My son’s goal is to get a PhD in Math. He was accepted to RIT and loved it in terms of other students, but isn’t sure if this would be a good place from which to eventually apply to graduate math programs. how does one evaluate that (for RIT or any other school for that matter?)
Most math majors contemplating graduate school prepare with a core array of upper-level courses,
for which you can review catalogs to verify availability at colleges of interest:
Real Analysis
Modern Algebra
Functional Analysis
Complex Analysis
Topology
The availability of a range of appropriate and interesting electives beyond this group would also be desirable, of course.
Irrespective of his college choice, you son may want to pursue an REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) during a summer interval for additional preparation.
https://www.rit.edu/science/sms/courses lists RIT math (and statistics) courses. Looks like a lot of 300/400-level and graduate offerings, although many of them have a more applied emphasis rather than pure math emphasis.
Regarding the courses listed in reply #1:
Modern algebra may also be called abstract algebra.
Logic and set theory is also a common pure math topic.
Numerical analysis is also of interest to both pure and applied math majors.
You may also want to look into the number of students who choose math as a major, both as an absolute figure and as a percentage of the total class. IPEDS can be a good source for this: https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Rochester&s=all&id=195003#programs. As stated above, RITs programs seem to have an applied emphasis. General math, as major, appears not to be offered in a traditionally labeled form.
Agreeing with the others that RIT tends to be more hands on application rather than traditional. You’d have to ask them if any went on to a traditional Math PhD. Don’t suppose you considered their nearby neighbor URoc as they do well with math majors continuing on (at least those I’m familiar with).
What other options does your son have?
thanks to all replies – very helpful!!! So far, his other options are honors program at Boulder and Purdue. but still waiting to hear from a bunch of other schools.
Some schools are very concentrated in Applied Math (Brown is a good example), while others focus on Pure (or Theoretical) Math (Berkeley comes to mind). RIT seems to be much stronger in Applied Math than in Pure Math, which makes sense for a school with a focus on Engineering, and that may or may not be a good thing for your son. My Nephew (an Engineer) just graduated from RIT, really enjoyed it, and had some really amazing internship opportunities (designing a safety system for a Hyperloop pod, mining asteroids, etc.).
Purdue is the best of three to get the STEM education.
Note that many of the applied courses at UCB are in separate departments like statistics, industrial engineering, computer science, economics. A school where some of these are combined into the math department may appear to have a more applied emphasis, whether or not it also has lots of pure math offerings.