<p>What are the best colleges for math?</p>
<p>MIT, Princeton, Harvard, UChicago...</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd</p>
<p>Depending what type of student you are, among the top tier schools I suggest MIT (I'm going there :) ) and Caltech if you want something smaller. </p>
<p>Berkeley is great,too.</p>
<p>Texas A&M has a top math program without the selectiveness.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech also.</p>
<p>are we talking applied math? Or theoretical math? Any tech school is going to be good. Sorry, I can't really be of much help</p>
<p>The best?</p>
<p>Harvard, Princeton, and MIT</p>
<p>UCLA , Berkeley, Princeton, MIT,Caltech</p>
<p>Duke is also pretty good, if I recall correctly. UChicago as well.</p>
<p>For less selective standards, RIT, Rennelssaer (for the life of me I can't spell it right)polytechnic, and UC Santa Cruz.</p>
<p>A few other suggestions: Brandeis, Bucknell, St. Olaf, GEorgia Tech, Duke, Kenyon, Occidental, Pomona.</p>
<p>NYU is supposed to have an excellent math department as well, and isn't quite as hard to get in to as MIT/Harvard/Princeton.</p>
<p>If you're interested in where PhD's in math went for undergrad (per capita), check out: <a href="http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html</a>.</p>
<p>Oh, good, another thread about math schools. Keep it coming. </p>
<p>Aside to Hikkifan: are you a fan of Utada Hikaru, the Japanese singer? Is that what your screen name means?</p>
<p>The top five schools are MIT, Princeton, Berkley, UChicago, and Harvard, in no specific order. The admissions lady at MIT told me that, basically, you will get the same education in math no matter which of these 5 you go to - they're all the same level of prestige in the math world, and looking at grad school, etc. So pick whichever one fits your personality best.</p>
<p>For public schools, I know Wisconsin - Madison is in the top 10 and Minnesota - Twin Cities is ranked I think 14. If I can find my rankings sheet I'll confirm that, but I know that they're up there.</p>
<p>The best colleges for math...Texas A&M, MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, University of Chicago, CalTech, Georgia Tech, University of Michigan</p>
<p>tokenadult, YES! That is exactly correct. I am a huge fan of Utada (her new u.s. debut name and surname), but I prefer calling her by her nickname Hikki, a diminuitive form of her real name Hikaru.</p>
<p>Are you also a Hikki fan?</p>
<p>Ha ha...my mom (total beach girl blond hair) majored in math at UCLA and got all As. She said that she was usually the only girl in her classes and everybody was wondering why the heck she was there. Graduated and never worked a minute in her life...</p>
<p>Hikkifan asked, somewhat off the main topic of the thread (thanks to my diversion): "Are you also a Hikki fan?" </p>
<p>Oh, yes. I have two of her albums (First Love and Distance), after hearing the song "Automatic" playing in public places all over Taiwan when I lived there. I'll probably eventually have everything she has ever published. </p>
<p>Now back to the main topic of this thread. :) I noted a statement intended to show that Reed College has a good mathematics department by pointing to the large percentage of Reed College mathematics graduates who go on to get Ph.D.s in math. The inference intended to be drawn from that fact is, I suppose, a college that prepares many undergraduate majors in some subject to pursue Ph.D.s in that subject must be a good college for that subject. That's a reasonable inference, I think, and would likewise be evidence that St. Olaf College, another LAC, has a strong math program, but I would like to respond to one aspect of that inference. If someone said that, say, Reed College is a better math school than Princeton University because more undergraduate math majors from Reed go on for math Ph.D.s than do Princeton math majors (which may or may not be true, as I haven't checked this), it might nonetheless be incorrect to conclude that Reed's program is stronger than Princeton's. Sometimes NOT going on for a Ph.D. is a sign of a strong undergraduate program: that means that the undergraduate degree itself is a valuable credential for employment after graduation. I know that there is a whole category of jobs for math majors, working as a "rocket scientist" for an investment firm, that is readily open to any math major from Princeton, MIT, or Harvard who cares to pursue that occupation, but which is often closed to almost all math graduates from LACs. The hiring bias in some of those jobs is that a math major who didn't go to the very best undergraduate math program (assumed to be the program of H, P, or M) isn't fit to be hired for such lucrative employment. That may or may not be a fair conclusion, but I have read multiple reports that that is the hiring tendency for that kind of work. When the LAC math major graduates, that graduate may need to go on to graduate school just to find decently paying work, something the HPM graduate can do with only an undergraduate degree. </p>
<p>That's just something to think about when you see LACs trumpet their desirability by noting how many of their graduates go on to graduate school. Reasonable minds might still desire to go to an LAC (I am SURE that St. Olaf, to which I am a legacy, is a good math college), but they would have to be sure to double-check their reasons for that desire.</p>
<p>UPenn, Michigan, Wisc-Madison have the best actuarial math programs.</p>
<p>tokenadult: My D attends an excellent LAC in your state. Hope you are warming up from those sub-zero highs.</p>
<p>I agree that a math major from one of the fine institutions you included in your post should be at the top of a hiring pool after graduation. I also believe an equally strong mathematics student from a LAC will rise to the top of that same pool. It may be that getting into the pool in the first place may prove difficult given lack of name recognition to employers who are drawn to the long well-known, traditionally strong programs. I don't really know. Your comments regarding the inferences that can be drawn from the PhD list that Reed College provides are reasonable. For the OP, I cited that reference as another variable to be considered as all I usually see from such requests for "best" is the usual laundry list.</p>
<p>FWIW, I hold a mathematics degree from a well-regarded university cited earlier in this thread as being one of those best.</p>