<p>We're starting (a little early and from scratch) a search for schools east of the Mississippi with very strong math departments. At this stage, S is open to large or small (though under 6000 is preferred) and has no strong feelings on urban v. rural. We've got a good bit of research ahead of us, but I thought preliminarily I'd touch base on CC for some recommendations.</p>
<p>Some of the top schools for math:
Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Chicago, Yale, Columbia, Duke (gives generous merit aid to entice potential Putnam winners).
Among LACs, Williams, Swarthmore.
State Us: UMich, UW-Madison.
West Coast: Berkeley, Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Stanford.</p>
<p>Marite - What a nice, concise, complete list! While I agree you named all of the top programs, my S also talked to professors at Cornell and Brown and felt that they had good departments as well. Brown's department is stronger in applied math and both have graduate courses if you run out of undergraduate ones.</p>
<p>Cookiemom:</p>
<p>Yes, I definitely should have included both. What a lapse on my part! S visited Brown and loved it (but prefers his math pure) and he has a good math friend at Cornell. So I should have remembered both. </p>
<p>btw, S says last week he heard a talk by John Conway, while Noam Elkies went to Princeton to give a talk. It must be a well-trodden path between the two schools :)</p>
<p>Any thoughts on how the math departments of Carleton and Pomona compare to those of Williams and Swarthmore? We're interested not only in comparisons of strength of the departments but also whether their focuses (foci?) are also on pure math, as opposed to applied. Thanks.</p>
<p>A friend of my son's who is a very strong math kid ended up at Pomona and really likes it. He can take math classes at either Pomona or Harvey Mudd. I don't know about pure vs. applied.</p>
<p>I think Tokenadult is up on Carlton. Hopefully he'll respond.</p>
<p>Schoolmarm-- a strong HS math kid may well end up studying something highly quant but not pure math, so pay some attention to the other related programs as well as the math department. Kids in HS really don't know what mechanical engineering is, or bio-informatics, or even macro-economics, or any one of two dozen disciplines that are math related but not math.... so it's good to do early homework to identify strong quant schools, but your kid may well end up in a different place from where you think s/he will be. Part of the fun in college is taking the random course and loving the discipline, so you and your kid should have fun looking at course catalogues from different schools to see all the wild and crazy places math kids end up.</p>
<p>schoolmarm...as the above posters have pointed out, it's hard to go wrong at the undergraduate level. my s went through the same thing a couple of years ago and was told by an nyu prof that he knows that it just doesn't matter at this point. if you want to be a mathmematician, he said, you'll have to go to graduate school. as blossom points out, there are many other considerations.....look for the best overall fit.</p>
<p>All points well taken. At the undergraduate level, there will be courses in applied as well as in pure math, no matter what the strength of individual departments at the graduate level. As well, many math majors end up in different fields, such as economics, so, unless a student is absolutely certain of being a math major, other issues should be considered as well.
Only for a small number of students who will need to access graduate courses would the offerings and strengths of individual departments be a real consideration. </p>
<p>Carleton and Colby have a good reputation for math among LACs.</p>
<p>I agree with nycdad. I think it's more important to evaluate the school in terms of fit, cost, location, size, selectivity etc before focusing on a particular department. At the undergraduate level, there is a set of courses that everyone must take, and specialization doesn't usually occur before the graduate level. Also, many students change majors several times. The exception would be for specific majors that are not generally available at most schools or advanced students who are likely to need graduate level courses as undergraduates i.e. Marite's son.</p>
<p>Sorry, Marite -- I seem to have cross-posted with you!</p>
<p>Being one who believes that post grad outcomes are worth consideration in evaluating undergrad programs here are 2 top ten lists of undergrad colleges in the production of PhD's. Drumroll please.</p>
<p>LAC's 1. St Olaf, 2. Reed 3. Oberlin 4. Pomona 5. Carleton 6. Bryn Mawr 7. Bucknell 8. Grinnell 9. Williams 10. Swarthmore</p>
<p>Universities(private only) 1. Harvard 2. MIT 3. Chicago 4. Cal Tech 5. Princeton 6. Rice 7. Yale 8. Cornell 9. Rensselaer 10. Stanford and 11. Brown</p>
<p>I have to say St Olaf is a surprise. Anyone have information about why their math program seems so excellent??</p>
<p>originaloog--my S applied to St. Olaf two years ago and says that the leading expert on knot theory is there. I myself don't have the slightest idea what that means, though . . . </p>
<p>I want my daughter who has a math/science aptitude, but would not do well in one of the more intense math/science schools, (IMO) to consider St. Olaf and Grinnell--because if she does decide to do math/science, I feel she'll get more attention at a school like that and would be more likely to be successful, I think. St. Olaf has quite a few more math majors than Grinnell. </p>
<p>When he was applying to schools, S sent a computer prog he wrote to St. Olaf and a few others. St. Olaf sent a note back with a complimentary message--the only school to acknowledge that someone actually took a look at it. S is at Chicago, though. sigh . . . He has decided now that he is probably not going to major in math, though. He says his physics classes at Chicago are more fun.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the input. sjmom, blossom, et al.: I guess I should have included in my original post the fact that my D just started her freshman year at a small LAC so I've recently been down this path (including visiting a number of the schools recommended in this thread) - just not with a kid with a passion for math.</p>
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I think Tokenadult is up on Carlton.
