<p>I prefer umich and decide to go to graduate school in the future, but all my relatives advise me to go to Brown. They think Brown is more famous and it can provide better quality of education. Now I do not know which one to choose.</p>
<p>My son is just finishing his freshman year at Michigan and is studying math. He is taking a theoretical math series (295,296,395,396) which is very demanding, but he loves. Upon completion of this series, he will be able to take graduate level math classes. In the fall, 295 started out with about 45 students, at the end of 296 they were down to 17. This series is taught by full professors.</p>
<p>While I don't think that rankings are all that important, that can be one piece in the puzzle. Here are some rankings I found on CC:</p>
<p>MATHEMATICS (USNWR)
1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.0
2. Harvard University (MA) 4.9
2. Princeton University (NJ) 4.9
2. Stanford University (CA) 4.9
2. University of California–Berkeley 4.9
6. University of Chicago 4.8
7. California Institute of Technology 4.6
7. New York University 4.6
7. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor 4.6
7. Yale University (CT) 4.6
11. Columbia University (NY) 4.5
12. Cornell University (NY) 4.4
12. University of California–Los Angeles 4.4
14. University of Wisconsin–Madison 4.3
15. Brown University (RI) 4.2
15. University of Texas–Austin 4.2
17. University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign 4.1
17. University of Minnesota–Twin Cities 4.1
17. University of Pennsylvania 4.1
20. University of Maryland–College Park 4.0</p>
<p>Many people don't even know that Brown is in the Ivy League. Go to Michigan COS because that's where you want to go. You're the one who has to study, live, and learn for the next four years. You'll enjoy your college experience much more and be the P.A. rates of Michigan are quite a bit higher than Brown. These are the people that know the programs better than anyone and are the same people that chose candidates for grad schools.</p>
<p>Cos, academically and reputationally, Michigan and Brown are roughly equal. Brown is smaller and will admitedly be more intimate, but Mathematics at Michigan is a pretty small program, so you will get all the attention you could want. In terms of quality of department, Michigan and Brown are roughly equal, but the edge goes to Michigan, particularly in Pue Math. Brown is amazing in Applied Math, but not quite as good in Pure Math.</p>
<p>If you prefer Michigan, go for it.</p>
<p>some considerations...
for graduate school opportunities, both schools will open doors--though brown may carry an edge at more elitist programs like harvard</p>
<p>you peer groups will be academically stronger at brown and therefore layman's prestige is stronger at brown</p>
<p>in the event you decide to take a job after college, brown will have an edge as well</p>
<p>I do not understand how people get so divided in their choice of colleges. I think often times it is an open and shut case. If you like one school over another, then you should choose that school. It is that simple. However, in certain scenarios prestige does take into account. You have to weight the college experience against getting a job or getting into a good graduate school. You have to weigh expenses. It become complicated because of these factors and it is just unfortunate. It should always be about where the student will have the best time. This does not mean just fun; it means how the academic experiences is, how the weather is, and anything else that affects the quality of life. </p>
<p>In this case, though, I think Michigan is the right choice if you truly prefer it. What don't you like about Brown? I mean think about having an Ivy League experience versus a Division I state school experience. Think about the networking that you would get at Brown that you may not get at Michigan. I don't know if your plans are grad school or like business or whatever. I think that if it is graduate school, all you need to do is be successful.</p>
<p>dcircle, you are wrong in all three cases. According to academe (including Harvard graduate school adcoms), Michigan and Brown are peers. Academe awards Brown undergad a rating of 4.4/5.0 and Michigan undergrad a rating of 4.5/5.0.</p>
<p>The mean SAT score of Honors students at Michigan is 1460 (in one sitting), which is pretty much the same as the average SAT at Brown, which is 1430 (superscored). </p>
<p>Michigan professional placement is on par with Brown's. The same companies recruit just as hard on both campuses.</p>
<p>I totally agree with Alexandre on the peer group issue. Son's fellow students in this Math program are a pretty amazing bunch.</p>
<p>With an average graduating class of 25-30, Math majors have incredible access to its incredible faculty.</p>
<p>Alexandre, that seemed a little small to me so I went to the UM Math website and there is a pdf file of this year's graduates. It's more like 130, which is still very small relative to the size of the university.</p>
<p>Actually, last year, 62 students were awarded undergraduate degrees in Mathematics. </p>
<p>i was speaking from my own experience as a harvard graduate student. brown (and other ivy league schools) are disproportionately represented here relative to schools such as Michigan. While the graduate math departments at both places may be comparable, the perceived quality of the average undergraduate is different--hence the edge in the grad admissions process.</p>
