<p>My D just wants to do math all day...What kind? Beats me. I don't know, understand, or like math. H and D can't get enough of it. QUESTION: What colleges should we look at for math where people are just loving the math and aren't all competitive about it. She is an excellent math student, but does not enjoy competition, as it takes the "fun" out of it. So, what we need is a FUN Math Major School. Not esp. a fun school, but fun in the math dept. She is more quirky than some, a bit of an alternative kind of kid. Very liberal and into social action and community service as well. Only wants to be on the eastern seaboard.</p>
<p>some of the engineering schools may be the best bet. My S wants to do math all day too (although he loves competition as well - just not cutthroat/grade type competition). He is ending up at WPI</p>
<p>Go to a college search engine - I think this site has one, and Collegeboard.com certainly has one. Fill in the profile for your D and list engineering as the major and list the east coast only and see which schools pop up, then from there, investigate which of these schools offer discrete or pure math and not just applied or actuarial (although that may well be where she ends up - in an applied math) Definitley look at their course lists for breadth and depth in math. Then figure which schools will require the fewest required courses outside the major.
Carnegie Mellon comes to mind</p>
<p>meant to also say if you search just on math you will get thousands of schools - since many schools will offer it as a major. But those schools with engineering will generally have the most diverse math classes</p>
<p>Hi Whirled. My son is just finishing up his first year at Emory. Loves it. Not sure about their “Math” dept. but I would imagine that most depts. there are of high quality.</p>
<p>I just read a really interesting book called Women in Mathematics: the addition of difference by Claudia Henrion. There are mini-biographies of six or seven prominent mathematicians-- and some valuable insights about their education; what they did and didn’t like about the schools they were part of. I seem to remember one of them was very fond of the University of Wisconsin. Now, some of this was graduate-level math and the book is from 1997 so it might be a little dated. Your daughter might want to read this, especially if she just “loves” math and doesn’t necessarily want to be an engineer.</p>