<p>
</p>
<p>Those are the posted criteria, but it’s all contingent upon scoring well enough on a test they mail to you along with your admissions notification. A classmate of mine in high school also got into CMU, both of us had 5s on the BC exam, but I placed into the third calc class while he had to retake the equivalent of BC at CMU.</p>
<p>Pretty much any college will let you take a high-level course if you can show you are ready for it. This is different from giving you college credit for the class. The advantage of the latter is that if you come in with enough credits, you might be able to graduate early. But the difference won’t affect the actual classes in which you are permitted to enroll. Nobody will force you to take calculus or whatever if you already know it; some students choose to take these courses over again either because they want to solidify their knowledge, or because they are guarding their GPA. Premeds, for instance, often don’t want to take a lot of risks accelerating, because their GPA is so important for med school applications.</p>
<p>If you’re very good at math (or any subject) then it can be a good strategy to look for a school with a strong GRADUATE program in your area of interest. Most colleges will let excellent undergraduates take graduate classes, even though it’s not always obvious from their official policies. At schools like Cornell, that don’t have a big social divide between grad and undergrad students, the most serious undergrads can befriend and learn from grad students who are only a few years older than they are. Sometimes there are great research opportunities as well. </p>
<p>Be aware, though, that in comparison to other undergraduates at top schools, you may not be as advanced as you think. I used to advise freshmen at Princeton, and a lot of kids would show up bent on accelerating wildly, taking way more courses than recommended, or the like. The advisors would generally “talk them down” into a more normal freshman curriculum, maybe just accelerated in one subject. By midterms the freshmen were quite chastened by the difficulty of courses they had imagined would be a breeze, or just review. They hadn’t previously been in an environment where the other students were just as quick on the uptake as they were.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>UCLA is hardly second tier in math. US News ranks its overall math dept. number 8 in the country, its applied math is number 2 in the country, and ARWU ranks UCLA Math in the top 10 for the World. :)</p>
<p>[Rankings</a> - Math - Graduate Schools - Education - US News](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-mathematics-programs/rankings]Rankings”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-mathematics-programs/rankings)</p>
<p>[ARWU</a> SUBJECT 2010 Mathematics](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/SubjectMathematics2010.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/SubjectMathematics2010.jsp)</p>
<p>what about undergraduate? I personally would never want to go to NYU undergraduate, but I would consider it for Graduate school, and love their courant institute, perhaps it’s different for UCLA, hopefully, not xD</p>
<p>I want to thank the three previous posters and everyone else before hand, particularly Silversas for his/her uplifting advice and encouragement, I wish my my english and words could better express my gratitude, but believe me it’s there, and i really appreciate these lengthy comments from some of the world’s most helpful parents and professionals out there.</p>
<p>@Jingle that is something I will take into consideration, I hope I went become a meritocrat though many medical students have much choice and I even heard they’ll take philosophy courses just for the easy grades, that’s not to say the courses are bad or useless…but yeah the point is re-emphasized there, :P</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A smart math student like you should be able to “do the math” to figure this one out: ;)</p>
<p>If a said school has a top ranked graduate department, and if their undergraduates are taught by the very same professors, and if their grad students interact on a daily basis with these same undergraduates, and undergraduates can earn eligibility to take the same graduate courses as the grad students, then is it logical to say that the undergraduate department is of similar ranking?</p>
<p>I did not know that!! 
I always thought they were separate buildings or faculty!! Epic fail!</p>
<p>NYU’s math department is quite good, in fact. I know of several top flight math students who have it on their list. Being an undergrad is very different from being a grad student, but , yes, the faculty teach both, and sometimes both are in the same classes. My son is in some classes now that are actually dual-listed as grad/undergrad. The grad students do additional work.
I would agree with jingle - don’t get too cocky. Sailing through calculus is good, but that doesn’t make you an amazing math student.</p>
<p>You might consider UIUC’s NetMath program if cost isn’t an issue. They have Calc I, II, III, Linear Algebra, Probability and Differential Equations courses and you get UIUC credit for it. The courses are done in Mathematica so you have to learn a bit of programming.</p>
<p>^That’s actually great!! Because I have mathematica and use it, but not for calculus, so would be good to learn, and being a cross between confident and cocky is a fine line, not one I fare too well in, :P</p>