<p>I'm going into my senior year, and I'm very interested in becoming a math major. I test well, and I'm involved in many extracurriculars, so I believe that any college would be within reach for me (meaning - I'm not going to get in everywhere, but I'll get in somewhere.) With that said, what colleges offer top notch Mathematics programs for undergraduates? Yes, I've heard that, as an undergraduate, it's all the same... you'll be given second priority to grad students, and all of that, but I'd still like to hear some opinions. I know that Princeton has historically been a (if not the) leading school in the United States for pure math, but how about some others? Names that I've already heard are Harvard and MIT, but are there any schools that I'm missing?</p>
<p>Per Capita Undergrad Production of PhDs and Doctoral Degrees </p>
<p>Academic field: Math and Computer Science<br>
PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: 1994 to 2003 from NSF database<br>
Enrollment from 2004 USNews<br>
Formula: PhDs divided by undergrad enrollment times 1000 </p>
<p>1 California Institute of Technology 107
2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 63
3 Harvey Mudd College 55
4 Harvard University 32
5 Reed College 31
6 Rice University 28
7 Princeton University 25
8 Carnegie Mellon University 20
9 University of Chicago 19
10 Pomona College 19
11 Swarthmore College 18
12 Yale University 18
13 Brown University 17
14 Williams College 16
15 Stanford University 16
16 Grinnell College 16
17 St Olaf College 16
18 Haverford College 14
19 Oberlin College 12
20 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 12
21 Carleton College 11
22 Amherst College 11
23 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 11
24 Cornell University, All Campuses 11
25 Bryn Mawr College 10
26 United States Military Academy 10
27 University of California-Berkeley 10
28 Mills College 10
29 Kalamazoo College 9
30 Knox College 9
31 Dartmouth College 9
32 Cooper Union 9
33 Brandeis University 9
34 Duke University 8
35 United States Air Force Academy 7
36 Wesleyan University 7
37 Bowdoin College 7
38 Polytechnic University 7
39 University of Pennsylvania 7
40 Case Western Reserve University 7
41 Vassar College 7
42 Johns Hopkins University 7
43 Wellesley College 7
44 Birmingham Southern College 7
45 Whitman College 7
46 Columbia University in the City of New York 7
47 Union College (Schenectady, NY) 6
48 College of Wooster 6
49 Lawrence University 6
50 University of Rochester 6
51 Stevens Institute of Technology 6
52 Washington University 6
53 Northwestern Univ 6
54 Smith College 6
55 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology 6
56 Bucknell University 6
57 Hendrix College 6
58 Furman University 6
59 University of Bridgeport 6</p>
<p>Hmm, I'm not a big fan of that methodology. I'd rather go by faculty reputation--that list skews towards schools where more students are naturally inclined towards math.</p>
<p>You lost me. If someone is looking for a college with the expressed stated purpose of becoming a math major, wouldn't you want to look at places where the student body skews towards math?</p>
<p>Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Caltech and Stanford are the best schools for undergraduate mathematics. Berkeley has a very strong program as well, but I feel that on an undergraduate level, it does not offer as much as Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Caltech and Stanford. Cornell and Columbia are quite strong as well. NYU also has a very strong applied math program at the graduate level but I'm not sure how much undergrads would benefit from it.</p>
<p>"You lost me. If someone is looking for a college with the expressed stated purpose of becoming a math major, wouldn't you want to look at places where the student body skews towards math?"</p>
<p>Not necessarily. A school may have a great math program and still not attract lots of math majors.</p>
<p>
[quote]
A school may have a great math program and still not attract lots of math majors.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not for long. The businessmen who run colleges aren't stupid. They don't generally hire a bunch of high-priced professors for classes that nobody is taking!</p>
<p>i heard from a caltech alum that their math department is 'small' for those who are really interested..it didn't have the breadth he expected, but I'm sure it's good nonetheless...</p>
<p>williams is supposed to be a great math school if you're interested in an LAC, also swarthmore, reed, harvery mudd, etc.; i plan on majoring in math and physics at Amherst, both departments I've heard are very good as well...and you won't be given 'second priority to grad students' as you were worried about</p>
<p>Let's start at the beginning: We know you want to major in math. There are, however, MANY excellent places to study math. So, let's talk about what you are looking for in a college/university in general and work from there to make our suggestions. Some information about your stats (GPA, test scores) would also be helpful - no sense in anyone recommending schools that you might not have any shot at because there are great math schools at all levels of selectivity.</p>
<p>So, do you think you'd prefer a large, medium or small school? Any preferences on location (urban, suburban, rural) or geographic area?
Will you need financial aid or are you hoping for merit money? How would you describe yourself - preppy, nerdy, conservative, liberal, etc.?
Do you see yourself at a research university, a tech/engineering type school, a liberal arts college - or maybe you don't know yet which you'd prefer? What other variables are you looking for in a school, what other subjects might you be interested in studying, what are your career goals, etc. etc.</p>
<p>It really is silly to talk about "best colleges for..." --- As I said, there are many EXCELLENT schools for undergraduate math, but the "best" schools for YOU are the ones that fit your overall desires and needs AND is good for math.</p>
<p>I totally agree with carolyn. There are so many places to study math, and at the undergraduate level in math, it really doesn't matter. I would concentrate more on the type of school that you want to attend much more than the ability of the faculty to teach calculus and algebra. Do you want urban/rural/suburban, university/LAC, public/private, small/large/midsize, and so on? Do you want Division 1 sports teams? What kind of campus life are you looking for? The Ivies are all very different schools and the only thing they have in common is the prestige factor. Harvard is known somewhat for being oriented towards research and the faculty puts a low priority on undergrad education.</p>
<p>In terms of math, you might want to see if the emphasis in the department is on applied math or theoretical math.</p>