunities are merely different. I am afraid you are going to do something that turns your child’s college search into a search for the highest ranking under the mistaken belief that there are real differences between #1, 2, 3, 4 and so forth.</p>
<p>And departments are different. For example one of my friends studied art history at Harvard and then went to grad school at Yale. Both were considered top departments, but they had very, very different approaches and Yale was a much better fit for her interests (the intersection of social history and art.) You’ll find similar differences in science departments, one will be better at one sub-field the other better at another. Generally speaking you can talk about tiers - #1 is almost certainly better than #100, but #1 and # 4 may well be just about the same. I know when my son was looking for good school for computer science the 1-4 slots changed places almost every year.</p>
<p>Gourman’s report does rankings by specific undergraduate programs. I think Gourman’s Report actually pre-dates the US News Report. It’s been around since at least the early 80’s.</p>
<p>For math and sciences look at the ratings of the respective grad school departments. In math for example you may take some grad level courses as an undergrad. You may do some research in science grad labs. The level of knowledge taught may be tougher. But do not obsess about it- a top ten or twenty in several fields is a better undergrad choice than a top in only one field. The grad school level does filter down- and those TAs will be top notch. Do consider the numbers of entry level courses in any field. A strong school will offer two or three different calculus, chemistry, biology, physics et al courses to meet different needs. The hard core majors should not have to take the same Chemistry class as those only taking it to meet premed requirements. Also look at the numbers of courses available to meet degree requirements in majors that interest you. There should be more courses than you can logistically take- every major shouldn’t be taking the same courses. The facilities should be extensive- I cringe at the thought of a science building trying to contain all of the different labs, lecture and discussion rooms for all branches (by that thinking a campus would require only a very few buildings). Look at the number of campus libraries, how fields are grouped and which ones get their own building. Although far fewer physical volumes and paper journals are required there should be many departmental collections. Is there a separate computer science building, is it part of another division… Consider the age of the facilities- have the undergrad labs been updated recently, even if the building is historic?</p>
<p>Hopefully the book referenced looked at these things. Also note that the OP is looking for sciences as opposed to social sciences or humanities. The same basic principles apply to every field.</p>
<p>OP- do consider the strength of any Honors programs as well. Some of the public flagship U’s have excellent facilities. I assume you are not from the US (“maths” with the s is not an American usage).</p>
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<p>From the ones I looked at, they were based solely on the graduate departments which may not necessarily give a complete picture of the type and quality of undergraduate experience. </p>
<p>This type of focus on grad school departments to determine undergrad quality/experience is the same type of mistake I’ve seen first-generation immigrant parents who were only exposed to the grad/professional school portion of US universities make when advising their kids on what to expect/how to approach undergrad at American colleges. </p>
<p>For instance, I heard from friends who attended NYU for both undergrad and grad school or faculty members who taught there that the quality/rigor of both grad/professional programs and grad students on average is much greater than their undergrad counterparts. The experiences are also like being on two separate worlds even on the same campus. I noticed the same thing while taking grad courses at an elite university. </p>
<p>My experience is radically different from those who attend the undergrad divisions…even if some undergrads did happen to take a few lower-level grad courses. And I’m not even getting into the social/campus culture aspects which furthers the stark differences between the undergrad and grad school experience differences. </p>
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<p>That’s standard in British/British Commonwealth standard English. </p>
<p>Something college classmates/friends from British/British Commonwealth countries and American students like myself would use as a basis for non-serious arguments about the different ways the British/British Commonwealth folks and the Americans/“Colonials” would pronounce English words or have different idioms/grammatical rules.</p>
