Hello, I am a high school junior studying at a high school that specializes in math and plan to study it at university. I am aware of the high profile universities that have good math programs (e.g. Princeton, Chicago), but are there are any small or medium size schools with good math program that people can recommend? I would consider anywhere in the US.
thanks in advance,
Eric
Help others help you by giving some more detail about your situation:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1621234-before-you-ask-which-colleges-to-apply-to-please-consider-p1.html
Regarding math in particular, what math courses will you have completed by the time you graduate from high school? Do your future goals involve PhD study in math, work in a math-related field (computing, finance/actuarial, operations research, data science, teaching math), or something else?
Small colleges with high math PhD production rates include:
PhDs* … ~Majors** … College
40 … 20 … Harvey Mudd College ***
30 … 60 … St. Olaf College
27 … 50 … Williams College ***
16 … 20 … Swarthmore College ***
15 … 30 … Oberlin College ***
13 … 20 … Whitman College
12 … 40 … Amherst College ***
12 … 40 … Pomona College ***
11 … 20 … Grinnell College ***
11 … 20 … Haverford College ***
11 … 40 … Carleton College ***
10 … 20 … Wheaton College (Wheaton, Ill.)
10 … 20 … Smith College (women only) ***
10 … 30 … Bowdoin College ***
7 … 20 … Reed College
You’ll have to decide for yourself whether PhD production numbers are useful to you. I suggest using them as a starting point for identifying schools that meet your needs w.r.t. other factors (such as net cost). Note that most of these schools are quite selective. Other small schools you might want to consider include:
Bryn Mawr (women only)
Macalester
Minnesota - Morris
Mount Holyoke (women only)
New College of Florida
SUNY-Potsdam
University of Puget Sound
Wesleyan U (Middletown CT)
Don’t overlook public universities in your home state.
These highly colleges are among those that appear in a Princeton Review sampling, “Great Schools for Mathematics Majors”:
Harvey Mudd
MIT
UChicago
Caltech
Harvard
Rice
Bowdoin
Hamilton
Haverford
Carleton
Grinnell
Reed
Macalester
St. Olaf
Math courses completed by 11 grade:
calculus, discrete probability, group theory… (will take AP Calc BC test in May 2018)
Plan to work in a math related field in stead of PhD.
Parent
Also in light of ucbalumnus link, here is more stats:
Math courses completed by 11 grade: calculus, discrete probability, group theory…
Plan to work in a math related field in stead of PhD.
Test scores: SAT 1570 (1 sitting), Math2 800, PSAT 1520. AP Physics 1 5.
2 times AIME (9th score 5 and 10th grade score 8)
Will take APs Calc BC, CS, Physic C, Chemistry May 2018.
Unweighted GPA ~3.7/4, got a C in fine art (9th grade)
EricCo parent
^You probably want a college/small university with access to graduate-level courses:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/mathcs/graduate/regular_courses.html
@anxiousNot, Would also add Amherst and Swarthmore as LAC’s with great math programs. As noted in the attached student outcomes from Swarthmore, only 40% pursued a PhD - others were employed at Google and MIT, amongst others https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/career-services/Post%20Grad%20Plans%20by%20Major%202015-2017.pdf
@anxiousNot: Will your son have taken linear algebra prior to HS graduation?
Question for @anxiousNot (parent):
Cost constraints and state of residency? Also, are parents married? Divorced or separated parents mean more difficulty with financial aid at many colleges.
Top priority for the parent now is to make the financial plan so that you and the student know what is affordable before making the college application list.
Given the already advanced level of math while in high school, you may have to check colleges’ math course catalogs and schedules to see if sufficient upper level math courses are offered.
He probably will take linear algebra in his senior year.
State residency: California
Parents married.
No cost constrains.
Universities and those smaller colleges with strong math departments could both be attractive options for him. If he considers smaller colleges, he should look for those with more than ~15 math course offerings beyond the level of linear algebra/multivariable calculus. This should provide sufficient depth, variety and choice. Physics department offerings such as those in general relativity and mathematical physics might also be of interest to him. In terms of California public options, UCLA would be strong. Though it pertains to a later decision, advanced math students may want to consider a semester in Budapest as a study abroad option.
There is a prior CC thread that went through an exhaustive comparison of math course offerings at both Amherst (highly selective LAC) and Penn (highly selective university) and there wasn’t any - its all about what style of school fits best.
Not just the number of upper level math courses, but what subareas are represented can be important. A good program covers a good range of subareas so that a student (particularly an advanced one) can explore them.
Also note that some schools include statistics, operations research, and/or computer science under math, while others have separate departments for those, so be careful about just counting the number of courses.
In comparing schools, I wouldn’t assume that LAC programs necessarily are less rich, or the academic outcomes less impressive, than undergraduate programs at major research universities (any more than you should assume that RUs all have huge impersonal classes in every major.)
Here’s a listing of math department requirements, faculty, and courses at St. Olaf College:
http://catalog.stolaf.edu/archive/2016-2017/academic-programs/mathematics/#facultytext
I count 20 faculty members and 37 courses (including “Academic Internship” and “Directed Undergraduate Research”, but not including “Related Courses”).
By my count (using NSF/WebCaspar and CDS data), St. Olaf generates about 100 math/stat PhDs per 1000 math majors, almost as many as MIT. Berkeley, Michigan, and UCLA generate about 50, 30, and 15 math/stat PhDs (respectively) per 1000 math majors (although they appear to be the top 3 state universities in terms of absolute numbers of alumni-earned math/stat doctorates).
Do PhD production statistics correlate strongly with other post-graduate outcome measures? I’m afraid nobody really knows. The PhD metrics seem to be the only available academic outcome metrics based on massive amounts of easily searchable data. Abundant data also is available for alumni earnings, but it doesn’t seem to be as easily searchable, nor is the USDoE College Scorecard data disaggregated by major. Payscale has earnings data for many majors, but it is self-reported and deliberately excludes data from alumni with graduate degrees.
Have you thought about the UK? Oxford and Cambridge have some of the best math students in the world and you just focus on math for your degree (which is 3 years and costs $45-50K per year, no financial aid). UK students have much more grounding in math due to A level specialization, but you have far more preparation than a typical US student, so you’d be well positioned to keep up.
Most importantly, admission is far more predictable than tippy top US schools, as it’s purely about your math ability. I noted on the UK forum that AIME qualification is a decent benchmark for admissibility.
U.S. News provides this information in sites specific to each school, such as
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/st-olaf-college-2382
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/williams-college-2229.
The caveats mentioned (reply #16) with respect to methodology should be noted, however.