<p>What would be the top ivy colleges for a student interested in pursuing a liberal arts ed with a major in Math? top liberal arts colleges for Math?</p>
<p>All the Ivies would be great, as great as the best option among the LAC’s, Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore.</p>
<p>Here is a ranking of university graduate programs in Mathematics:
[Rankings</a> - Project - 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)
You can assume that the undergraduate programs at these schools also would be exceptional.</p>
<p>Among LACs, consider how many students major in Math (and physical sciences), and how many graduates go on to earn PhDs in Mathematics. Top schools include Harvey Mudd, Reed, Pomona, and Swarthmore. Williams also is often cited as having an exceptional Math program. You can look up the number of Math majors in each school’s Common Data Set file (Google for it). PhD production: [COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College”>http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html</a>).</p>
<p>Among schools that are a bit less selective, consider St. Olaf.</p>
<p>PhD productivity from a more extensive previous listing by interesteddad
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1408643-post6.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1408643-post6.html</a></p>
<p>1 California Institute of Technology 27.2
2 Harvey Mudd College 18.7
3 Reed College 13.5
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 9.3
5 University of Chicago 7.6
6 Harvard University 7.5
7 Pomona College 6.7
8 St Olaf College 6.5
9 Rice University 6.1
10 Princeton University 5.9
11 Grinnell College 5.9
12 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 5.4
13 Swarthmore College 4.4
14 Bryn Mawr College 4.2
15 Brown University 4.1
16 Yale University 3.9
17 Carleton College 3.7
18 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology 3.7
19 St John’s College (both campus) 3.7
20 Haverford College 3.6
21 Concordia Teachers College 3.4
22 Williams College 3.3
23 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 3.3
24 Albertson College 3.2
25 Knox College 3.2
26 Whitman College 3.1
27 Kalamazoo College 3.1
28 Carnegie Mellon University 3.1
29 Stevens Institute of Technology 3.0
30 Hendrix College 2.9
31 Stanford University 2.9
32 Amherst College 2.9
33 College of Wooster 2.9
34 Oberlin College 2.7
35 Agnes Scott College 2.6
36 Cooper Union 2.6 </p>
<p>Among LACs, certainly agree with Williams, Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd, Pomona and Reed. St. Olaf, as mentioned, although a less selective school, has a very deep and strong math program. Amherst is not a school that comes to mind in the field - only about 2% of the small student body majors in math or CS. Compare that to Carleton, Grinnell, or Haverford at around 8% or so - schools that should be added to those already listed.</p>
<p>Among the Ivys, all will be very strong at the undergrad level. Dartmouth is clearly a weaker sibling at the graduate level. Princeton is the historical shining star. Outside of the Ivys, departments at MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Chicago, Northwestern, Berkeley, etc. are of equal (or better) quality.</p>
<p>~4% of Wesleyan students major in Math or computer science, plus they can take graduate level courses: <a href=“http://www.wesleyan.edu/ir/cds/cds2009-10.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/ir/cds/cds2009-10.pdf</a></p>
<p>This also depends on how advanced the student is and what, if any, field of math is of greatest interest. Also, look at the number of students in the field, the availability of graduate courses and the double major options. Among the Ivies,historically, Princeton is the best known for math, particularly theory. Among the LACs, Harvey Mudd, St. Olaf’s, and Carleton come to mind. But there are a lot of great schools for math outside of this - obviously, MIT, Stanford, CMU, UChicago and CalTech.</p>