<p>Swarthmore’s math department posts a file entitled, “Advice on Math Grad School Application Process”. It apparently was written sometime before Fall 2007. It includes the following statements:</p>
<p>“If you are interested in a top school, we want you to apply there. The chance of getting in is always low, but you can’t get in if you don’t apply. Years back, every year or two a Swat grad went off to math grad school at a top place (Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley). This hasn’t been true in recent years and we want to change that. Once one of you goes to a school and does well, it makes it easier for students in the year or two following you to apply and get admitted. So we have an interest in helping you pick where to apply. (Note: It has always been the case, and this hasn’t changed, that some of our math majors continue to go to top places in cognate fields – econ, engineering, physics).”</p>
<p>So it does sound like something has changed in recent years in the chances of math majors at top LACs making it into math grad school at top places (for pure math, anyway). If this is the case at Swarthmore, I assume it must be the case, too, at Oberlin, Reed, or Williams (unless the trend has changed since 2007).</p>