<p>any thoughts on princeton vs. harvard physics? math?</p>
<p>Princeton’s math and physics are tops, I think. For some reason, my math/physics son still chose to head over to MIT rather than Princeton-kinda sad since <em>I</em> love Princeton but it made sense for him.</p>
<p>But I digress…Harvard’s math is outstanding and probably on equal footing with Princeton’s, but I think Princeton’s physics is more highly regarded.</p>
<p>Personally, I think Princeton’s math department is the best in the world (and Harvard second). In terms of physics, all three are amazing but they have different strengths. For example, MIT is probably best for condensed matter whereas Princeton is probably tops for particle theory.</p>
<p>I agree with sbjdorlo. Harvard/Princeton math is equal, but physics at Princeton is slightly a notch up, if at all.
There is not really a difference, though, between the two.</p>
<p>Princeton have won Putnam Math competition ONLY ONCE.</p>
<p>The quality of Princeton math students are not that great. </p>
<p>The following table lists Teams with First place finishes (as of 2011[update] competition):</p>
<p>First Place Team (s)
28 Harvard<br>
10 Caltech<br>
6 MIT<br>
4 Toronto, Washington U in StL<br>
3 Brooklyn College, Duke, Michigan State<br>
2 Brooklyn Polytech, Cornell, Waterloo<br>
1 UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Case Western Reserve, Chicago, Princeton, Queen’s</p>
<p>Ah, youpika’s old Princeton-has-bad-math-because-they-don’t-win-Putnam argument. Because Putnam’s the perfect indicator of the strength of a math department.</p>
<p>Consider this: Putnam team placing is done by the sum of the scores of the three students on the school’s team, which must be selected before the test. Carnegie-Mellon and MIT each had three finishers in the top 14 this year, Caltech had two in the top five, but Harvard won despite finishing with only four scorers in the top 81 (behind MIT’s 29, Princeton’s 9, Stanford’s 6, and Carnegie-Mellon’s 5). The hardest part of Putnam isn’t the test; it’s picking the right team ahead of time.</p>
<p>Anyway, Princeton has a first-place finish and five second-place finishes in the past ten years and is fourth all-time in top-five finishes (behind Harvard, MIT, and Caltech).</p>