The best course/University for a Maths degree.

[Mel2Mel]

My DS will be starting his As levels next year. He is a capable mathematician and highly motivated.
I would really appreciate your advice on the best University for him to study Maths and what are the differences between the courses from one University to another.
Thank you very much in advance

TheWordFactory Thank you very much for your wise words.
Orchestrated affairs! Will is be fair to compare them to the Independent Schools' Open days ?

BTW Princeton is considered comparable if not better for maths than Harvard/MIT so Tao's choice for PhD institution was not controversial.

Overall Oxbridge, Imperial, UCL, Warwick etc are all very good institutions from which many students go on to research careers and to a broad range of graduate jobs. Top 20 UK maths departments may not be world leading in every area but most of them are world leading in some areas and produce PhD students who go on to distinguished research careers.

spinoa

Great to hear from a Trinity alumnus! I have noted every bit of info you gave and I will share it with my ds to bear in mind.

Would you still consider Cambridge is better than Oxford in Maths?

Regarding the STEP exam: If they think that tutoring doesn't affect results then why they tutor some of the students through the outreach program?
He is looking at it independently because it is too early, he is only supposed to tackle them in year 13 when I guess his school will offer some help (He is self teaching some of the A level modules as well).

BTW Princeton is considered comparable if not better for maths than Harvard/MIT so Tao's choice for PhD institution was not controversial. I meant it's not the top of the Ivy League yet ...

I'm not sure that best can ever be properly adjudicated.

Because best has a degree of subjectivity, no?

In terms of reputation...as regarded by who? Academics? Employers? If so which academics and which employers?

In terms of course, again best means many different things. Best for your DS and his personality may not be best for someone else.

Also, a word of caution here. All these institutions are highly selective. It's a numbers game. Many very able applicants will not get a place. It doesn't do to set your heart on it. It certainly doesn't do to consider everything else second rate.

Actually TheWordFactory I am the last one to consider everything else second rate!! Everyone in the UK I have spoken to or asked was convinced that Cambridge Trinity is the best place on Earth let alone the UK for Maths. If that is what I am after I wouldn't have posted here because the decision would have been made!!

Well that's good to hear mel .

I suppose I am just very allergic to discussions about 'best', 'top' etc. Partly because I think these things are subjective, highly changable and frankly, a bit daft.

I hear applicants and students say such things and it makes me cringe rather.

Similarly when I hear it from colleagues it makes me wish they'd get out more!!!!

Trinity Cambridge might be the best place for Maths as it is highly selective but I would like to know a bit more about life in the college, how accessible are the Tutors, how helpful or unhelpful,....they might have the best mathematicians but if they are too busy for the undergrads then that is a different mather....Those are important factors as well.

Have a close look at MORSE at Warwick too.

I agree with Wordfactory that it really doesn't make sense to talk about THE best institution. Nor does it make sense to claim that Trinity get the very best maths students - lots of very good students don't apply to Trinity but apply to other colleges or elsewhere.

General Ivy League tables are utterly irrelevant for subject specific considerations. Princeton has a number of Fields medallists and within mathematics is very highly regarded. I would send my children there for maths rather than to Harvard/MIT (and my partner and I are between us alumni of all three).

Again, STEP offers are not significantly differentiated according to pupils' schools by Cambridge or other institutions which use STEP in offers (Warwick, Bath, UCL, Southampton, Imperial,...). The tutoring is more aimed at removing the fear about STEP, than at improving performance.

I do not consider Cambridge better than Oxford, no, although it is still better in my own field of research. Oxford would have the edge in pure maths at the moment.

Nor does it make sense to claim that Trinity get the very best maths students - lots of very good students don't apply to Trinity but apply to other colleges or elsewhere. I would apply the same logic to all Universities including Princeton

OP, please do bear in mind that the university he chooses has not only got to satisfy his academic credentials, but embody the lifestyle he wants to lead.

For example, for my undergrad, I wanted a campus/small town so avoided London like the plague. By the time postgrad came around, I was looking for something busier, with a more international focus.

I turned down an offer from Warwick for my undergrad because I hated the campus. It felt cold and without character to me.

glittertits At the moment he doesn't like London at all, he only goes with us for events but by force not choice. We will be visiting all Warwick and will find out how he feels about the place. It seems like Marmite, some love it and some hate it.

