hello! i’m a senior in high school and i’m not too sure about where i would like to attend college, but i know that i absolutely love pure mathematics and i wanted to know which schools would be best for studying this! (aside from ivy leagues, because thats painfully obvious and i’m not that smart)
What is your home state? What are your stats and your budget?
The best non-Ivy’s for math are probably MIT and Stanford, but of course neither is significantly easier to get into than Harvard or Princeton (which are also excellent for math). Quite a few other universities will be very good for math, but I would not know what to suggest without knowing more about you.
UCLA is absolutely tippy top. My brother is a physics major there and says the math faculty is unparalleled.
LMU, while nowhere near the caliber of HYPSM, still has an excellent math program, and is very well within reach for good students. The math program will push you and has produced many very good mathematicians.
Best math schools, large public – GaTech (combinatorics and discrete math) , UIUC, Purdue, Berkeley, UCLA, UT Austin, Michigan, Wisconsin at Madison
Best Math schools, LACs–Harvey Mudd College, Williams College, Haverford/Bryn Mawr College, Reed College, Amherst
Best Privates for math that are not MIT/Ivy-- U of Chicago, NYU Courant for applied math, Duke
You can use the math PhD rankings to get an idea for the large public schools that are strong in math, also look at theoretical CS perhaps, and applied math ranks, and discrete math to get an idea of who is good at what branch of math.
With respect to a source for suggestions, you can research through a Princeton Review sampling, “Great Schools for Mathematics Majors,” which includes colleges such as Harvey Mudd, MIT, UChicago, Caltech, Haverford, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Reed, Carleton, Grinnell, Macalester, Bryn Mawr, St. Olaf et al. Though this group overlaps in selectivity with the Ivy League, you will see a few schools that would offer you somewhat better admission chances.
How advanced are you in math?
The reason is that some liberal arts colleges with math departments that may be good for students who have completed at most AP calculus, IB math HL, or college single variable calculus in high school may not have sufficient upper level math offerings (or any graduate level offerings) for students who are more advanced in math than AP calculus, IB math HL, or college single variable calculus by the time they graduate high school.
Depending on your state of residency, your state flagship may have a very good math department.
Obviously, your cost constraints are very important in your college choice.