<p>By the way, I actually went to the first couple training sessions. That coach (Carl Bender) was amazing and very funny.</p>
<p>For Eplayer and other domers -</p>
<p>Uhhh, ND is widely regarded as the 4th or maybe 5th best school in the Midwest - so take the looney talk elsewhere.</p>
<p>Yes, I was thinking about the Putnam. I don't remember NU and Duke's math rankings.</p>
<p>Sam Lee, you are highly underestimating how difficult the Putnam is. If you win, you get an automatic scholarship to Harvard graduate school in math. I knew a Harvard math professor that talked about the Putnam top 50 people as totally being above his level. It's not really a coachable contest unless you are already at an extremely high level.</p>
<p>Calculus has pretty much nothing to do with it. It helps if you pretty much know most of the undergraduate mathematics curriculum (especially number theory) before you get to college. The test basically draws on every theoretical subject you might take in college. The people who win are typically the same people that make MOP in high school (top 50 in country who make U.S. Olympic team tryouts after AMC, AIME, and USAMO tests).</p>
<p>"shellzie2006, if you're so confident with your choice, why do you mention in basically every single post that you chose Notre Dame over Dartmouth and Amherst"</p>
<p>The fact that I share that information with people has nothing to do with my being confident with my choice or not. It just happens to reflect the fact that I made my college choice on something other than the rankings. Amherst and Dartmouth are both ranked higher than Notre Dame by USNWR, but in the end, I fell in love with Notre Dame and decided it would be a better choice for me academically and socially. It was a tough decision, and I had a hard time turning the other schools down, but I don't regret my decision. I think it's helpful to other people making similar decisions to be reminded that the rankings aren't all that matters.</p>
<p>collegealum314,</p>
<p>Duke and NU are both ranked 21st in math.</p>
<p>I didn't totally underestimate. I went to practice sessions and I actually tried it out. I think you are confused with what Putnam exam really is. The Harvard professor you mentioned was referring to their IQs, not how much math they'd taken. If you look at the solutions, they are actually very comprehensible. They are "clever". You sure need high IQ but you also need great coaching and training. Most people who participate in IMO (US or foreign teams) usually go to HPMS, not Duke/WashU (I read Chinese newspaper which likes to mention this sort of things everytime Olympiads results come out). But Duke has a great training program which closes the gap. My point is if you mean Duke has few more talented people in math, then I can give you that (as Duke is slightly more selective). But it has very little, if any, to do with appeal of Duke's math department. </p>
<p>Like you said, even the Harvard professor found the test difficult (not because he hasn't taken enough math but because he's not "clever" enough). So most universities just don't have people who can solve just about any of them and are willing to volunteer their time to coach. </p>
<p>China has done extremely well in IMO (pretty much either 1st or 2nd and most of the time 1st). But the kind of training is unmatched. They have training camp every year for it.</p>
<p>"The Harvard professor you mentioned was referring to their IQs, not how much math they'd taken. "</p>
<p>I know. I'm just saying that you probably need to have covered the material typically presented in the undergraduate math curriculum before you can do well. I don't think the sort of training you do for it (i.e., contest math camps) is really that useful until you've gone through the main college textbooks thoroughly either by taking college math classes or working through them yourself. Some people think that going over some math tricks in an hour-a-week seminar can make someone into a Putnam fellow. </p>
<p>I never bothered to take the Putnam because I never really did that well on the AIME and didn't have time to take any theoretical math classes in college so I figured there would be no point.</p>
<p>Not that's not true. A lot of contestants aren't even math majors. Also, the coach at WashU was a physics, not math, professor. He taught the freshman Physics and he TOLD us specificly we didn't need anything beyond first year Calculus. Like I said, I'd been to the training sessions. The solution made you feel dumb..lol..but they were elegant and readily understood (the "simple" ones were the one that made you feel stupid or "hindsight is 20/20"--like "why I didn't see it?") without involving any advanced theories.</p>
<p>Wow who in the hell said that Notre Dame was the fourth or fifth best school in the Midwest? You must be talking graduate schools...</p>
<p>In undergraduate (Notre Dame's main focus), there's no way that ND is worse than any school other than (possibly) Northwestern. Talk about uninformed and unenlightened.</p>
<p>ND would be behind NU, UChicago, and Carleton. Other possibilties are UM and Grinnell.</p>