<p>i've got nothing against Michigan which is a great school. those from Michigan undergrad are certainly no less qualified or intelligent than those from "fancier" schools--i'm merely commenting on my experience of how things work here and at other elites</p>
<p>dcircle, I am not surprised that at Ivy League PhD programs, there is a disproportionate number of Ivy League alums. That is to be expected. But there are top PhD programs other than the Ivies. I am sure that at some of them, like Cal, Chicago, Michigan, NYU, perhaps even MIT and Stanford, Michigan undergrads outnumber Brown students by quite some margin. I obviously do not have statistics, but from what I have seen with Economics and POhysics placement into top graduate programs, Michigan students do pretty well. Try to rememebr that recommendations go a long way and most Michigan faculty are connected to faculty at other top graduate programs, making their recommendations quite effective.</p>
<p>There's usually around 100 people getting math degrees each year, but you have to remember that this includes pure math, actuarial math, mathematical biology, other mathematical sciences, general applied math, along with people who have a different primary major (physics/econ) who might not be dedicated math students. There's a fairly small number of people who end up making it far in pure math.</p>
<p>Michigan and Brown aren't really comparable for pure math, Michigan is decidedly better. If you look at the US News rankings, Michigan is ranked in the top 10 for 4 of the pure math sub-fields (T-4 in discrete math/combinatorics, 4 in algebra/number theory/algebraic geometry which encompasses most of current pure math research, 9 in analysis, T-10 in geometry). Brown only makes the top 10 in applied mathematics. Also, if you look at other rankings, Michigan is consistently in the top 10, and Brown is always 14-20, I'd imagine largely on the strength of their applied math program and somewhat their omgivyleague name. Technically this is the graduate program, but that directly effects what kind of upper level classes you can take later on, the quality of professors you'll be getting recommendations from, and the breadth of research you'll be able to do while an undergraduate. Michigan has an REU program for undergraduates in the summer, whereas Brown does not. Michigan also has the Honors program where you get to skip worthless classes like calc III and differential equations, finish basic "undergraduate" mathematics (and more) in two years, and then have free range to take any graduate class you want.</p>
<p>As far as placement, most of the people I did the honors math sequence are graduating this year: One NSF Fellow going to Princeton for math (ranked #1), NSF honorable mention going to Columbia for math, NSF honorable mention going to NYU for applied math (#1), Berkeley for Geoscience, Harvard for Econ (T-4), Princeton for Econ (T-4), Purdue for math, UIUC for condensed matter (#1). The year before that, I know of people who went to Harvard, Stanford, and Chicago for math. I'd say that's not too bad.</p>
<p>dcircle,
Just curious. Of the 54 graduate students in Harvard Math, how many are from Brown/Dartmouth/Penn/Cornell and how many from Michigan?</p>
<p>That might be hard because it's not listed on their webpage, and very few students have webpages, and even many of them that do make no reference to undergrad institution. Nobody with a webpage/that I randomly decided to search for online went to Brown/Dartmouth/Penn/Cornell/Michigan. There is at least the one person I know from Michigan, and I recognized somebody else who apparently did their undergrad at Michigan State.</p>
<p>And there is a girl who did her undergrad in Yugoslavia and another one who did his at MIT. One must remember that each of the major PhD programs accept 8-12 candidates each year, so there can't be more than 8-12 institutions represented in each class.</p>
<p>dcircle is an alum (post #12). He may be able to tell us the distribution of his class while he was a grad student there.</p>
<p>For the current class, there are at least two from Michigan, a couple from Chicago and quite a few from MIT.</p>
<p>I also know that at least 2 did their undergraduate studies in my wife's native Serbia and several others did their undergraduate studies in Eastern Europe and Asia.</p>
<p>I was also looking at the few availlable profiles of PhD students at Princeton's math department. One went to Cal, one to Caltech, one did his undergraduate studies in Italy and one in Greece. </p>
<p>So far, I have seen no evidence that students from the Ivy League are given priority, even at Ivy League graduate programs. I would not be surprised if many did in fact attend Harvard and Princeton for undergrad, but I doubt that Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Darmtouth or Penn are any more effective at placing their students into top graduate programs.</p>
<p>Actually, the link you gave me shows 97 undergraduate Math degrees in 2006-2007, and it's way up this year.</p>
<p>The number in the link shows 136, and that's just for spring commencement.</p>
<p>But as dilksy indicated, this is all sub-disciplines of math. It looks like the pure math group ends up being 15-20 year, which provides ample opportunity for interaction with this top rate faculty.</p>