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2024 Best Mathematics Doctor's Degree Schools

College Factual reviewed 115 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for doctor's degree seekers in the field of mathematics. Combined, these schools handed out 1,149 doctor's degrees in mathematics to qualified students.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Mathematics School for Your Doctor's Degree

A Great Overall School

The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.

Early-Career Earnings

One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of doctorate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their doctor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.

Other Factors We Consider

In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to mathematics students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other mathematics students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor's degree.
• Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
• Student Debt - How much debt mathematics students go into to obtain their doctor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized mathematics related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for mathematics students working on their doctor's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings , including this Best Mathematics Doctor's Degree Schools list, to help you choose the best school for you.

Featured Mathematics Programs

Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.

BA in Mathematics

If you have a knack for mathematics and an interest in learning more, study online to achieve your career goals at Southern New Hampshire University. Our mathematics degree can help you enhance your mathematical abilities, including reasoning and problem-solving in three areas: analysis, algebra and statistics.

BA in Mathematics - Applied Mathematics

Put mathematical concepts to work to solve today's most complex real-world problems by studying applied mathematics with this specialized online bachelor's from Southern New Hampshire University.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Mathematics in the United States

Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for mathematics students seeking a a doctor's degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.

17 Top Schools for a Doctorate in Math

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in mathematics. Located in the midsize city of Cambridge, MIT is a private not-for-profit school with a large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology

University of Chicago is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in mathematics. Located in the large city of Chicago, UChicago is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from University of Chicago

Cornell University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in mathematics. Cornell is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Ithaca. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Cornell University

Any student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in mathematics has to look into Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Nashville. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Vanderbilt University

Harvard is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the midsize city of Cambridge. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Harvard University

Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Evanston. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Northwestern University

Located in the suburb of Notre Dame, Notre Dame is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from University of Notre Dame

Located in the large suburb of Saint Louis, WUSTL is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Washington University in St Louis

Located in the city of Providence, Brown is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Brown University

Located in the large city of New York, Columbia is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Columbia University in the City of New York

Located in the large city of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Carnegie Mellon University

Dartmouth is a medium-sized private not-for-profit college located in the town of Hanover. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Dartmouth College

U-M is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Ann Arbor. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Located in the large city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from University of California - Los Angeles

UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Berkeley. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from University of California - Berkeley

Located in the large city of Madison, UW - Madison is a public university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from University of Wisconsin - Madison

Located in the large city of Atlanta, Emory is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in mathematics from Emory University

Additional Noteworthy Schools

Here are some additional great schools for Mathematics students that almost earned our Best Mathematics Doctor's Degree Schools award.

Mathematics by Region

View the Best Mathematics Doctor's Degree Schools for a specific region near you.

Other Rankings

Best associate degrees in mathematics, best master's degrees in mathematics, best value in mathematics, best for non-traditional students in mathematics, best online in mathematics, most popular online in mathematics, best bachelor's degrees in mathematics, best overall in mathematics, highest paid grads in mathematics, best for veterans in mathematics, most popular in mathematics, most focused in mathematics.

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Mathematics Related Rankings by Major

One of 4 majors within the Mathematics & Statistics area of study, Mathematics has other similar majors worth exploring.

Math Focus Areas

Most popular related majors, notes and references.

• The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System ( IPEDS ) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s ( College Scorecard ). More about our data sources and methodologies .

Popular Reports

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Guide to Graduate Studies

The PhD Program The Ph.D. program of the Harvard Department of Mathematics is designed to help motivated students develop their understanding and enjoyment of mathematics. Enjoyment and understanding of the subject, as well as enthusiasm in teaching it, are greater when one is actively thinking about mathematics in one’s own way. For this reason, a Ph.D. dissertation involving some original research is a fundamental part of the program. The stages in this program may be described as follows:

• Acquiring a broad basic knowledge of mathematics on which to build a future mathematical culture and more detailed knowledge of a field of specialization.
• Choosing a field of specialization within mathematics and obtaining enough knowledge of this specialized field to arrive at the point of current thinking.
• Making a first original contribution to mathematics within this chosen special area.

Students are expected to take the initiative in pacing themselves through the Ph.D. program. In theory, a future research mathematician should be able to go through all three stages with the help of only a good library. In practice, many of the more subtle aspects of mathematics, such as a sense of taste or relative importance and feeling for a particular subject, are primarily communicated by personal contact. In addition, it is not at all trivial to find one’s way through the ever-burgeoning literature of mathematics, and one can go through the stages outlined above with much less lost motion if one has some access to a group of older and more experienced mathematicians who can guide one’s reading, supplement it with seminars and courses, and evaluate one’s first attempts at research. The presence of other graduate students of comparable ability and level of enthusiasm is also very helpful.

