<p>I've thought about this and looked at a lot of rankings, but ultimately I have to take these things with a grain of salt, and have to temper my own thoughts about a university because I well know that things I have been told throughout my life may be clouding my notions about the schools. In all honesty, these things are just very difficult to quantify, but I'm looking for a school with a good track record that can really feed my interest in and passion for physics. </p>
<p>If you have any insight that you can provide, that would be very much welcome. </p>
<p>Thank you. </p>
<p>(Just a note: I am not interested in pursuing engineering, or working in a field isn't even remotely related to physics after college.)</p>
<p>Schools like Caltech and MIT are well known, but beyond that, there are many universities with good physics departments at the undergraduate level- too many to list. At this point it would be useful to consider the other factors that you are looking for in a college- location, cost, size. For a career in physics- graduate school is most likely in your plans. You will need to be involved in research as an undergraduate, but this can be done at many universities- including possibly your in-state ones, as many of them are strong in physics. If you post your state of residency, region, and other factors you are looking for, it will help others suggest colleges for you to consider.</p>
<p>I live in Texas, and I shall require significant financial aide. I’m definitely looking for a university that is strong in research. In addition, I don’t particularly want to attend a 50,000-student school – my entire town is significantly smaller than that, and I think out would come as a culture shock. That said, I would certainly consider it in terms of research opportunities and how it would benefit me getting into a competitive graduate school. </p>
<p>Caltech is where I’d love to go, but considering their selectivity, I definitely need to consider other possibilities.</p>
<p>Unless you attend one of the schools that meet full need or give you significant merit and financial aid, your best and most affordable options could be your in state schools. There is little need to pay OOS costs for an equivalent or lesser program.
Physics undergrad requirements are fairly uniform, and as far as applying to graduate programs, emphasis is on performance in physics and math classes, on the physics GRE, the general GRE ( with focus on math, but verbal and writing skills matter) research experience and letters of recommendation. There are no rankings that I know of for physics undergraduate programs, but there are for graduate. Some rankings vary for different areas of physics- like nuclear, astrophysics, but they are ranked in general too. They were recently ranked in 2010. Texas A&M College Station was ranked #40, UT Austin is ranked #14.( Rice is ranked #26 if you can get enough financial aid). You are fortunate that two top programs are at your in- state schools. For physics- and the cost, you can’t do better than this ( except something like MIT, Cal Tech and full financial aid).
Most Physics PhD programs are funded- but basically enough to live as a grad student so you would want to minimize undergraduate debt.
Grad programs are competitive, but your state schools have what you need to be prepared to apply to them. It helps to take advanced math and computer science classes too.
Your best advice for preparing for graduate school will come from a faculty advisor in the physics departments and other students in a physics club at your college. Be sure to get involved in a research group and also participate in an REU- and you can apply at several sites. Your advisor can recommend which ones. Colleges that offer REU’s also have strong physics departments.</p>
<p>Run the net price calculators on each school to see what their financial aid is like (last I looked, UT Austin was not that expensive at list price for in-state, but in-state financial aid was not that good for reducing the cost beyond that).</p>
<p>Is National Merit Finalist a possibility? If so, Texas A&M has a good scholarship for you.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman at Rollins College and is a physics major. I know they have nice aid packages, some merit (based on ACT/SAT scores) as well as financial need. </p>
<p>The school has a very small physics department but the opportunities are amazing. As a freshman, my daughter is already doing research (and getting paid for it)and received a grant to continue the research this summer (getting paid plus room). (She is doing the research with one other person). This is ongoing research (and one of many offered through the science department) and the supervising professor told them that if they finish the research as planned they will go to a professional physicists conference in LA this winter to present their findings (can’t remember the actual name or group).(all expenses paid). I’m not sure how many other schools offer this, but most people I talk to are amazed that freshmen get this opportunity- and as I mentioned, this is just one of many posdible research projects. </p>
<p>The school also is building a huge science building (will be finished some time this summer). As I pointed out to my husband when he was concerned with the school because it was such a small department-the fact they are investing that much money onto the science department shows me that is a big focus for the school. And also, even though there are not many physics majors, there are still many physics professors (I am sorry I don’t recall the exact ratio). And, finally, when I went in to talk to her advisor (the head of the department and her research supervisor), he told me that they do what they need to do to ensure she will get the classes she needs to graduate in 4 years (she wants a double major-physics and dance, and a semester abroad). He told me that they have Skyped students to teach them a class while they are overseas if they can’t rearrange the actual schedule. As a last resort they would offer the class for the one student. In her case, it sounds as if the entire freshman class is going abroad junior year, so they are going to plan the course offerings for this class around that. For the study abroad, we will only have to pay for airfare to LA and tuition for the semester. They will cover the flight to Australia and anything above and beyond the actual tuition. </p>
<p>Sorry I went on and on, but as you can tell, I am very happy with the education and opportunities my daughter is receiving here. It is a small school and everyone I’ve met and she has talked about us really friendly.