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</p>
<p>Carleton college is a family alma mater and is near enough to where I live that I have been in its library's collection of math books from time to time. But I don't have a strong sense of how it compares to other LACs as a place to study math even though I am acquainted with two Carleton math professors. It is certainly, definitely not bad, and I think it is quite good, but I have no idea how people who know both departments compare Carleton to, say, Williams. </p>
<p>St. Olaf, the other LAC in Northfield, MN (and also a family alma mater) has an indisputably good math department that actually gets more press than does Carleton's--perhaps because it stands out more in the school of which it is a part. A representative of St. Olaf at the Colleges That Change Lives road show said that St. Olaf graduates more math majors than any other LAC--which I find quite a credible claim. </p>
<p>Precisely because St. Olaf and Carleton are family alma mater schools for my family, I have kind of a "been there, done that" feeling about them. And because my son is already taking university calculus at age thirteen, we will probably be looking for a school with a graduate math department when my oldest applies to college (perhaps for a computer science degree, perhaps for something else). But to the best of my knowledge, both Carleton and St. Olaf would be good choices for a math-liking student who desires the LAC experience.</p>
<p>My son was recently looking at the 2005-6 course schedule for Williams. If I recall correctly, he told me well over half of the upper level math courses listed in the catalog are not being offered this year. He was disappointed. </p>
<p>I don't know how common this is at colleges, but it is something to look into and consider.</p>
<p>Knot theory is a lesser-known branch of math that can be quite fun (S did a class on this topic in his math enrichment program):
<a href="http://mathworld.wolfram.com/topics/GeneralKnotTheory.html%5B/url%5D">http://mathworld.wolfram.com/topics/GeneralKnotTheory.html</a></p>
<p>We also looked into the Williams offerings when S was considering colleges., and into the math departments of schools of similar size of slightly larger and came to the conclusion that they would not suit S's needs.</p>
<p>For the student who enters college having taken AP-Calc, the alternate years offerings may not be a problem, as a student probably only has to take 8-10 courses in the major to graduate. Many colleges indeed offer math courses only in alternate years in order to make it possible for a small faculty to offer a wider range of courses. But for students who have advanced well past AP-Calc and already know they want to specialize in one math subfield or another, this may be a real problem--which is why they are attracted to mid-sized or large universities with larger math departments and more offerings at the advanced level every year.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is that the universities with strong graduate departments such as Harvard, MIT, and Princeton are not for the faint of heart. They attract a lot of students from all over the world that have advanced well past AP calculus in high school and have very high math aptitude. If you're one of these kids you'll love being surrounded by kids much smarter than you and you'll love the academic challenge. If you are just interested in math, but don't live and breathe it, you may feel lost in one of the high powered departments. A LAC may provide a better fit.</p>
<p>Marite - How's your S liking Harvard now that he's a full time student? My S is loving Princeton. He said he's taking the first hard math class he ever had in his life and is asking others for help for the first time. His roommate is taking Conway's class Analysis in a Single Variable and says he gives great lectures, but they don't have a text book. He loves Physics as well and keeps saying it's going to be hard to choose.</p>
<p>By the way, my S's current professor went to a state school undergrad and is a Fields Medal recipient.</p>
<p>Cookiemom:</p>
<p>S is also loving it at Harvard. His class is full of kids who live and breathe math. as you suggested happens in strong departments He thinks the prof is fun!
He's also taking a physics class which he thought a bit dull at the beginning (he knew a great deal of the stuff already) but now that it has moved on to another topic, he's enjoying it more.<br>
He is reveling in the total college experience. Last Sunday, he announced that he and his suitemates had cleaned out the common room and it now smells a lot better. And no one, apparently, nagged them into it. They just discovered the joys of recycling!</p>
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Last Sunday, he announced that he and his suitemates had cleaned out the common room and it now smells a lot better.
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lol. does this come under the category of: more information about their lives than we want to know?</p>
<p>As the mother of a kid who was advanced in math, but never lived and breathed it, I have mixed feelings about this issue of being nutured in math vs going where the superstars are. He went in thinking about math or physics or philosophy as possible majors, now is drifting towards math-economics, and is really enjoying statistics. On the one hand, I think he might have stuck with pure math or physics longer some place else. On the other, was it a bad thing for him to realize early in his college career that there really are people who live and breathe both physics and math and that he will never be one of them? I'd be interested in other opinions on this.</p>
<p>For kids who will go on to graduate programs in math, besides the issue of being able to take graduate level classes, there is the one of being able to be involved in research as an undergrad.</p>