State School Math

College Majors
1

<p>What are the better math programs among state schools? The only two I'm already interested in applying to are Texas-Austin and Penn State.</p>

2

<p>Not sure, I would be curious to find this out as well.</p>

3

<p>Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, and Wisconsin-Madison have excellent graduate programs in math, so I would assume that their undergraduate programs are decent as well.</p>

4

<p>Berkeley and UCLA aren’t state schools, per se.</p>

5

<p>They are public universities.</p>

6

<p>How aren’t they state schools?</p>

7

<p>Penn State, Univ of MD, Berkeley, Univ of Michigan.</p>

8

<p>By most people’s definitions, they would be since they’re public schools, but we make a distinction between the University of California system and the California State University system. Just a nitpick, I guess. I just hate it when people confuse my school with San Diego State.</p>

9

<p>In addition to ManOfFaith’s comment, one good example is:</p>

<p>UCLA–University of California: Los Angeles. (Top National public university which offers Ph.D level programs).
California State University of Los Angeles is a state school at CA. (Master degree is highest)</p>

10

<p>I would have to say Texas in Austin. It was my top state school for math…
That’s what I want to major in also :)</p>

11

<p>ManOfFaith and kevin101:</p>

<p>I realize that California has several public university systems, but in this context both of them would be state schools (as we are just talking about public universities), wouldn’t they? Or would you also not consider the University of New Hampshire or the University of Michigan state schools because they don’t carry the word “state” in the name?</p>

12

<p>There was another poster who kept insisting that Penn State wasn’t a state school because it isnt part of the Pennsylvania State system. I think we can all agree that schools which receive support from their support and charge in-state (and certain reciprocal residents) lower tuition are state schools for our purposes.</p>

13

<p>Well, in California, they seperate the 2 public university systems into 2 levels:</p>

<p>National level: University of California (10 of them, top well known are Berkeley, LA, San Diego, Irvine … these are not only offering Ph.D but also professional degree like medicine) and in CA, we do not refer them as state schools. </p>

<p>State level: California State university of (23 of them, again, Master degree is highest)</p>

<h2>In addition, both system also rely on CA governmental funding. </h2>

<p>If you still think UC systems are CA state schools:</p>

<p>I highly recommend these 2 UCs:

  1. UCLA
    Some news: “For 2006 and 2008, the department’s logic group has maintained its number two spot in the U.S. News & World Report best graduate program rankings.” from <a href=“http://www.math.ucla.edu/info/news.shtml[/url]”>http://www.math.ucla.edu/info/news.shtml&lt;/a&gt; ; and Terrance Tao is a math genius! In summary, UCLA math department is well known nationally and internationally.
  2. UC Berkeley
    Almost on all top 5 lists in almost all disciplines in math.</p>

<p>Check out the ranking here:
<a href=“http://admissionsync.com/2008/07/12/us-news-mathematics-speciality-rankings-2009/[/url]”>http://admissionsync.com/2008/07/12/us-news-mathematics-speciality-rankings-2009/&lt;/a&gt;
(note: to avoid silly argument over whether ranking is reliable or not; you have your own way of seeing it. Some find them useful and some do not.)</p>

<p>**Math Speciality Rankings: Algebra/Number Theory/Algebraic Geometry **
1 Princeton University, NJ
2 Harvard University, MA
**3 University of California–Berkeley, CA **
4 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI
5 University of Chicago Chicago,IL
6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA
7 Yale University New Haven, CT
8 Columbia University New York, NY
9 Stanford University Stanford, CA
10 University of California–Los Angeles, CA</p>

<p>**Math Speciality Rankings: Applied Math **
1 New York University-New York, NY
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology,Cambridge, MA
3 California Institute of Technology,Pasadena, CA
** University of California–Los Angeles,Los Angeles, CA **
5 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities,Minneapolis, MN
6 Brown University-Providence, RI
7 Princeton University-Princeton, NJ
** University of California–Berkeley,CA **
9 Stanford University,CA
University of Texas–Austin,TX </p>

