<p>My honest opinion is that it would be a little silly to go to Harvard just for Math 55. I mean firstly, most very smart math majors find out it’s not for them – even ones who may end up being more successful than some 55-ers in the future. Math 55 is an awesome course, but it’s for those who thrive under a high pressure learning environment. While all of MIT, Harvard and Princeton will be challenging for mathematics, it’s pretty clear that most of the courses offered at any of these, including Harvard, just won’t be as high pressure as Math 55. </p>
<p>I’d take a look at other factors in the departments. For one thing, what are the faculty reputed for, and what kinds of classes are most often offered + how do they compare with your interests, if you have anything of the sort already? For instance, if a school were obsessed with combinatorics, I’d probably feel terribly out of place in the math department there…I mean, even say, if all the undergraduates were doing stuff like that. </p>
<p>More important than “area of math” – because this is for undergrad, not grad, I’d check how the department’s philosophy fits with yours. How easy are they on transfer credits? How keen are they on testing? Some schools like tests, and others apparently like them less, and assign only long problem sets instead of having as many (if any) tests, which can be a good or bad thing. How cooperative is the environment? Talking about math tends to be how many people learn a lot of what they know. </p>
<p>Obviously, the nice thing about MIT and Harvard is that you can take courses at either when something isn’t offered at one of them. If I’d applied to all these schools and were choosing among them, I’d have to say MIT’s student culture appeals to me vastly the most, and yet Harvard’s math department appeals to me slightly more than either of the other two’s.</p>