<p>i am a math/science person with interest in applying to yale. however, i don't really know too much about yale. how is yale's undergraduate math/science programs? also, what's special about yale that would draw someone interested in math/science away from a "more math/science" school, such as stanford, princeton, or mit?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>The math/science programs at Yale are definitely top notch. The reason that Yale may not be as "known" among the popular consciousness for science is only because Yale absolutely dominates in the areas of arts, humanities, undergraduate education (generally) and politics, which generally get much more "press" than science does. For example, Yale has the best art, architecture, drama, and music programs in the country, if not the world. No other universities in the United States have four professional arts schools, certainly none that are even close to the caliber of Yale's. Yale is now investing $600 million just in its arts facilities alone, which will move Yale even farther ahead of the rest of the pack. In the case of politics, the last election was Yalie versus Yalie; the 2000 election featured 3 of the 4 major candidates as Yalies, and 4 of the past 6 Presidents went to Yale. In the case of undergraduate education, last year Yale not only has the lowest acceptance rate of any college in the country and by far the greatest number of Rhodes and Marshall Scholars of any university (even though it is relatively quite small), but if you consider the most popular undergraduate majors -- biological sciences, English, history, psychology, political science, economics -- and take their average departmental rankings in the Gourman or NRC rankings, for example, Yale comes out at the top.</p>
<p>In terms of strict science and math, Yale is just one of several great research universities in the world. It isn't the clear #1 like in so many other fields. UC-San Diego, Berkeley, Yale, Caltech, MIT, Cambridge, Stanford, Harvard are all incredible science powerhouses. According to <a href="http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct2002/sw_sept-oct2002_page1.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct2002/sw_sept-oct2002_page1.htm</a>, the highest rated science departments by average placement are at Caltech, Harvard and Yale. The alternative ranking has HSYM and UCSD as the top five.</p>
<p>Aside from that, at the undergraduate level, Yale offers more opportunities for undergraduates for several reasons: </p>
<p>First, Yale's science facilities are concentrated on the central campus. At a school like Cornell or Harvard, the medical facilities are in different cities altogether. This makes it easier for students to take full advantage of the research going on on the campus. In the case of Princeton, it does not even have any major medical research facilities, which is part of the reason why Yale receives over $400 million in total federal research funding each year while Princeton gets less than $100 million.</p>
<p>Second, Yale has more research on the central campus per science student than any other school except Caltech and possibly MIT (depending how you measure). This means laboratory work is incredibly accessible to undergrads.</p>
<p>All this means Yale science majors do very well - from what I've seen, Yale students have the highest acceptance rate into the very top medical schools, doing incredibly well, and also do very well at getting into the top Ph.D. programs (and earning ultra-prestigious post-bac NIH / NSF fellowships and the like that typically lead to the very top Ph.D. program after a year or two of work). Talk to students there and ask them what they think.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>
[quote]
In the case of Princeton, it does not even have any major medical research facilities
[/quote]
What about the University Medical Center at Princeton? And why look at just medical facilities? Princeton has many institutions just for science and math research.</p>
<p>You don't have to respond to this. I'm just pointing out that you don't have to put Princeton down unnecessarily.</p>
<p>But I do agree that the science programs at Yale are overall of the highest quality.</p>
<br>
<p>The reason that Yale may not be as "known" among the popular consciousness for science is only because Yale absolutely dominates in the areas of arts, humanities, undergraduate education (generally) and politics, which generally get much more "press" than science does.</p>
<br>
<p>the simpler, and more accurate, explanation is that its math/science programs simply aren't that good, especially when judged against those of its peer institutions.</p>
<p>Actually, it is an accurate explanation, because the fact is they are better than those of virtually all of its peer institutions.</p>
<p>hmm, i heard yale has a "non existent" math department</p>
<p>how justified is that? particularly for theoretical math</p>
<p>how is yale math compared to princeton or uchicago?</p>
<p>UChicago, Princeton, Caltech, and Harvard basically own Yale when it comes to theoretical mathematics.</p>
<p>Can't claim to know anything about math sub-fields, like theoretical math, but the National Research Council rated Yale's overall Math department 7th in the country behind Berkeley, Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Chicago, and Stanford (in that order). 7th hardly seems "non-existent" to me, though it is worse than its main competitors (HPSM)</p>
