sherm.justin

I want to study Mathematics, and I was just wondering what colleges have some of the top undergraduate programs for math?

ses

Princeton comes to mind immediately.

mikenthemaddog66

Princeton, Harvard, MIT, UChicago, UC Berkeley and Stanford are the best programs in no particular order.

jenkster

sorry for hijacking, but does that mean it's really hard to get into those schools if you want to major in math?

pinnipotto

No. Well, it is really hard to get into any of those schools regardless of what you want to major in, they are all extremely selective.
However, your potential major does not play a role in your admission. Math is a subject that would be found within the College of Arts and Sciences of each of those Universities, and while a student may assert that they plan to follow a certain major when they apply, many of these schools do not have you officially declare a major until the end of sophomore year. The school anticipates that most students have multiple interests, and will likely change majors.

afan

There are many, many places to study math. Being a math major hardly requires you to study at the handful of programs with the top graduate faculty.

There may also be disadvantages to those places. Harvard and MIT, particularly, tend to attract the lion's share of IMO medalists, and have math programs designed for people that far off the scale in math ability. Many such students have largely completed a standard undergrad curriculum by the time they hit campus. This is fine if you plan to end up tenured in math at Caltech, but I am not sure what it means for a normal human majoring in math at such places.

Perhaps it is fine, and they teach math for regular people as well, but in such an environment, I would worry that the geniuses would attract all the faculty attention and accolades.

Of course, if you have a gold medal, or publications in math as a high school student, then that would be a reason to go to one of these places.

collegehelp

I've heard St Olaf is very good for math among LACs.

LACs for math from Rugg's:
Bates
Bowdoin
Bucknell
Carleton
Colgate
Dartmouth
Davidson
Dickinson
Harvey Mudd
Holy Cross
Kenyon
Mount Holyoke
Occidental
Pomona
Rice
St Mary's (MD)
St Olaf
Trinity (CT)
Union
Wabash
Wellesley
Wheaton
Whitman
Willamette

collegehelp

Gourman Report ranking for undergrad math:
Princeton
UC Berkeley
Harvard
MIT
U Chicago
Stanford
NYU
Yale
Wisconsin Madison
Columbia
Michigan Ann Arbor
Brown
Cornell
UCLA
Illinois Urbana Champaign
Caltech
Minnesota
U Penn
Notre Dame
Georgia Tech
U washington
Purdue WL
Rutgers NB
Indiana U Bloomington
U Maryland College Park
Rice
UC San Diego
Northwestern
Texas Austin
carnegie Mellon
Johns Hopkins
Washington U St Louis
Ohio State
SUNY Stony Brook
Penn State
UVA
RPI
Illinois Chicago
U Colorado Boulder
U Kentucky
UNC Chapel Hill
Dartmouth
U Rochester
U Utah
SUNY Buffalo
Tulane
USC
UC Santa Barbara
U Massachusetts AMherst
U Oregon
Duke
Louisiana State Baton Rouge
U Arizona
case Western
Michigan State
U Pittsburgh
Brandeis
US Air Force Academy

serchingon

Brown University for Applied Math. No questions.

Ephman

Rugg's is pretty worthless if it excludes Williams. Williams is the top LAC for math and arguably provides the top undergrad math education, period. Many of the faculty have won a variety national distinguished teaching awards, and the math alumni go on to top notch graduate programs. For more:

Math
Yet Another Math Prof Wins the Distinguished Teaching award

sherm.justin

Thanks for all the answers

Just some more info:

I plan on going the pre-med route, but I love math, and I want that to be my major, and I would prefer to be in a strong program.

The colleges that I am most interested in now are:
University of Michigan
Michigan State
Notre Dame
Northwestern
University of Chicago
Washington University in St. Louis
Dartmouth
Johns Hopkins
Princeton
Yale

unalove

That looks like a good list of schools... PM me if you have any questions specific to Chicago.

world changer

Chicago is definitely one of the best.

Just a warning though, like everything else at Chicago, UC math is weird.

I have personal experience with this, as I grew up with UC math ( http://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/ ). A lot of the new ideas and formulas are intriguing and cool, but it's not quite as traditional as some other math curriculums.

Silly Puddy

I'd say the big three (no particular order) are MIT, Princeton, and Harvard. The first is best with applied math, while the last two have exceptional theoretical math.

unalove

Yah, but Chicago undergrads don't use UCSMP. :-P