<p>Forgetting about finances and focusing Mostly on the academic aspects,</p>
<p>Which school would be a better choice for someone interested in studying physics and later probably astrophysics? Also, what would be the best choice in terms of getting into graduate school as well?</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for everyone opinions!</p>
<p>cross-posted at University of Chicago forums</p>
<p>hey bigcrit, this one is tough, and someone affiliated at both i have some idea about this question. i’m unapologetically a columbia fan though.</p>
<p>in the end the schools are both equally well known for physics and historically bastions of top level work. columbia is as the department themselves notes on an upswing again with some pretty great young hires, but it is probably best to know that it is very small student to faculty ratio, some pretty solid connections it has with CERN, columbia’s own physics laboratory in upstate ny, and a good variety of strong researchers in many different aspects of researcher. columbia has a pretty well respected astrophysics program (uchi only offers a graduate program) and often sends students out to Arizona to do some microwave radio testing.</p>
<p>if you are serious about academics, and want grad school - columbia will put its full weight behind you. and you’ll get into top programs (though usually not at columbia because they don’t really like their own). i know folks doing grad in physics at harvard, princeton, berkeley, uchicago, etc.</p>
<p>but it is something to realize that there are few schools that are as grad school oriented as uchicago. there are advantages to this of course - it means that profs know how to gear you toward grad school, but there is a feeling like if you somehow change your mind it is anathema (it can get group think) and then the realization that you’re competing against more of your peers in the process.</p>
<p>ultimately the academics must also include the cores at each school - uchicago is more quant heavy, columbia is more humanities driven. i think you will love columbia as a phys student because of the close attention you’ll get from professors (it will almost feel like you’re someone’s student), and the variety in the core, the great aspects of the city.</p>
<p>and finally - hyde park is no morningside heights. the former is truly unimpressive as a neighborhood in relation to the latter.</p>
<p>I didn’t get into UChicago, but as a physics major, I thought about this situation a lot. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with either school. They both have outstanding physics departments and connections to top professors and research programs. I’m am a huge Brian Greene fan and an hour away from NYC, so personally, I would choose Columbia. On the other hand, Chicago’s association with Fermilab is hard to compete with. If that’s the kind of research you want, it would definitely be tough to turn down. Honestly, if I were you, I would make your decision based on other aspects of each school and go with whichever one you like best. You really can’t go wrong with either physics department.</p>
<p>thank you very much guys, I value these opinions.</p>
<p>I have a few questions to admissions-geek though:
(yes i specifically applied to Columbia because I think the ratio of students to professors would do wonders for me)</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Do you think that I could be majoring in plain-old physics while still doing research related with the astrophysics major? (Mostly as in can i get the same opportunity as a specialized astrophysics major)</p></li>
<li><p>Why would you say Morningside heights is so much better, other than rivalry of course </p></li>
<li><p>What do you mean by “pretty solid connections [with] CERN?” Do you think i could get an internship or research opportunity there if i work hard?</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, I don’t like the yankees or the Giants, is this going to be a problem for me at Columbia 
</p></li>
</ul>
<p>You already posted a huge, helpful reply, so if you don’t want to type anymore, I understand. But i would really appreciate a few words, thanks again.</p>
<p>To everyone else, please keep it coming.