<p>That ranking has very little to do with the quality of undergraduate education, especially when talking about schools that place among the top ten departments. </p>
<p>Visit the schools, talk to professors, see where students end up after they graduate; figure out the number of professors per undergraduate math major and the amount of research funding per undergraduate.</p>
<p>If you do these things, you'll usually see Caltech, Yale and MIT at the very top, in virtually every area of science. I don't know about math, but consider, for example, the fact that according to svalbardlutefisk, Caltech ranks lower than Yale, Berkeley, Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Chicago and Stanford in the NRC mathematics ranking. "Department" ranking notwithstanding, my guess would be that Caltech math graduates do much better on a per capita basis at getting into the top math graduate programs than graduates of just about any of those schools.</p>
<p>Until you provide citations for your research statements, they are simply false. </p>
<p>You're trying to make Yale's dense campus look like there's more research per square acre or something to that effect. That is ridiculous.</p>
<p>It's pretty simple - look at the total amount of federal research expenditures on the central campus, and divide by the number of undergraduates (or better yet, by the number of undergraduate science majors). Caltech, Yale and MIT invariably come out at the very top. </p>
<p>By counting only the "central campus", I mean don't count Cornell's medical school (because it is 300 miles away from Cornell's undergraduate school) and don't count JHU's affiliate federal APL lab expenditures (because they are 40 miles away and not really at all part of the university anyways).</p>
<p>How about the Harvard-affiliated hospitals, TROLLSTER?</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> End the fighting, both of you trolls.</p>
<p>Let's summarize this argument: While Yale has less distinguished math and science departments, it also has more resources for these students than some of the more mathematically inclined universities such as Harvard, UC Berkley, Stanford and its resources per student in those fields rank among the best with CalTech and MIT. However, at the same time, the course offerings at Yale in comparison to other more mathematically and scientifically astute universities isn't the greatest. Also, the science majors aren't the most popular at Yale.</p>
<p>In short: Yale has a close community of math and science students with their professors and provides great funding, however, there are limitations in course offerings and extent of opportunities simply because it's not Yale's niche, however, in comparison to most schools across the country, a Yale degree in Math will still mean something in the real world and in Grad school.</p>
<p>Conclusion: Yale's math and sci stuff is nice. There is nicer, but Yale tries to make sure everybody that picks it at Yale is happy about it. And, well, a top 10 ranking means that as much as its picked on, Yale science and math DOESN'T suck.</p>
<p>"it also has more resources for these students than some of the more mathematically inclined universities such as Harvard, UC Berkley, Stanford and its resources per student in those fields rank among the best with CalTech and MIT."
Until actual data is cited, that is false.</p>
<p>By resources, I meant economically. And I saw somebody post a link one of the threads showing how Yale provided it's undergraduate in math/sci very wall...</p>
<p>And it should be common sense: Yale has far less math/sci students than Harvard or Stanford, so it can provide more concentrated economical support than either of these universities, but that doesn't always mean that the departments are academically better, but rather, have a differnet culture.</p>
<p>here's some "actual data," zephyr.</p>
<p>fields medalists (institution at time of award):</p>
<p>princeton 6
(institute for advanced study, princeton 5)
harvard 4
MIT 2
stanford 1
caltech 0
yale 0</p>
<p>top five finishes in the putnam competition:</p>
<p>harvard 51
MIT 36
caltech 28
princeton 24
yale 11 (last in 1991)
stanford 5</p>
<p>national research council rankings:</p>
<ol>
<li>princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>harvard</li>
<li>stanford</li>
<li>yale</li>
<li>caltech</li>
</ol>
<p>u.s. news rankings:</p>
<ol>
<li>MIT 5.0</li>
<li>harvard 4.9</li>
<li>princeton 4.9</li>
<li>stanford 4.9
(caltech, yale not in top five)</li>
</ol>
<p>Like I said above <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=2871747&postcount=2%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=2871747&postcount=2</a>, those are about the last measures you would use when evaluating an undergraduate program.</p>
<p>The Putnam rankings are an indicator of nothing.</p>
<p>naturally, you single out the measure where stanford fares worst. but those putnam rankings, while perhaps of limited significance, DO indicate something: the presence of undergraduate math whizes.</p>
<p>Oh, I think they are at Stanford as much as Princeton. </p>
<p>One could contend that Duke has more "undergraduate math whizzes" than Stanford. But yet Intel and RSI kids will usually pick Stanford third behind H and M. </p>
<p>Some schools push the Putnam, others not.</p>