<p>Look at Mathematics total R&D expenditure NSF Rankings 2009:</p>
<p>1) JHU
2) UT Austin
3) UT Austin Anderson Center
4) NC State U.
5) PA State Universities
6) Rutgers University
7) SUNY Stony Brook
8) OH State
9) Texas A&M
10) Brown
11) Stanford
12) U. Minnesota
13) NYU
14) Iowa State
15) Berkeley
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21) Princeton
25) MIT
34) Cornell
35) Harvard
60) Columbia
67) CalTech
75) Yale</p>
<p>Now don’t tell research & development in mathematics is unimportant. As you can see, most of the colleges at the top are public universities and your so called “elites” are lying at the bottom. </p>
<p>Selecting college doesn’t matter on how “elite” the college seems or how highly it is ranked. Go for how good the college is in your major. For Math, one may well pick PennState over Columbia.</p>
<p>I am not criticizing any colleges here. However, trying to substantiate one college is better than other just because a “ranking system” says so is ludicrous.</p>