Buxhoeveden Thank you I will show it to ds and see if he would be interested in the course. He is at the moment more of a string theory mathematician but who knows....he watched a lecture yesterday about prime numbers and was fascinated, I never thought he would be..

String theory is physics rather than mathematics (although the UK often has theoretical physicists in maths departments) and it is not taught at undergraduate level.

spinoa Yes I am well aware, they explain it very well on the website It was my way to explain that his second love is Physics (especially the string theory...well aware only for Graduates)which makes a good part of the courses he is looking at, rather than finance. He prefers theory and mechanics to statistics

Would you still consider Cambridge is better than Oxford in Maths?

But this is the thing ... better by what criteria?

If the single criterion is "top rankng" that's still not clear ... "best" for what? Student satisfaction? Staff research achievement? Employability? etc etc

But I think once your DS has dione a bit of research, and he's attended a couple of Open Days, he'll have more of a feel for where he wants to go. It needs to be about the course, the teaching style/s, but also all the other things.

Believe me, if students aren't happy in terms of how they're living, then they can project that onto their studies, and some of them end up not doing as well as they might.

Also, does he have any ideas about what he might want to do post graduation? Does he want to go into Mathematics research? Or into the City? Or teach? He doesn't need to be too specific, but if he has got ambitions in a particular area, he needs to look at degree programmes that will help him get where he wants to go.

they might have the best mathematicians but if they are too busy for the undergrads then that is a different matter

The tutorial system at Cambridge (and Oxford) will mean that doesn't happen.

And often students respond better to enthusiastic young PhD students' teaching than they do to grey old professors like me ...

You do not know in advance who will teach you in many universities and it definitely depends on modules chosen later in the course. Often it is not a professor! There are MMath courses to consider as well.

But in Cambridge your supervisions are carried out in your College so you actually do have an idea who will be doing these. However, Trinity is huge so there are many fellows and PhD students doing maths supervisions and one never knows whether fellows will move to other universities.

One can make the MMath decision much later on although for administrative purposes it is slightly easier to start on an MMath degree and graduate with a bachelors (missing the fourth year) than to start on a bachelors and move across to MMath.

Is your DS really sure he wants to study maths rather than another degree with a high quantitative focus?

I ask because I seem to know several maths graduates for whom life didn't work out well and they seem to regret their degrees which were so theoretical rather than more focused on the real world (such as engineering or economics are).

I have a DS at Warwick doing Maths. He is on a MMath course.
He has a tutor who is a Maths professor and a supervisor who is a PHD student.
The course is fairly flexible in the first year and becomes more so in the second and third years. DS's love is pure maths but he is doing some applied modules and some Physics modules.

I think Durham is well regarded for Maths as well. If he loves Physics as well as Maths, Birmingham (and maybe others) have a combined Maths / Physics degree which sounded interesting.

My advice for open days would be to look at a few different types of uni's - campus, city, small city. big city etc, to get an idea of what he likes. Personally I think uni's are like houses, you just know when you have found the right one.
I do think it's worth thinking about ease of getting home, as it can make a big difference if they can get home for the odd weekend, for family events etc, without it taking a whole day & costing a fortune.

Many UK maths degrees in any case incorporate a large amount of theoretical physics. The Cambridge MMath course (i.e. the fourth year) is considered one of the best preparations for theoretical physics available in the UK. Degrees which are called Maths with Physics do not necessarily have more physics in them than is available in Maths degrees: it's best to look at what material is taught.

(The role of tutor/supervisor is also considerably different outside Oxbridge. A tutor at Warwick is more like the equivalent of a Director of Studies at Cambridge, i.e. somebody you typically see a few times per year to discuss how your studies are going. A tutor at Cambridge refers to a personal tutor, who is not from your subject area and whom you see a couple of times per year. Most students don't have particularly close relations with either their academic tutors (directors of studies) or personal tutors. Supervisors in Cambridge are people who teach you maths one-on-one or one-on-two for a hour each week; a student will have several such sessions in a week, led by different supervisors. Oxbridge offers something qualitatively different in this respect which is a huge advantage over the larger tutorial classes offered by other universities.)

Yes Bonsoir he is really sure about that. I keep checking but he is still certain he wants to study Maths. He likes the sciences but he is not interested at all in a joint degree. Would you mind sharing why it hasn't worked out for them?