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Incorrect. As usual, you trip over yourself to bash Duke without checking the facts - or perhaps you simply ignore them. :rolleyes: By graduate rankings, Berkeley > Duke > Carnegie Mellon in math. </p>
<p>By size, 5.2:1 at Berkeley (~340 majors, ~65 faculty), 3.6:1 at CMU (~144 majors, ~40 faculty), and 2.8:1 at Duke (~112 majors, ~40 faculty). You’d thus find the department at Duke cozier than at either Berkeley or Carnegie Mellon.</p>
<p>Only 4 American universities have placed in the top 5 in the Putnam math competition more consistently than Duke (Harvard, MIT, Caltech, and Princeton), and only 3 universities have done better since 1990 (Harvard, MIT, Princeton).</p>
<p>I agree with Arzachel about graduate school preparation. A math major I knew got into math PhD programs at Princeton and Berkeley, so clearly the department prepares one quite well.</p>
<p>I will be blunt and say that it’s difficult to justify an application to Berkeley unless you’re in-state. It’s an excellent school, to be sure, but the financial situation has affected the university to such a degree that even students and alumni are admitting that it can be difficult to get the classes one needs. OOS applicants should expect no financial aid whatsoever.</p>