<p>But those first 3 are widely considered superior, from an educational perspective at least. Talk about uninformed. Way to look past schools that aren't athletically there(thinking that is why you like ND).</p>
<p>Id say that Wash U and Michigan are also as good or better than ND</p>
<p>EPlayer007, Clearly you prefer Notre Dame over NU and that is why you are going there. </p>
<p>Since you have already decided to Go Irish (and it's a great choice for you, congratulations!), why not spend your time on tne Notre Dame website being excited with your future classmates and let the rest of us rejoice in our own decisions?</p>
<p>They are both fine schools for different reasons. You made your choice, I and others on the NU site made ours. We all chose what was best for ourselves.</p>
<p>When you come onto the NU site and denigrate the school, you are going to get harsh responses from those of us who worked long and hard to get accepted here and are very jazzed about attending.</p>
<p>Give it a rest, will ya? Please go play in your own backyard.</p>
<p>^^^ agreed...thats what ive been telling him all along</p>
<p>OK...I'll admit I spoke too soon.</p>
<p>UChicago is better than ND academically, WashU-St.Louis is if you consider that in the Midwest, and for Northwestern, a case can be made. It's not clearly superior in any way, save for grad schools, which I don't believe we are talking about. In no way can you say Carleton is clearly better than Notre Dame, that's an absolute outrage. As for Michigan...once again, grad schools are better, but I'd put ND's undergrad program on the same level as any other in the Midwest, with the possible exception of UChicago.</p>
<p>And by the way...Wintersilk seems to be the only fully rational person I've encountered yet.</p>
<p>And I don't feel like just going to the ND chatrooms and talking in there. I don't mind taking on competition or people who have opposing viewpoints.</p>
<p>you clearly have no idea what you're talking about</p>
<p>EPlayer007, See, the problem here is that while YOU don't mind taking on competition or people who have opposing viewpoints, it is tiresome and irritating for those of us on the receiving end of your relentless blasts. </p>
<p>When you bash our chosen university, you put some of us on the defensive. It would be like me unfairly and unsolicitiously criticizing the new car you just bought and worked 8 hard years to save for and love and cannot wait to drive! Further, and in its simplest form, it's just bad manners!</p>
<p>I haven't checked the ND website, but I doubt anyone from NU is going on there and criticizing or diminishing the quality of the school that YOU have chosen for yourself and for which you have a lot of enthusiasm and spirit. I certainly would never want to take those joyful feelings away from you.</p>
<p>NU is not an easy school to get in to - and I worked my a$$ off to get into it as my #1 choice. I read your posts and feel like I need to, only out of loyalty and pride, defend a wonderful top tier school that is the perfect place for me.</p>
<p>YOU may be having a good time and YOU may enjoy the dynamics of debate, but you are getting a lot of feedback here that indicates that YOU are the only one having a good time. </p>
<p>Please, do us a favor and get to know some of your future classmates, even if you don't feel like it. It will be great for you to make some new connections before classes start and the rest of us can resume our enthusiasm without being side tracked by your negativity and this compulsion you seem to have to blacken the reputation of Northwestern University, one of the top universities in the country.</p>
<p>If you truly think I'm rational, you will stop doing what you are doing. You are the only person having fun and this can't be all about YOU. Didn't your mother teach you that you don't ever have the right to ruin someone else's good time? It's a good lesson better learned now than never.</p>
<p>This will be the last time I read anything you write and I will not post on this particular topic again. I hope you will read to listen and understand and maybe even learn something about human dynamics and the art of constructive communication.</p>
<p>If this continues, I'm going to assume that, in reality, you are a Wildcat Wanna-Be and the only way you can feel good about going to Notre Dame is to continue to tear NU down.</p>
<p>Good luck. Go Irish.</p>
<p>I got off the NU waitlist...</p>
<p>NU over</p>
<p>NYU stern scholars (where I sent my deposit)
Notre Dame
Lehigh Scholars</p>
<p>Awesome list. Congratulations, suppasonic!</p>
<p>i havent started applying because im still a junior but i was just reading this thread and i noticed Eplayer's comments.
i dont see how NU has to make a case to be considered academically better than ND? "Academcially" NU is considered better, no case need to be made there; in sports ND prevails but not in academics. at least that's the way my friends and i generally understand as juniors currently doing college researches. In fact NU is perceived as more prestigious than Wash U too! seriously i'm telling you, i live in the midwest too!</p>
<p>^^ we know that, everyone knows that, he has no idea what he's talking about.</p>