<p>My dream job is to be an Astrophysicist. I know it's kin of a stretch to become a well-paud and well-known physicist but I intend to go undergrad for physics an receive a PhD later. My question is which schools are best for this? I talked to some physicist and obviously they said the ivy leagues are best undergrad but what are your guy's thoughts?</p>
<p>Sorry for all the spelling errors! I typed really fast hahah :)</p>
<p>Check out the NRC and US News rankings.</p>
<p>If the Ivy schools are not possible, you could also look at the public Ivy schools. I’ve heard with physics degree, this is kinda a big deal (that is if your looking for reasearch positions). </p>
<ul>
<li>College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)</li>
<li>Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)</li>
<li>University of California</li>
<li>University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)</li>
<li>University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill</li>
<li>University of Texas at Austin</li>
<li>University of Vermont (Burlington)</li>
<li>University of Virginia (Charlottesville)</li>
</ul>
<p>I just don’t have the opportunity to move out of state to go to an Ivy even if I had a full scholarship (I have two little babies and my husband cannot find jobs so easily), but I got lucky that my state (VA) host two of these on the list. If going to a community college, VA residents have the possibility of obtaining a guaranteed admission agreement if they keep grades up and take GER classes for the college you want to transfer to (I currently fall in that category and plan to go to W&M). If you could go where you please, I would have to say aim for MIT if your doing physics (just my opinion).</p>
<p>Technically you can get your undergrad from anywhere and go onto grad school. The reason that people recommend going to a top school is that you will receive and education that will prepare you well for graduate school and you will probably have more research opportunities. Also, I think coming from a top school gives you an advantage in applying to graduate school, especially if you have very significant research experience. The professor I work for at my school and others I know are very well respected in their fields and have a ton of connections, this really helps when getting letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>Go to a solid state school for your undergrad. Apply for graduate school to a prestigious university. If you really want to be a PHD physicist, then where you do your PhD matters, your undergrad not so much.</p>
<p>You want to go to somewhere much cheaper than an ivy league for your undergrad, because there’s a good chance that you will either decide that you won’t want to continue, or you won’t be good enough to continue on (regardless of whether you to go to an ivy league or not). In either of those cases, you want to graduate with as little debt as possible. Conversely, if you do well at a state school, you can still go to an ivy league for graduate school without much difficulty (make sure you really stand out in your coursework and know the professors very well). Be smart: don’t go to school and load yourself down with tons of debt.</p>
<p>My twin sister plans to go into physics also, and because it can be tough to get in to good schools, she decided (like me) to go to community college, and that way she can be sure to get into the college she wanted (this only works if the community college is in the same state I think). She’s wanting to go to UVA for undergrad and I do think she plans on doing grad work in either Norway or Finland (grad schools are cheap there, plus she loves the nuclear physics programs), which is why she wanted to go to a well known college here in the U.S. for undergrad.</p>
<p>yoonashley, you should let your sister know it’s likely any PhD program she would get into here in the US would be fully funded, so it’s actually less expensive than cheap.</p>
<p>I think she wanted a masters not a PhD (hope Im not saying this wrong), are master programs here cheap as well (or funded at all)? I also think she just wants an excuse to live there ;P… (she’s crazy about scandinavian culture)</p>
<p>I think a lot of European schools don’t even offer a MS type degree, since undergrad engineering degrees tend to be our equivalent of a MS. They’re able to do it in less time since they don’t bother with any of the breadth requirements we have to do.</p>
<p>MS programs here tend not to be funded, though some employers will pay for you to get one via night classes. Sometimes if you’re really lucky you can also get funded for a MS, but you need to be one of the strongest applicants to a particular program for that.</p>