<p>Santa Barbara was ranked #10 in physics in the NRC rankings of PhD
programs. One of their professors just won the Nobel Prize (David Gross) this year for theoretical work on the strong nuclear force.</p>
<p>I wanted to echo Sakky's point that it doesn't really matter too much exactly which top school you attend IF your goal is to eventually get the PhD... pretty much any school in the top 50, universities or LACs, are going to give you a solid foundation for graduate studies. In my PhD program at Berkeley, LACs such as Carleton, Amherst, Reed, Williams were well represented.</p>
<p>okay, I'm a sophmore in high school and I want to go into physics but I dont know what college to go to. I need help, what are some good places to attend?</p>
<p>Come back to us once you have completed most of your junior year and can give us some indication of how well you'll do on your AP Physics exam, your SAT and SAT.</p>
<p>1 Harvard<br>
2 Princeton<br>
3 MIT<br>
4 Cal Berkeley<br>
5 Cal Tech<br>
6 Cornell<br>
7 Chicago<br>
8 Illinois<br>
9 Stanford<br>
10 Cal Santa Barbara<br>
11 Texas<br>
12 Columbia<br>
13 Yale<br>
14 Washington<br>
15 UCLA<br>
16 Cal San Diego<br>
17 Penn<br>
18 Maryland<br>
19 Michigan<br>
20 Rutgers</p>
<p>Look at Hamilton College?</p>
<p>I know the UCSB grad program is ranked 2nd behind only caltech, its undergrad is very strong also tho.</p>
<p>I'm a physics major at Caltech so I'm clearly biased, but...</p>
<p>Caltech - for every undergrad on campus, there's someone with a PhD. That translates to the best opportunities for significant undergrad research. </p>
<p>The physics department is a bit more theoretical than I'd like, but make sure you take a look at the applied physics department as well - they do what most colleges consider physics.</p>
<p>If you want more information about Caltech, feel free to PM me.</p>