Chicago’s connectios with the FermiLab and the Argonna National Lab are crazy opportunities too… So idk how i feel about passing that up.</p>
<p>so columbia is moving toward a belief of the sciences that is more to do with size and timescale than discipline. so if your interest is cosmic and long time scale, you’d work with physicists, astronomers and even some applied math folks that think in that time scale. the new science building is arranged to allow interdisciplinarity.</p>
<p>second, you could not be a physics major and still be able to research or work with physicists. there is no monopoly at columbia, especially in the sciences, on who can or can’t do research. they just want you to be smart enough for it to be worth your while (it is very relaxed place). science faculty often talk about how they would be willing to let you research and maybe let you jump ahead in some sequences for the major. and then there is always the opportunity to take grad level courses. </p>
<p>i know some profs have taken or helped students get research funding to go with them to CERN, but undoubtedly you can end up doing research with faculty (if you’re thinking astro) at arizona where some faculty members operate some microwave telescopes.</p>
<p>hyde park is boring, beyond belief, and it is slightly tragic, the neighborhood many years ago stunted any commercial development because it would lead neighbors to come around in part with fear of crime. as a result it is isolated, with limited commercial activity that which closes early, and the university as a whole is not close to most of the entertainment or offerings of chicago. to a single-minded student, it might work well, but it ultimately means calling this an urban university is a bit of a farce, i see it more as a suburb. on the one hand it is one of the few racially mixed neighborhoods of chicago, on the other it is a prime example of how tense and complicated race relations are in chicago.</p>
<p>morningside heights is not closed off so much from the areas around it, and though not times square, it has its own liveliness late at night, with places to eat open 24/7, things to do, art in the area, i mean there are 40 restaurants within a 10 block radius, many of which offer cheap eats, good supplements to university food. you can get your haircut for 10$ at a nearby dominican place. and you get the feeling that it is more mixed socioeconomically (tenement housing, homeless shelters next to million dollar condos, faculty apartments, and student living), you get the specific sense that it is your neighborhood, and one that you share with others. and the last thing - it is always full of street lights and lamps, people up, cops around, you don’t feel weird walking home alone ever, something i can’t say for being at u of c, where tumbleweeds might come up alongside you. it is a very different cultural/social experience within the neighborhoods themselves.</p>
<p>bigcrit, you can always root for the Jets and the Mets! (Each is as good as the Bears and the White Sox, respectively.)</p>
<p>I’m actually a senior astrophysics major in CC. I don’t know too much about chicago’s department, but I can help answer any questions on the departments at columbia.</p>
<p>Columbia really enphasizes research for its undergrads, much so than other schools. I don’t know what branch of physics and astrophysics you are interested in, but columbia has a few large research groups in physics/astrophysics that love undergrads. In particular, I will point out Szabi Marka’s experimental gravity group, who work on detecting gravitational waves from black hole mergers and other extreme phenomena by using mile long underground interferometers.
See [GECo[/url</a>] </p>
<p>Another large research group in the physics department that does work in astrophysics is Amber Miller’s observational cosmology group, who work on observations of the cosmic microwave background, which is light from the very early universe when the density dropped low enough to be tansparent to photons, and important in the study of structure formation in the universe.
See [url=<a href=“http://calvin.phys.columbia.edu/group_web/index.php]The”>http://calvin.phys.columbia.edu/group_web/index.php]The</a> Miller CMB Group at Columbia University](<a href=“http://geco.phys.columbia.edu/]GECo[/url”>http://geco.phys.columbia.edu/)</p>
<p>If you are interested in astroparticle physics, Elena Aprile has a large dark matter detection group, which builds and uses liquid xenon and argon detectors in the race to detect dark matter as predicted under supersymmetry. The detectors are build at columbia’s Nevis experimental particle physics lab, which is quite large and a lot of undergrads work at.
See <a href=“http://xenon.astro.columbia.edu/group.html[/url]”>http://xenon.astro.columbia.edu/group.html</a> , <a href=“http://www.nevis.columbia.edu/[/url]”>http://www.nevis.columbia.edu/</a></p>
<p>There are also some very very famous theorists in the departments, who have worked with undergrads in the past: Andrei Beloborodov (theoretical high-energy astrophysics, general relativity), Lam Hui (physical cosmology, early universe physics), Zoltan Haiman (cosmology, structure formation), and of course Brian Greene (I don’t think he needs an introduction) .</p>
<p>As you can see, a fairly large portion of the physics department is devoted to astrophysics, and you can definitely work in astrophysics as a physics major. Columbia’s physics department has one of the best graduate placement rates around, and perennially has some of the best students at columbia. A lot of columbia college valedictorians and salutatorians come out of the physics department, including last year’s, who was chemical physics, and the year before, who was physics, and is now in the infamous astrophysical sciences phd program at princeton. </p>
<p>In the physics department, there are ~45 professors and ~30 undergrads, and in astronomy, ~15 faculty and ~10 undergrads. Class sizes are very small and everyone gets to do research in whatever group and field they want, since there is no competition for spots due to the student:faculty ratio. The faculty all love the undergrads, as we’re all pretty smart (I think?), and the undergrads have their own office and lounge so it’s a very friendly environment.</p>
<p>Feel free to ask more questions!</p>
<p>ah, a pleasure to have an actual astro kid on here - thanks astrolion. really helpful.</p>
<p>As an engineer who’s taken a fair bit of physics, astrolion nails it, that’s exactly what I thought of the physics majors and the physics department, there are mostly ridiculously smart kids in there (more than any other major except math perhaps), and they get their dues, with research, attention, small class sizes, difficult coursework.</p>
<p>AstroLion, thank you very much for your input! That really helps! I’m mostly set on Columbia now. But I will visit both with the admitted student days and then make my final decision :)</p>