I think where you do your undergrad is less important than people think. I went to Linfield College and then went on to get my PhD in applied math at UC Berkeley. My husband went to Cal Poly and also has a PhD in math from Berkeley. BTW, I highly recommend Linfield for gifted students. I was a young college student and it was a great fit for me. There is a lot of personal attention from professors including student/professor research collaborations (I was a coauthor on a paper with my physics prof), an honors program where honors students do a thesis project with an advisor and then present it to the school (I did mine on fractals smile ), and a great international program for study abroad opportunities in several countries (I went to Austria.) I had a full-tuition honors scholarship--my family paid room and board for me.