<p>My S2 is interested in studying CS and Physics. He is a junior and exploring options. S1, who is now a freshman in college, is a humanities/social science guy, so the science world is a new one to me.</p>
<p>I am looking for some advice about schools that would offer strong CS/Physics departments along with research/internship possibilities. We are full pay so financial aid is not a factor, however, merit aid would be nice... though not necessary. He wants a school with at least 4000 undergrads.</p>
<p>Any suggestions of schools he should be considering? </p>
<p>There isn’t really enough information here to make a meaningful evaluation. There are plenty of large CS / Physics schools that have a lot of research going on in those fields.</p>
<p>Does he plan on going to grad school afterwards in either of the disciplines? Also, just to clear things up, he wants to double major in both CS and physics, yes? That would be easily doable at any large university, since they are able to offer upper-division classes in the science/math fields.</p>
<p>I think to narrow down the search one would need to find a place where he would be happy at. Location-wise, rural or urban environment, prevalence of greek life on campus, etc. Physics cirriculum does not differ much from school to school so it doesn’t matter THAT much… Then I would suggest making a post in the college search forum as you’ll probably get more views there.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply. He has visited many schools with his brother (although we focused on the liberal arts during our visits)…has seen urban and rural…he’s open to either one… Not into Greek life. He would like to double major and is planning on graduate school in one of those fields…not sure which one as he’s only 17 
He wants to apply to the schools with the best instruction and best grad school placement. </p>
<p>In terms of greek life, while the percentage of students involved in it, there are varying perceptions of how active/important it is on the student community, so don’t let the raw numbers daunt him if he is not interested in such a thing. I’m also not interested in the whole greek thing but it matters more so on the student reviews of the school and how greek life actually functions. Just a thing I’ve learned in that case.</p>
<p>Most universities are viable for grad school opportunities. Grad schools will often not care as much about where he has come from, but more so that he retains a high GPA in undergrad as well as research experience, internships, volunteering etc. </p>
<p>What are his standardized test scores, GPA, and other relevant information? Additionally, how much are you able to spend per year on education? That should be the first thing to come to mind, as it cannot be possible whatsoever if its not affordable of course.</p>
<p>2300+ SAT, 4.0 GPA, we are full pay</p>
<p>Minimum of 4,000 students… does this mean that even very large schools are under consideration?</p>
<p>Remember, find the safety first. Depending on your state of residency, there may be in-state public universities where he is an automatic admit.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Some PhD programs are school-prestige-conscious about the undergraduate origins of their PhD students, but such notions are major-specific, do not necessarily correlate to overall school-prestige, may vary from one department to the next, and are likely to be based on the department’s own experience with PhD students from various undergraduate schools.</p>
<p>Yes, I would say that medium and large schools are under consideration. He has two in-state safety admits in mind. Now he is looking for schools with the best programs, professors and research/internship possibilities…</p>
<p>As a physics professor at a smaller school than what you are looking for (Illinois Tech has about 2700 undergraduates and 5000 graduate students), I can give you my $0.02. Look for a strong physics program with a full year of quantum mechanics, electrodynamics, and classical mechanics. A university with a Ph.D. program in physics would give your son a chance to work on funded projects alongside graduate students and thereby get very good research experience and letters of reference. Apart from that it is really a matter of fit.</p>
<p>Getting into a good graduate school is not so much about the prestige of your undergraduate institution but what you do with your undergraduate education. My university is not tops in the rankings and it is not big but we have placed physics majors in top 20 graduate programs consistently and they generally perform as good or better than students from better known schools. It is a question of the effort the student puts into his/her education. Getting into a highly selective program requires the applicant to make the initial cut, be it on Physics GRE scores or GPA – these schools have so many applications. Once in the pool, strong letters of reference and research experience become a factor.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your thoughtful and thorough reply. I will show this to my son as he begins to look more seriously at colleges and programs. I appreciate your help. </p>