University Requirements

The University requires a minimum of two years of academic residence (16 half-courses) for the Ph.D. degree. On the other hand, five years in residence is the maximum usually allowed by the department. Most students complete the Ph.D. in four or five years. Please review the program requirements timeline .

There is no prescribed set of course requirements, but students are required to register and enroll in four courses each term to maintain full-time status with the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Qualifying Exam

The department gives the qualifying examination at the beginning of the fall and spring terms. The qualifying examination covers algebra, algebraic geometry, algebraic topology, complex analysis, differential geometry, and real analysis. Students are required to take the exam at the beginning of the first term. More details about the qualifying exams can be found here .

Students are expected to pass the qualifying exam before the end of their second year. After passing the qualifying exam students are expected to find a Ph.D. dissertation advisor.

Minor Thesis

The minor thesis is complementary to the qualifying exam. In the course of mathematical research, students will inevitably encounter areas in which they have gaps in knowledge. The minor thesis is an exercise in confronting those gaps to learn what is necessary to understand a specific area of math. Students choose a topic outside their area of expertise and, working independently, learns it well and produces a written exposition of the subject.

The topic is selected in consultation with a faculty member, other than the student’s Ph.D. dissertation advisor, chosen by the student. The topic should not be in the area of the student’s Ph.D. dissertation. For example, students working in number theory might do a minor thesis in analysis or geometry. At the end of three weeks time (four if teaching), students submit to the faculty member a written account of the subject and are prepared to answer questions on the topic.

The minor thesis must be completed before the start of the third year in residence.

Language Exam

Mathematics is an international subject in which the principal languages are English, French, German, and Russian. Almost all important work is published in one of these four languages. Accordingly, students are required to demonstrate the ability to read mathematics in French, German, or Russian by passing a two-hour, written language examination. Students are asked to translate one page of mathematics into English with the help of a dictionary. Students may request to substitute the Italian language exam if it is relevant to their area of mathematics. The language requirement should be fulfilled by the end of the second year. For more information on the graduate program requirements, a timeline can be viewed at here .

Non-native English speakers who have received a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics from an institution where classes are taught in a language other than English may request to waive the language requirement.

Upon completion of the language exam and eight upper-level math courses, students can apply for a continuing Master’s Degree.

Teaching Requirement

Most research mathematicians are also university teachers. In preparation for this role, all students are required to participate in the department’s teaching apprenticeship program and to complete two semesters of classroom teaching experience, usually as a teaching fellow. During the teaching apprenticeship, students are paired with a member of the department’s teaching staff. Students attend some of the advisor’s classes and then prepare (with help) and present their own class, which will be videotaped. Apprentices will receive feedback both from the advisor and from members of the class.

Teaching fellows are responsible for teaching calculus to a class of about 25 undergraduates. They meet with their class three hours a week. They have a course assistant (an advanced undergraduate) to grade homework and to take a weekly problem session. Usually, there are several classes following the same syllabus and with common exams. A course head (a member of the department teaching staff) coordinates the various classes following the same syllabus and is available to advise teaching fellows. Other teaching options are available: graduate course assistantships for advanced math courses and tutorials for advanced undergraduate math concentrators.

Final Stages

How students proceed through the second and third stages of the program varies considerably among individuals. While preparing for the qualifying examination or immediately after, students should begin taking more advanced courses to help with choosing a field of specialization. Unless prepared to work independently, students should choose a field that falls within the interests of a member of the faculty who is willing to serve as dissertation advisor. Members of the faculty vary in the way that they go about dissertation supervision; some faculty members expect more initiative and independence than others and some variation in how busy they are with current advisees. Students should consider their own advising needs as well as the faculty member’s field when choosing an advisor. Students must take the initiative to ask a professor if she or he will act as a dissertation advisor. Students having difficulty deciding under whom to work, may want to spend a term reading under the direction of two or more faculty members simultaneously. The sooner students choose an advisor, the sooner they can begin research. Students should have a provisional advisor by the second year.

It is important to keep in mind that there is no technique for teaching students to have ideas. All that faculty can do is to provide an ambiance in which one’s nascent abilities and insights can blossom. Ph.D. dissertations vary enormously in quality, from hard exercises to highly original advances. Many good research mathematicians begin very slowly, and their dissertations and first few papers could be of minor interest. The ideal attitude is: (1) a love of the subject for its own sake, accompanied by inquisitiveness about things which aren’t known; and (2) a somewhat fatalistic attitude concerning “creative ability” and recognition that hard work is, in the end, much more important.