<p>OP’s student is an international applicant.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I know you mean well but discussing the strengths and weaknesses at H vs Y is precisely what the OP likely doesn’t need - as I’m very much picturing someone who is going to adhere to the belief that there are only a handful of high prestige institutions that are worth attending and everything else is beneath consideration. We’ve been around this rodeo ring before!</p>
<p>Well if I knew the strengths and weakness of Iona Colleges business program vs. Northeastern I’d discuss that. The point is that you can’t make a best major list because your interests may be different. One college might excel at marketing while the other at entrepreneurship or accounting. If you are set on a major you may want to dig a little deeper. Or if you know you want to do business, but don’t know what aspect, you may be better off going to a place with a big department and lots more choices. </p>
<p>For math, physics and computer science, I’d say almost any tech school in the top 100 of the university list will give a very good education. There may be good places on the LAC list, but I don’t know of any besides Harvey Mudd - very hard to get into - my son got into Harvard but was waitlisted at HM.</p>
<p>For U of Wisconsin-Madison the undergrad departments do have excellent teaching that reflects the grad schools. They even are involved in Chemical Education (who knew there were such things- even a journal- info you glean from your Badger Chemist alumni magazine). The Chemistry building has been added on to since my day and they keep up with undergrad teaching. Between son and my self I know the Honors program courses are excellent there. The caliber of math grad school matters when you take 4 or more of those courses as a undergrad and are with grad students. Undergrad students do research- utilizing grad labs, among the grad students of the professor.</p>
<p>I’m sure Michigan and Minnesota also are right up there also. Illinois had one of the first computer science programs back in the 1960’s, Wisconsin has had its own comp sci building since the 1960’s and ranks highly as well. The public flagships of the upper Midwest can outrank many east coast private schools in math and science. People in the Midwest invested their money in their state schools and did not have the many private schools already existing to take away the best students in the region.</p>
<p>I knew the maths was British influence- word usage is a key to origins.</p>
<p>The importance or not of a strong graduate program at the school can vary between different majors. A top-end advanced student majoring in math is likely to find the presence of a strong graduate math program at the school to be more important than non-advanced students in other subjects, since the top-end advanced student majoring in math is likely to want to take graduate level math courses and do graduate level research as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>Non-advanced students who will be taking (as opposed to skipping past) most of the lower division courses may be more affected by class size and format issues, if those are important to them.</p>
<p>One outcome measurement that I consider informative (not everyone agrees) is PhD productivity, adjusted for institution size. How many alumni are motivated and prepared by their undergraduate programs to earn doctorates in the same fields that interest you?
Reed College lists top-performing colleges for many fields at:
[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)
The National Science Foundation has more comprehensive information at:
<a href=“https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/[/url]”>https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/</a></p>
<p>Keep in mind that results may be skewed by several confounding factors. A very strong department won’t necessarily produce the most PhDs per capita (because many of the strongest students may choose to go into medicine, law, or business). However, the fact that a department produces relatively many PhDs probably is a sign of strength. </p>
<p>By this metric, some of the top performing schools are small liberal arts colleges that are unknown to many international students. Some of the same schools have generous financial aid for internationals.
[Top</a> 25 Financial Aid Colleges in US for International Students (Need-aware) - Desperate Guide: Undergraduate College Financial Aid, Scholarship](<a href=“http://www.desperateguide.com/us/top-25-financial-aid-colleges-in-us-for-international-students-need-aware]Top”>http://www.desperateguide.com/us/top-25-financial-aid-colleges-in-us-for-international-students-need-aware)</p>
<p>Of course, you can browse the online course catalogs, faculty biographies, etc., for other signs of strength. Some schools list student thesis titles:
[REED</a> COLLEGE | Biology | Theses](<a href=“http://academic.reed.edu/biology/theses/]REED”>Theses - Biology Department - Reed College)
Some have references to undergraduate research opportunities:
<a href=“https://frogs.uchicago.edu/researchopportunities[/url]”>https://frogs.uchicago.edu/researchopportunities</a><br>
Some show course-by-course enrollment numbers:
[Williams College Fall 2012 Class Size Info](<a href=“Williams College”>Williams College)
