Can anyone here help me decide between these two? How do they compare in terms of preparation for applying to top grad programs in pure math? I know Berkeley is a step above in rankings, but I also know that’s not the whole picture.
Research opportunities, courses taught by lecturer/post doc vs. full professor, availability of professors, class size, etc.
Also if anyone can comment on the math community and overall college experience at each school that would be great.
Thanks in advance!
You can look up the course listings, class schedules, and faculty rosters to see what upper level math courses and areas of research are available at each school.
Also, does net price differ and matter to you?
Yup, I’ve been perusing the course and faculty listings a lot lately. I like what I see at both schools but would be happy to hear personal accounts from alumni.
Net price probably does not differ. I say probably because I was waitlisted at Berkeley, but my UCLA package yields about the same net price as Yale’s, and I’m guessing Berkeley would be similar to LA.
Waitlist usually turns to rejection. It is likely that UCB will use the waitlist less this year, since some full-pay students who would otherwise choose more expensive private universities will choose the less expensive in-state public. In any case, matriculate to Yale (assuming you prefer it over UCLA, since you did not mention UCLA before) so that you have a place to go to college next fall. You can still consider the possibility of a waitlist admission from UCB so that you know what to do if it happens, but don’t get your hopes up too high.
UCB does have about twice as many pure math majors as Yale. But it also has a much larger number of applied math majors than pure math majors (unlike Yale), so that may affect the “flavor” of the math undergraduate community there.
Beyond that, UCB will likely have a more “economy class” feel, while Yale will likely have a more “luxury class” feel, even though the math courses and research will be high quality (in terms of content, rigor, etc.) at both.
Note that Yale has a foreign language graduation requirement: https://yalecollege.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2019-09/FL-chart-2016%5B1%5D%20%281%29.pdf . As a pure math major, you may want to consider choosing French, German, and/or Russian as a foreign language to study, since math research papers may be written in these languages, and a reading knowledge of one of these languages is a common math PhD program requirement.
Yeah I realize the waitlist is most likely not going to work out, just want to be knowledgeable should I ever have to choose between these two schools.
Any reasons to pick UCLA over Yale?
Have you checked the math course offerings and faculty rosters at UCLA and compared them to Yale to see if either matches your interests better?
Note that UCLA is on the quarter system (three 10-week quarters per academic year instead of two 15-week semesters), so you will take more courses over an academic year, but each will be “smaller”.
“Any reasons to pick UCLA over Yale?”
Terence Tao is at UCLA. He is arguably the best mathematician in the world.
According to Berkeley’s CDS, an average of 48% of applicants who accepted a place on Berkeley’s wait-list were accepted. Last year they accepted the lowest number and that was 37.2%. Most years it’s closer to 50%.
If @xsmiles24 hasn’t yet been accepted to Yale, their chance at being accepted from Berkeley’s waitlist is far higher than being accepted to Yale.
I don’t know about math at Yale but I like several UCB math professors’s content they put out in terms of articles about math and videos to the point of being a fan. I have the general impression that math is very strong there.