<p>Can anybody find a list of undergrad and grad ranking for astronomy?</p>
<p>no
but i heard that UCsanta Cruz has like one of the best astronomy programs</p>
<p>I have a couple of friends who take their Astro studies very seriously. According to them:</p>
<p>GROUP:
California Institute of Technology
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Princeton University
University of California-Berkeley
University of Chicago</p>
<p>GROUP II:
Columbia University
Cornell University
University of California-Santa Cruz
University of Colorado-Boulder
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
University of Maryland
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Texas-Austin
University of Virginia
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Yale University</p>
<p>I am surprised Arizona is not on your list. And I would think Cornell would at least be in Group I owing to the leagacy of Carl Sagan and the fact that Cornell professors and students were deeply involved in the NASA Mars Project, a good deal of which was actually managed from the school's campus. In addition, there is the Arecibo facility run by Cornell.</p>
<p>This will get you started:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.astro.cornell.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://www.astro.cornell.edu/</a> </p>
<p>On the theoretical side, there is a host of engineering, physics and math programs that have an astronomy emphasis or application, in addition to those 30 or so courses within the astronomy department itself:</p>
<p>That was just from memmory, so I am sure I forgot a couple and misplaced a couple too. I definitely recall Arizona being mentioned prominently. As for Cornell, I know it is one of the very best. Along with UCSC, it definitely makes a very strong argument for group I.</p>
<p>University of Texas at Austin has some amazing astronomy facilities, most notably the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, TX. </p>
<p>I thought Penn State was also good in astronomy, perhaps not as good as the aforementioned schools?</p>
<p>Currently I'm going back and forth in my mind whether I want to go to U of A or UVA. I was thinking I'd either get an Astronomy-Physics degree and go on to graduate studies or I would major in Math and Accounting and go on to get a JD and/or MBA...decisions...currently I'm in AP Physics C Mechanics and I dont really like it but I do have an A...</p>
<p>The best astronomy graduate programs in the country are, in no particular order (area of strength in parenthesis)</p>
<p>UC-Berkeley (everything)
UC-Santa Cruz (opical and IR observation)
Harvard (everything)
Princeton (theory)
Caltech (everything)</p>
<p>Nnote that is a listing of schools with departmente of astronomy or astrophysics, so that leaves out schools like MIT or Stanford where astronomy and astrophysics are lumped together with physics.</p>
<p>Schools with programs a notch below these five but still outstanding:</p>
<p>University of Washington
UCLA
University of Texas-Austin
University of Colorado-Boulder
Univerity of Hawaii
University of Arizona
University of Chicago
Penn State
Cornell
Ohio State</p>
<p>If you don't like physics you shouldn't go into astronomy. Also, you can major in just about anything and still get an MBA or JD. Finally, it doesn't really matter where you go for undergraduate in physics or astronomy, as you'll take the same classes, most likely out of the same textbooks as everyone else in the country, because physics curricula are very uniform.</p>
<p>Its hard to tell whether I like physics or not. Im in Physics C mechanics and I dont like it but I mean, my teacher is horrible. I barely understand what is going on and I usually zone out. Plus mechanics seems to be the boring part. I'm really interested in astronomy though. It seems like U of A is at the forefront of NASA space research so wouldnt that be a good place to go?</p>