homebuddy

Hi all,

I was accepted to Harvard RD, and my question is this: Does Harvard have a strong mathematics/comp sci departments, or is Harvard not the place for future math majors? Is MIT a better place to study math?

Thanks!

mdx49

Harvard has the strongest math department in USA. Most of High School math competition winners choose to come to Harvard.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...-scoring_teams

Harvard finished first place in Putnam Math Competion 25 times. MIT finished first place only 5 times ( as of 2005) MIT math department is good but they are not at the same level as Harvard. At Harvard, you can have change to work with many Putnam fellows.

Math graduate program is also extremely seletive program admitting only 7-10 people per year and most of them are top winners of International Math Olympiad.. Those PhD graduate students can be your Teaching follows in your math courses at Harvard.

MIT graduate math department is not as selective as Harvard. MIT is PhD program is admitting about 30 students per year.

I can say that the 2nd best program is either Caltech or Princeton

DecisionDecision

Two, er, words: Math 55.

mdx49

At Harvard, you can also have chance to take

THE MOST DIFFICULT UNDERGRADUATE MATH CLASS IN THE COUNTRY !!!!!

randomperson

This isn't quite right. MIT is currently dominating the Putnam contest - it came in 1st place the past two years, and although it came in "4th" this year, that was more due to the utter quirkiness of the Putnam team ranking system than a substantively lower performance. Don't believe me? Go to the results for this year (http://www.unl.edu/amc/a-activities/...05results.html) and count the number of Harvard and MIT students in each ranking category. You'll probably notice that there are more MIT students in every single cohort, from the very elite (the Putnam fellows) down to the still very impressive (the honorable mention).

hotpiece101

well, i am glad that i am majoring in math

mdx49

AHH

This year's Putnam winning team is again Harvard...

randomperson

Yes, but I'll repeat: this is due to the quirky nature of the team ranking system, not an actual "victory" by Harvard. There are two problems with the ranking system:

1) It is based on the performances of a preselected team of 3 - sometimes team members can have bad days, and strong performances by others at a university are disregarded in the team ranking.

2) Worse, the team ranking isn't based on a combination of scores, but instead a combination of ranks (the team with the lowest combined rank wins). This vastly overemphasizes small differences in the performance of the lowest scorer on each team, while comparatively large differences in performance at the higher-scoring level mean almost nothing.

Look at the leaderboard yourself. MIT had more students than Harvard in every winning tier: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

mdx49

Please look at the historical performance of Putnam Math competitions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...-scoring_teams

Harvard Math team has substantially more Putnam winners than any other school ( Caltech is the second ) Harvard's record is very impressvie considering very small size of Harvard math department..

THEBIGK

clearly, harvard's math department has done extremely well in the putnam, handily beating its top two rivals, MIT and Caltech...however, lately there has been a shift: math oriented students are going to MIT, including the top high schoolers in the country...also, it is important to note that MIT has had 38 top scores on the putnam, while harvard has had 55...this proves that the "level" of students is about the same school, although it seems like MIT has had trouble picking the "right" teams...it has yet to be determined whether the trend of the best math students going to MIT over Harvard will continue (because it is certainly true now...)...

*I offer this opinion as someone who is very familiar with both schools' math departments...i plan on attending Harvard University and majoring in math next year...go class of 2010*

randomperson

I think that the current performance of the teams is considerably more important than the historical record. Why shouldn't it be?

mdx49

This is not correct informations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William...-scoring_teams

First Place Finishes ( as of 2005)

Harvard :: 25 times
Caltech :: 9 times
MIT ::5 times
...

I don't think Harvard and MIT are at the same level...

randomperson

First of all, I think he was talking about individual top scores, not team ones, but you weren't reading very carefully. But to make my point more clearly, I'll reference the number of Harvard and MIT students in each winning tier this year:

Putnam Fellows:
MIT - 3
Harvard - 2

Next Ten Highest Ranking Individuals:
MIT - 4
Harvard - 2

Next Eight Highest Ranking Individuals:
MIT - 2
Harvard - 0

Honorable Mention:
MIT - 14
Harvard - 4

Go see for yourself at http://www.unl.edu/amc/a-activities/...05results.html

Sure, Harvard has historically been the best school in the Putnam, but what's happening now is far more revelant to current applicants.

mdx49

About 25 Harvard undergrads are graduating with degree in mathematics each year, whereas about 110 MIT undergrads are graduating with degree in math.

Even though MIT math dept. is more than 4 times bigger than Harvard math, Harvard math team have finished first place most of the time. and Again this year's winning team is from Harvard. Historically, number of putnam fellows from Harvard is considerably larger than any other school in USA.

Someone mentioned that this year, MIT had more high ranking people than Harvard. However, the top best performers at Putnam math competition are from Harvard. That is why Harvard is #1 again this year, not MIT even though MIT has 4 times bigger math students than Harvard.

MIT has more higher ranking people because more people entered that that competition. But the top performers are from Harvard, which ranked #1..

WhetDreamWeaver

Both schools have best math dept in the US. 'nuff said.