<p>**Math Speciality Rankings: Geometry **
1 Harvard University,MA
2 Princeton University, NJ
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology,MA<br>
Stanford University,CA
** University of California–Berkeley, CA **
6 SUNY–Stony Brook, NY
7 Columbia University, NY
8 University of Pennsylvania, PA
9 University of Chicago,IL
10 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, MI
Yale University New Haven, CT</p>

<p>**Math Speciality Rankings: Analysis **
1 Princeton University, NJ
**2 University of California–Berkeley, CA **
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA
**4 University of California–Los Angeles, CA **
5 New York University, NY
6 University of Chicago, IL
7 Harvard University, MA
University of Wisconsin–Madison, WI
9 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, MI
10 University of Texas–Austin, TX </p>

<p>**Math Speciality Rankings: Discrete Mathematics and Combinatorics **
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA
2 Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey–New Brunswick, NJ
** University of California–Berkeley, CA **
**4 University of California–San Diego, CA **
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, MI
6 Princeton University,NJ
7 Georgia Institute of Technology,GA
**8 University of California–Los Angeles,CA **
9 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign,IL
10 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, MN </p>

<p>**Math Speciality Rankings: Logic **
**1 University of California–Berkeley,CA **
**2 University of California–Los Angeles,CA **
3 University of Wisconsin–Madison,WI
4 Cornell University, NY
University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign,IL
6 Carnegie Mellon University,PA
Stanford University,CA
University of Chicago,IL</p>

<p>**Math Speciality Rankings: Topology **
**1 University of California–Berkeley,CA **
2 Princeton University,NJ
3 Harvard University, MA
4 University of Chicago,IL
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology,MA
6 Columbia University,NY
7 University of Texas–Austin,TX
8 Stanford University, CA
9 Yale University, CT
10 Cornell University, NY
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, MI </p>

<p>Math Speciality Rankings: Statistics
1 Stanford University, CA
** University of California–Berkeley, CA **
3 University of North Carolina–Chapel Hilll, NC
4 Harvard University, MA
5 Iowa State University, IA
6 Duke University, NC
University of Chicago, IL
University of Washington, WA</p>

14

<p>Stop freaking out. When someone says “state school”, they mean “school run by the state government”. Everybody knows about the UC’s and how great they are.
UMich and Mich State
UCB and CSU Long Beach
UVa and VA Tech
All of these are state schools. </p>

<p>Now if you go to UPenn and someone calls your college a “state school”, you can freak out.</p>

15

<p>Seems like a debate of denotation vs. connotation. Yes, for our purposes, the UC’s are state schools because I’m assuming the OP doesn’t want to pay private school tuition.</p>

16

<p>Don’t get me wrong, i’m not debating anything here, just giving out some opinions. From different definition of state schools, we might see differently. </p>

<p>Anyways, what is more important is recommending some best state schools to the OP and that is what I have done pulling out all the relevant ranking for the OP. </p>

<p>Everyone of us here, in my opinion, is busy with school or work and we come together here to help out other students regarding school and we should keep this helping attitude, not the debating attidude.</p>

17

<p>Thanks for the responses, guys, I appreciate it. Yeah, I wasn’t thinking of the CSU schools, my apologies. Specifically, I was referring to state schools as in the ones that have cheaper instate tuition. I’ve been looking into Berkeley a lot now. I hear about all these incredible math students that go to these top programs. Am I badly prepared for one of the top math programs if I’m not like one of them? I’m still pretty good at math (taking Calc AB at the moment), but not incredible.</p>

18

<p>Your preparation for a math major is fine. It is just very easy to get lost in the crowd at a top program if you are a good-but-not-outstanding math major. (That applies to all majors, really.)</p>

19

<p>I’m perfectly happy with not being the best, as long as I don’t fall behind :)</p>