I just want to echo @xraymancs post. I am not well versed in what is astronomy, what is astrophysics, what is cosmology bc it all goes over my head. But, I am the parent of a child who fell in love with physics/astronomy in 8th grade. He went to Astronomy Camp and SSP and has never lost that focus.
His college attendance was dictated by cost and he is a sr at Bama. There he has actively participated in IceCube research during his UG. (I have no idea what category neutrino and muon research falls into. )He used REUs as opportunities to explore other areas in physics to help him narrow his ultimate goal for grad school. Anyway, he is in the process of hearing back from grad programs for theoretical cosmology. So far his acceptances have demonstrated that @xraymancs last sentence, “Students get into highly selective graduate programs from all universities, not just the usual suspects…” appears to be accurate in that Bama has not limited his acceptances.
@xraymancs , @Regulus7 , @Mom2aphysicsgeek - thank you. It’s becoming clear to us in reading these posts how important undergrad RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES are, so this is definitely a key consideration for us to explore (and, interestingly, it seems like you could argue this either way, right? - a larger university, where there might be more $, REU opportunities OR a smaller school/LAC where you might have more hands on research/direct contact with professors). We are also honing in on the idea that looking for strong OVERALL PHYS PROGRAM (with a complete and rigorous set of core course and hopefully enough in the Astro category) is probably important to give him options as well. Smaller LAC’s are absolutely on our list - my husband and I are both products of one, and understand the value of that path completely (but as neither of us have a science background and are not in that field professionally, it’s a new area to learn and understand for us what’s important to consider, how best to advise him).
@dogwood18 Do you understand exactly what REUs are? I didn’t when our ds was a jr and didn’t figure out just how much we needed to understand the research portion until 2 dept visits. At one top school, the dean of physics told our ds that he had more direct research than most of their UGs b/c their focus was on their grad students and UGs work for grad students. At another, that dean and the UG advisor (met with both) told ds that their professors were too busy to focus on UGs for research and that is what REUs are for.
Both of those comments made ds hone in on his college searching skills. Access to research was one of his #1 criteria (as was access to grad level classes). He eliminated any school that didn’t have UG researchers working with professors. (He has been blessed with fabulous professor mentors at Bama, his research mentor and other professors in the dept as well.) He also became well-versed in what REUs are. They are research experiences during the summer typically not on your home campus. Students from any school can apply to any of the programs across the country. (They are extremely competitive, but kids are accepted from a wide variety of programs. Ds attended programs where their were other kids from schools like Wooster to MIT.) Here is an article: https://astrobites.org/2013/01/05/so-you-want-to-apply-for-an-reu-heres-how/
I recommend making dept visits and asking questions. FWIW, many elite honors programs have UG research as part of their focus.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek, no, I don’t. I just looked it up and started after I read your post (my husband and I don’t have science backgrounds at all so this is all new to us, and this is our first time at this rodeo with oldest child) - I hadn’t heard of the term at all. Happy to take any and all tips and words of wisdom of how you ascertain the quality and quantity of research opportunities available for undergrads - I would imagine as you said that dept visits, asking questions would be key would be key way to learn that, but we’re just not that far along yet (will be soon - getting lists together, figuring out how visits can happen). Any thoughts on whether small school vs. big school would be good indicators of research opportunities? The big schools might have larger departments and more variety of classes and rsch. Smaller schools might have more access, but less variety. Aah tradeoffs!
@dogwood18 I added a link above about REUs in case you didn’t see it.
I don’t have an answer in terms of small vs. large. Our ds graduated from high school having completed several UG physics courses, so finding a university with enough core courses for him meant small LACs were not an option. Several of the smaller schools have excellent reputations of grad placement, but I am not personally familiar with them. (Our kids have to target large merit schools, too, so that impacted his search as well.)
Bama has Randall Research Scholars which is a small cohort of research-oriented honors students. (They only accept 40/yr) . USCarolina’s Top Scholars offers research opportunities to UG. So there are 2 large publics with programs geared toward top students and UG research.
You might be missing the point of that post? (maybe not…) That post is saying that a higher number of students are getting accepted into funded PhD programs out of those undergraduate institutions than any others. That is a very strong measure in an academic area like Astro, were you really have to go onto a graduate degree to be employed in the field. At those schools your kid will likely get good coursework, decent research opportunities, and profs/advisors who know how to position a kid for grad school if that is their goal.
