<p>major: math</p>
<p>and why</p>
<p>btw.. i didn't get accepted to all of these lol, I'm a junior in high school, I just want to do some more research and see what people think and w/e.. thaaaaaaanks</p>
<p>thats Washington University in St. Louis… sorry</p>
<p>If you are a junior, why are you choosing? Why not just apply to all of them and let the chips fall where they may?</p>
<p>And if the reason is because you want to apply Early Decision to one of them:</p>
<p>1) Unless you’re a legacy or one of those really ‘borderline’ candidates, I’d say that an ED application is not really going to help you a whole lot.</p>
<p>2) The purpose of ED is if you have ONE school that you really, really, really love and are at least 95% sure you want to attend AND 100% that you could afford no matter what kind of financial aid they offer you. Do note that the Ivy League schools (that would be UPenn on your list) do not offer merit aid, and that merit aid at the other schools you have listed would be very competitive. If you are middle-class, the difference between what you really need and what the school or the government tells you you need can be disastrously large.</p>
<p>That all said, I think for a math major (since you didn’t give ANY other considerations) I’d probably go to WUSTL. However, these schools are all relatively different – the only thing tying them together, besides being good, are that they’re all in urban areas (with Duke hanging by a technicality. Durham is a small city. And I don’t think Notre Dame is a large city either). There has to be other considerations besides just your major when selecting a college, especially since so many college students end up changing their major – I was political science pre-law when I entered my undergrad and left with a BA in psychology.</p>
<p>I’d say Notre Dame, but I’m biased. </p>
<p>I have no clue about Math, so I’ll just combine general prestige with location
- Duke
- Penn
- GTown
- Notre Dame
- BC
- WashU</p>
<p>But that is just me(though ND would be #1 for me). What are you looking for in a school, beside strong math major?</p>
<p>math is so general, so it doesn’t matter</p>
<p>The two best schools there are clearly Penn and Duke so decide between those based on fit.</p>
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<p>I would actually say the exact opposite. History is “general” and will be consistently good at any of those schools, but for math you want to be very sensitive to the amount of departmental support, opportunities, and student culture for undergraduate math majors.</p>
<p>That said, I really can’t comment on the math departments at any of these schools. I can’t imagine Duke or UPenn being particularly bad.</p>
<p>Here are the rankings by US News of GRADUATE programs in Math; shouldn’t be too far off for undergrads:</p>
<h1>18 University Of Pennsylvania</h1>
<h1>21 Duke University</h1>
<h1>40 Washington University In St. Louis</h1>
<h1>44 University Of Notre Dame</h1>
<p>Unranked Georgetown, Boston College</p>
<p>Duke undergrads have won the Putnam (the NCAAs of Math) three times in, I think, the last ten years, and routinely finish in the top five, fwiw.</p>
<p>[Putnam</a> Competition Results: Harvard Captures Top Prize](<a href=“http://www.maa.org/news/031708putnam.html]Putnam”>http://www.maa.org/news/031708putnam.html)</p>