<p>I was wondering what college I should go to for physics? The two primary ones I was looking at were Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology. I was also looking at Princeton University, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of California - Berkeley, Columbia University, University of Chicago, Yale University, Cornell University, University of Cambridge (UK), and the University of Oxford (UK). Any suggestions? Personal experience? Thanks!</p>
<p>You are looking at some of the very best programs. Also check out the following:</p>
<p>University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Texas-Austin</p>
<p>In the UK, check out:
Imperial College
Warwick University</p>
<p>And here are some LACs you should look into:
Harvey Mudd College</p>
<p>may also want to look at Reed college in Portland
The American Institute of Physics reported in the July 2002 edition of AIP Report that, of the more than 500 U.S. institutions offering undergraduate-only physics programs, Reed College in 1998, 1999, and 2000 produced the third-highest average number of physics graduates per year: 17. Reed, with 1,350 students, trails only the U.S. Air Force Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy--which offer primarily technical curriculain this distinction.
<a href="http://collegenews.org/x1335.xml%5B/url%5D">http://collegenews.org/x1335.xml</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the advice guys. I'll take a look at some of those other colleges!</p>
<p>Also check out UC Santa Barbara.</p>
<p>What about Swarthmore? Don't they have a a quality physics department?</p>
<p>I'll prolly be roasted for this one, but a tech school is infinitely better for anyone who is dead-set serious on physics regarding programs, if only because there's a lot more professors and funding going around (it's not like your degree from a LAC will be thought less of, but you'll be better prepared elsewhere if you know that's what you want to do). For a LAC school Swarthmore's up there, however.
Oh and while we're at it I'll throw out a quick shout for Case Western if you're into more experiments than theory as it's considered to have the best undergraduate physics labs you can find.</p>
<p>I would argue that certain tech-oriented LAC's like Harvey Mudd or Cooper Union don't take a backseat to any research university or tech school.</p>
<p>Consider this quote by Thomas Sowell:</p>
<p>"...a ranking of those colleges, universities, and technical institutes with the highest percentage of their graduates going on to receive doctorates in math, the physical sciences, and engineering can be one of these useful lists:</p>
<p>INSTITUTION %
1. Harvey Mudd College 34.4
2. California Institute of Technology 33.7
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology 17.3
4. Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art 12.5 "</p>
<p>I don't mean schools like Harvey Mudd, I mean more schools like Oberlin or Swarthmore. The fact of the matter is you will take fewer physics courses and LAC students, on average, do not do as well on the physics GRE which can hurt you as well for grad school (we can debate the importance of the GRE somewhere else as that's a whole 'nother can of worms).</p>
<p>Ok, well, I'll put it to you this way. The best physics doctoral program is arguably Caltech's. So why not look at the undergraduate alma maters of people who have attained their physics doctorates at Caltech? For example, you can see that in 2005, one newly minted Caltech physics doctorate did undergrad at Reed, another at Amherst, another from Bates, another from Claremont McKenna (not HarveyMudd, but Claremont McKenna), and (unsurprisingly) 1 from Harvey Mudd. </p>
<p>You can take a gander at some of the other commencement years at Caltech, and you should be able to convince yourself that, at least as far as representation in the Caltech physics doctoral program is concerned, the LAC's seem to be doing fairly well for themselves. </p>
<p>I would recommend non-tech schools for everyone hehe. I know too many kids who were really sure of what they wanted to do, then went to a tech school and changed. I'd say, no matter how sure you are you want to do physics, pick at least 2 other majors that interest you and pick a school based on your top 3. College is the best time to explore -use it well.</p>
<p>... and there were 28 physics PhDs given, if we want to play the numbers game, so if you go through the list it's about 20% from LACs.
Look I'm not trying to diss all LACs or anything, I looked into quite a few when applying for college myself, I'm just saying that if you're pretty sure you want to do physics it's probably in your best interests to look at the more techie sort of schools. In case that alone isn't good enough just think that 1. it's cheaper and 2. you're more likely to run into people who have the same interests as you at a tech school where everyone's a nerd versus a LAC, and hence have more friends with common interests/ more people to study with late at night on those dreaded quantum physics hw sets. This is what I learned in hindsight from applying to colleges as someone interested in physics, so that's where I stand on the issue.</p>
<p>Fair enough, I guess people I was talking about were people with many interests who for some reason or another simply thought they should be doing engineering</p>
<p>
[quote]
and there were 28 physics PhDs given, if we want to play the numbers game, so if you go through the list it's about 20% from LACs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You only proved my point even further. The LAC's comprise 20% of the population, but when you consider the student populations at the LAC's relative to the research universities, you can see that the LAC's are very well represented, in fact, probably over-represented. Think about it - MIT has literally 5 times more undergrads than does Harvey Mudd, so it would only stand to reason that they ought to be producing 5 times the number of people who get doctorates.</p>
<p>The point is not that I'm saying that the LAC's are better than MIT, but that that LAC's are definitely doing quite well for themselves. LAC's are very well represented in doctoral rankings, especially considering their small size.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1. it's cheaper
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Are tech schools really cheaper? Last time I checked, MIT had one of the highest tuitions of any school in the country.</p>
<p>I assume escape was talking about public universities with large tech programs being cheaper.</p>
<p>Even more fascinating than the representation of LAC's among science doctoral recipients, which has been well documented, was the large number of undergrad institutions represented. It was hardly comprised only of the few same old elite schools that everyone mentions when asked about top science programs. There were lots of places that would not make anyone's list of elite colleges, but there they were, getting Caltech PhD's.</p>
<p>Princeton: Albert Einstein taught there and many top physicists, such as Richard Feynman, attended there for grad school.</p>
<p>Physics:</p>
<p>Top Priv: Harvard,MIT,Caltech,Princeton,Stanford,Cornell,Uchicago</p>
<p>Top LAC: Harvey Mudd,Williams,Swarthmore,Carleton,Oberlin</p>
<p>Top Pub: Berkeley,UIUC,U Maryland,U Michigan,UC Santa Barbara</p>
<p>Is Santa Barbara really so great a physics school that it can be placed on the list with the other schools more known?</p>
<p>Santa Barbara is top 20 for Physics. As public, it's great. And also SB has many good profs known for physics.</p>