Of course you still want to look at fit for your kid – big school, small school, etc. For example, Mudd is small, intense, and tech focused. My kid went there and adored it, but it isn’t for everyone. And it probably isn’t “second tier” – hard to get into. Reed is also intense and quite quirky. But that is a pretty good list to work off of when evaluating possible schools.
@intparent Oh! I think I did misinterpret that data - I was scanning too quickly. So #55 represents how many of their Astro students later went on to Phd programs. Got it - def understand the usefulness of this. (@warblersrule do you have the source on this info/link? thx!)
That information (reply #55) would benefit from sourcing though. I’m somewhat surprised, for example, that Reed, a school with neither an astronomy major/minor nor an observatory, would excel in producing astronomy PhDs. Though I’m not questioning whether the information was fairly compiled, it would be helpful to see its basis.
As mentioned above, Astrophysics and Astronomy are not the same thing. Also… I think Astronomy has been revolutionized by the Hubble and automation/records of observations at other large land based telescopes. You don’t always have to get up in the middle of the night and go to the observatory these days.
As @intparent noted, researchers don’t have to get up in the middle of the night all of the time to work on data. In addition, many projects are international collaborations and data being analyzed might be from a remote location. (IceCub is in Antarctica. Astronomers might only use telescopes on Kitt Peak or Muana Kea once every 6 months or more to collect data.)
A researcher might spend the majority of their time writing computer programs analyzing data collected. (Our ds is not a CS major, but knowing programming in multiple languages has been absolutely necessary for him to do what he does.)
One thing that might help @dogwood18’s child now as a high school student might be learning exactly what astronomers actually do on a day to day basis and what career paths are available with only a bachelor’s. A non-PhD industry career in astronomy seems full of contradictions to me, but I honestly don’t know what careers are out there. Industry-based bachelor’s physics jobs are out there, but not necessarily the path I would want for my child. More information about future paths might help clarify what he is looking for in an UG program and help with thinking about paths with and without grad school.
@dogwood18 Please feel free to ignore the following if he is already aware of it, but this comment in that link,* “In addition, there is are large number of companies that, rather than conduct astronomy research, make use of the background and talents of the astronomer in related areas. Astronomers are generally well-versed in instrumentation, remote sensing, spectral observations, and computer applications to unusual problems,” *and the actual job market for positions not requiring a PhD mentioned in that same paragraph would be what I would want to zone in on if he is possibly not interested in grad school.
If you follow that link to subsequent pages, this comment is the one that I would want to examine more in depth with my student, “*Most astronomy positions require a PhD degree, which can take five or six years of graduate work. This path enables the astronomer to do much independent work, which is what makes astronomy enjoyable: finding a problem and finding a way to solve it,” *bc it needs to be combined with the comment about the few number of actual positions available.
How does he feel about the possibility of 5+ yrs of grad/post-doc work? What types of actual jobs do grads with only bachelor’s get bc if it is taking that long to master skills for independent work, that, for me anyway, begs the question of what they are qualified to do without those skills? Are those types of jobs something he can see himself doing?
Hello, I don’t mean to highjack @dogwood18’s post but I happen to have a very similar child in every sense (34 ACT, 790 Math II 760 Physics rigor in math and science, A- B+ some B student with strong interest in Astrophysics and a simillar aspiration for postgrad school) and was curious to know what people on this discussion thought of Case Western Reserve, UC Santa Cruz, UMass Amherst and U of Arizona. Hopefully, comments would be helpful to dogwood18 as well. Ours is also a first child also and H and I have no background in physics let alone science. Thanks in advance.
@harvardandberkeley MA but money is not a huge factor as she received merit from all the schools except for UMass Amherst, strangely. It’s almost like out of state schools are trying to make OOS tuition a little more palatable.
DD went to a smaller independent school (100 students per grade) so I think Case might be a better fit in terms of size but I am a little concerned about the size of the Physics department and the research opportunities. I know Case is an R1 research school but I wonder how much of it is for Physics. I know REU is a possibility but is summer research adequate in order to prepare for graduate school?
Access to research was one of his