[University</a> of Chicago Time Schedules](<a href=“http://timeschedules.uchicago.edu/]University”>http://timeschedules.uchicago.edu/)
[Johns</a> Hopkins Time Schedules](<a href=“JHU Public Course Search”>JHU Public Course Search)
[UC</a> Berkeley Fall - Online Schedule Of Classes](<a href=“http://schedule.berkeley.edu/srchfall.html]UC”>http://schedule.berkeley.edu/srchfall.html)</p>
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<p>Other confounding factors that can result in higher numbers for liberal arts colleges:</p>
<ul>
<li>They have fewer pre-professional majors (engineering, architecture, business, nursing, etc.) from which students are more likely to go straight into the work force than liberal arts majors.</li>
<li>Small size makes them less attractive for recruiters, so graduating students have fewer non-graduate-school options.</li>
<li>They may attract more academically-oriented students (versus those with more pre-professional-at-the-bachelor’s-level students).</li>
</ul>
<p>Another possibly confounding factor is how strong are the PhD programs the students go to, although quantifying and measuring that is not easy.</p>
<p>^ If the distribution of pre-professional majors is a major confounding effect, then try comparing PhD production by the number of graduating majors per field (not by institution size). Siegfried and Stock (2006) did this for PhD production in economics, normalized by program size, for doctorates generated in 1997-2003. More than half of their top 20 are LACs, with Illinois Wesleyan and Swarthmore at the top.</p>
<p>I agree there is likely to be some selection bias. However, I think there are plausible reasons for attributing high PhD productivity at least partially to treatment effects. LACs have consistently smaller classes. For some fields, they have much smaller classes. Their students are taught almost always by professors, not by graduate students. The opportunities for discussion and writing assignments are greater. </p>
<p>The National Survey of Student Engagement looks at factors such as reading loads, the number of 5-/10-/20-page writing assignments per term, and the amount of contact between students and professors. I’ve compared the reports for several small LACs (Hendrix, Earlham, St. Olaf, Centre, Beloit, Lawrence) with the reports for several large public research universities (Michigan, Wisconsin, UIUC, Minnesota, TOSU). The small LACs consistently out-perform the large research universities in overall engagement scores, and in virtually every major sub-score, by significant margins (about 10 points on average for the overall score).</p>
<p>There are no doubt unresolved issues with these comparisons. However, in my opinion, for purposes of choosing a college by academic program strength, the PhD production data and the NSSE assessments together comprise a useful counterpoint (at least) to graduate program rankings based on peer assessments or research production. Although, for advanced students ready to assert themselves in seeking out research opportunities, the graduate rankings may also be very useful.</p>
<p>There’s a reason why undergraduate majors in the US are not as often ranked. For the most part, undergraudate education in the US is not subject based but rather LAC model based. Universities tend to have an undergraduate college (similar to a LAC but often bigger) where students are required/encouraged to take courses in a wide range of areas so they receive a comprehensive liberal arts education. A major often means a few additional high level courses in a certain areas, which is why some students can graduate with two majors and three minors/certificates in 4 years. In that sense, for undergradaute education, the rankings of the majors are less relevant. The pre-professional(?) schools such as engineering, business and nursing offered by some universities is another story, and they ARE ranked in the US News.</p>
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<p>However, the quantity and quality of offerings, and their suitability for a given student, in a given major can vary significantly between schools. One school may have extensive offerings in a given major, while another school may have just the minimum offerings, while still another school may have a department that is mainly offering service courses to non-majors.</p>
<p>For example, considering two nearby schools, Emory and Georgia Tech, Emory would be the preferable choice for most humanities and social studies, but Georgia Tech would be the preferable choice for math, computer science, or engineering.</p>
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<p>However, engineering and nursing external accreditation standards often mean a much narrower range of program and curriculum quality in those majors than for many other majors, so employers can be reasonably confident that any graduate of an accredited program can do the job. Business also has external accreditation, but the job market for business majors does seem to be much more school-prestige-based (e.g. both Penn and CSU Bakersfield are AACSB accredited, but recruiting is likely very different for graduates of the two schools).</p>
<p>Bump bump bump</p>