<p>I am a junior in high school and am starting look around to see what colleges I'm going to apply to. Does anyone know which schools have the best physics undergrad programs?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291682-top-physics-programs.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/291682-top-physics-programs.html</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://courses.graduateshotline.com/physics.html[/url]”>http://courses.graduateshotline.com/physics.html</a></p>
<p>Here are 100 to consider. These one hundred colleges and universities produced the highest percentage of future Physics/Astronomy PhDs per graduate over the most recent 10 year period. Obviously a lot of tech schools are represented, but there’s something for just about everybody (different sizes, different locations, different selectivities):</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Formula: Total PhDs divided by Total Grads, multiplied by 1000 </p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period</p>
<p>1 California Institute of Technology 96
2 Harvey Mudd College 64
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 29
4 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology 20
5 Reed College 13
6 Carleton College 13
7 Princeton University 13
8 University of Chicago 13
9 Rice University 13
10 Case Western Reserve University 9
11 Harvard University 9
12 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 9
13 Swarthmore College 9
14 Haverford College 8
15 Stevens Institute of Technology 8
16 Whitman College 8
17 Grinnell College 7
18 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 7
19 Colorado School of Mines 7
20 Yale University 6
21 Williams College 6
22 University of Rochester 6
23 Amherst College 6
24 Goshen College 5
25 Cornell University, All Campuses 5
26 University of Dallas 5
27 Wabash College 5
28 Stanford University 5
29 Beloit College 5
30 University of California-Berkeley 5
31 Carnegie Mellon University 5
32 Johns Hopkins University 5
33 Hastings College 5
34 Lawrence University 5
35 Illinois Institute of Technology 5
36 Columbia University in the City of New York 4
37 Oberlin College 4
38 Monmouth College 4
39 Bryn Mawr College 4
40 Gustavus Adolphus College 4
41 Kalamazoo College 4
42 College of William and Mary 4
43 Earlham College 4
44 Worcester Polytechnic Institute 4
45 Pomona College 4
46 St Olaf College 4
47 Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus 4
48 Rhodes College 4
49 St John’s University (Collegeville, MN) 3
50 Bates College 3
51 Macalester College 3
52 Brown University 3
53 Wesleyan University 3
54 Bethel College (North Newton, KS) 3
55 Brandeis University 3
56 Kenyon College 3
57 Hope College 3
58 St John’s College (both campus) 3
59 Franklin and Marshall College 3
60 Bowdoin College 3
61 Washington University 3
62 Walla Walla College 3
63 Middlebury College 3
64 University of Missouri, Rolla 3
65 Drew University 3
66 Guilford College 3
67 Southern College of Seventh-Day Adventists 3
68 Moravian College 3
69 Clarkson University 3
70 Polytechnic University 3
71 Hamline University 3
72 Tougaloo College 3
73 Vassar College 2
74 Andrews University 2
75 University of California-San Diego 2
76 Lehigh University 2
77 College of Wooster 2
78 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2
79 Wake Forest University 2
80 Duke University 2
81 Albion College 2
82 University of Virginia, Main Campus 2
83 Trinity University 2
84 University of Alabama in Huntsville 2
85 Benedictine College 2
86 University of Puget Sound 2
87 Michigan Technological University 2
88 Dartmouth College 2
89 Cooper Union 2
90 Pacific University 2
91 Florida Institute of Technology 2
92 Xavier University 2
93 Northwest Nazarene College 2
94 South Dakota School of Mines & Technology 2
95 Hendrix College 2
96 Bucknell University 2
97 Millsaps College 2
98 Southwestern University 2
99 Bethel College and Seminary, All Campuses 2
100 Wofford College 2
101 Wellesley College 2</p>
<p>First posted by interesteddad.</p>
<p>Harvard
MIT
Princeton
Stanford
Caltech
Berkeley
Chicago
Michigan
Rice
Cornell
JHU</p>
<p>Bset GRADUATE physics programs from US News</p>
<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 5.0<br>
1 Stanford University Stanford, CA 5.0<br>
3 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 4.9<br>
3 Harvard University Cambridge, MA 4.9<br>
3 Princeton University Princeton, NJ 4.9<br>
3 University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA 4.9<br>
7 Cornell University Ithaca, NY 4.7<br>
8 University of Chicago Chicago, IL 4.6<br>
8 University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign Urbana, IL 4.6<br>
10 University of California–Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 4.5<br>
11 Columbia University New York, NY 4.3<br>
11 Yale University New Haven, CT 4.3<br>
13 University of Maryland–College Park College Park, MD 4.2<br>
13 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 4.2<br>
13 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 4.2<br>
16 University of California–Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 4.1<br>
16 University of California–San Diego La Jolla, CA 4.1<br>
16 University of Texas–Austin Austin, TX 4.1<br>
16 University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI 4.1<br>
20 Johns Hopkins University (Rowland) Baltimore, MD 4.0<br>
20 University of Colorado–Boulder Boulder, CO 4.0<br>
20 University of Washington Seattle, WA 4.0<br>
23 Pennsylvania State University–University Park University Park, PA 3.8<br>
23 SUNY–Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY 3.8<br>
23 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities Minneapolis , MN 3.8</p>
<p>Gourman UNDERGRADUATE physics 
top physics programs according to the Gourman Report, listed in rank order:
Caltech
Harvard
Cornell
Princeton
MIT
UC Berkeley
Stanford
U Chicago
U Illinois UC
Columbia
Yale
Georgia Tech
UC San Diego
UCLA
U Pennsylvania
U Wisconsin Madison
U Washington
U Michigan AA
U Maryland CP
UC Santa Barbara
U Texas Austin
Carnegie Mellon
U Minnesota
RPI
Brown
JHU
Michigan St
Notre Dame
SUNY Stony Brook
Case Western
Northwestern
U Rochester
U Pittsburgh
Penn State
U Colorado Boulder</p>
<p>Wow there are some surprises there! Cornell > MIT in a mathematical-ish field? I guess assumptions are just that!</p>
<p>Note that Gourman includes only comprehensive universities, missing the smaller schools that often do a better job at undergrad prep in physics.</p>
<p>I agree with vossron that Gourman overlooks the LACs. But, you can be small and still make it into the Gourman rankings, like Caltech.</p>
<p>IMHO, not including Harvey Mudd renders Gourman’s methodology nonsense for undergrad use.</p>
<p>Here’s a list that collegehelp has posted in the past. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd and Carleton are the LACs that immediately come to mind.</p>