Oh… Rollins is located just outside of Orlando…and, yes, another perk is discounted Disney/universal tickets
I hope this helps.</p>
<p>^ That’s good to know, thanks. The rankings for graduate programs would only include universities.
I agree with looking for good affordable options and colleges that offer opportunities and personal attention like this.</p>
<p>Based on what you said, I’d definitely recommend the University of Chicago because of its connection to Argonne and lack of engineering courses, and I think Princeton has a national lab associated with it too but I’m not sure. Harvard would also probably be good, same with Yale and most of the other top schools and ivy league schools. SUNY Stony Brook also has a great physics program and a close connection to Brookhaven National Labs. There are some awesome scholarships for Stony Brook too for freshmen. It’s acceptance rate has been sinking, but it’s still a great school if you can get in. Harvey Mudd College has a fantastic physics program, as well as MIT and Cal Tech. Based on what you said, I’d recommend MIT, Harvey Mudd College, Cal Tech, UChicago, Princeton, Berkeley, and / or Harvard, and probably Stanford, Williams, and Yale is well. Duke might be worth looking into but I don’t know much about it to be honest. I’d definitely apply to Stony Brook if I were you as well.</p>
<p>Along with research experience, another important factor is having a fairly clear set of research interests that align with the interests of your prospective mentor(s). You can be brilliant (with an excellent academic record and publications in peer-reviewed journals), but if your research interests don’t align, responsible faculty will advise you to choose another graduate program. </p>
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<p>Look closely at class sizes. A good starting point is the overall averages tracked in the Common Data Set files or posted on the US News site. To delve deeper, look up enrollment numbers for Physics/other courses on the college registration pages. Examples:</p>
<p>Md’s listings don’t show the aggregated lecture sizes. Notice that for Fundamentals of Physics II, 6 sections meet at the same time with the same teacher (MWF 10:00am - 10:50am with Sergio Picozzi). Apparently this is one lecture class with ~144 (6 X ~24) students, and 6 sections with ~24 ea. Compare that to Chicago’s General Physics, with the same size lecture (144 students) and labs ranging from 11-19 students. </p>
<p>Md’s General Mechanics has 10 ~30-student sections meeting at the same time with the same teacher (TuTh 2:00pm - 3:15pm with Andris Skuja). So apparently this is one 300-student lecture class, plus 30-student break-out sections. Compare this to Chicago’s Fall 2012 Mechanics class, with a 111-student lecture plus labs of 16-21 students.</p>
<p>You’re looking at non-physics major intro classes for pre-meds. Physics majors take 171 (Kim), 272 (Bedaque), and 273 (Hall) as mechanics, fields, and waves lectures. They have enrollments of 30, 30 and 66 students respectively. Maryland teaches everything both fall and spring. Further, most of the upper level courses at Maryland are smaller in size than those at Chicago.</p>
<p>Chicago’s corresponding entry courses for physics majors (141-142-143)
have weekly 50-minute lectures with 75-85 students, plus weekly 4-hour labs with 6-16 students.</p>
<p>But yes, it looks like UMCP has a nice selection of physics courses with small to mid-sized enrollments.</p>
<p>What Maryland does is lag the lab courses by a semester. One takes mechanics lab (275) after the lecture course (171) and e&m lab (276) after e&m fields lecture (272). These two lab courses are 4 hours per week in sections of 12 maximum. Then after waves, there is a third optics and quantum physics lab course PHYS 375 with a one hour lecture - 10 students max.</p>
<p>Sounds good.
So UMCP appears to be competitive for physics class sizes with some of the selective private universities.</p>
<p>If the OP is a Texas resident who needs financial aid, that may be the bigger issue in choosing between two such schools (a selective private v. strong-in-physics OOS public school). It all depends on your specific scenario. Chicago at full price costs about $20K more than Maryland at full OOS price. However, Chicago after average n-b aid is about $8K cheaper than MD OOS after average n-b aid, according to Kiplinger’s figures. YMMV.</p>
<p>If you’ve got the grades and scores, definitely look into Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, and Caltech. Those are the first that come to mind. I think Yale and Columbia are pretty solid too.</p>
<p>Yes, I know this looks like a straight-up prestige school listing, but keep in mind that the networks you make at these schools can help for your career in the long run as well.</p>
