<p>I'm currently a Junior and I'm interested in majoring in physics (and going into astrophysics specifically). My UW gpa is 3.91 and my W gpa is 4.54 and my SAT score w/o writing is about 1400. I have taken a bunch of APs including Chem (4) and AP calc BC this year (no less than a 4). I've been looking around at colleges for a while now obviously and I have a few in mind, but I really just need to see what other people think. I'd greatly appreciate any help and to see what schools with a good physics program would fit me. </p>
<p>What is your home state and what can your family afford?</p>
<p>No one has an SAT score that’s “about” anything. How does it break down? what’s your math score, in particular?</p>
<p>You need to provide us with some more info about the kinds of schools (areas, size, anything else) we should avoid recommending. </p>
<p>Read points 1 and 3 of <a href=“Before you ask which colleges to apply to, please consider - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1621234-before-you-ask-which-colleges-to-apply-to-please-consider-p1.html</a></p>
<p>I have to add another question: are you interested in theoretical physics more than applied, and would you prefer a college with better research opportunities or a university with more facilities? A smaller school, with fewer “rocket scientists,” might provide more individual attention, but a larger one will have more curricular variety. There are some tiny, idiosyncratic programs out there, but they are not for everyone.</p>
<p>Wesleyan has probably the best small college Astronomy department in the country:
<a href=“X-Ray Vision Makes Our Sister Galaxy Look Pretty in Purple”>http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/x-ray-vision-makes-our-sister-galaxy-look-pretty-purple-n121601</a></p>
<p>And, it’s Physics department isn’t bad either. You should also check out Reed College in Seattle, Washington.</p>
<p>Okay my fault, sorry. My home state is Maryland, and the most my family could afford per year is $10,000-$20,000 (Can’t narrow it down any more sorry). As far as my SAT score goes I have not gotten my scores back (took it this past weekend), but on all my practice tests I was scoring around 720 is math and mostly 680 in reading. As far as schools go my only wish is that they’re not religious in any manner. Other than that I don’t really have a preference. Also I would say I’m more interested in the theoretical side, and I would prefer a university with better research opportunities. </p>
<p>Your state flagship, College Park, is excellent in Physics. That’s an excellent option for you. Otherwise, you want to target colleges and universities with handsome FA practices (the Ivies and several LACs) and/or generous merit scholarships (Alabama, Minnesota etc…)</p>
<p>UMCP is also very strong in astronomy. There is a lot of collaboration with NASA Greenbelt too.</p>
<p>Other than Harvard, Princeton, Caltech, Chicago and Cornell you can’t do much better. That is as long as your okay with a state commuter school with weak humanities and social sciences.</p>
<p>@circuitrider meant Portland, OR</p>
<p>A little too quick in your critique of UMD, @rhg3rd. UMD is anything but a commuter school and is hardly weak in any of these fields. Yes, it is particularly proud of its business and engineering schools and its natural and computer sciences, but it is strong in many of the fine arts, humanities, and social sciences. As for commuters, yes, UMD has a lot of students living off-campus, but many of them live in Prince Georges and Montgomery Counties within a 15 minute walk or drive to campus. These close-by students integrate well with the students living in the housing on-campus. UMD counts on off-campus rental homes and apartment buildings to house its students. They will open a new dorm this year to help with the residence hall crunch. I think it more accurate to say that UMD is an increasingly popular school that has found it difficult to build residence buildings on campus fast enough to house the demands its popularity has put upon it. There is very nice but more-expensive-than-dormitory lux apartment living just over the edge of campus, and many students are happy with these accommodations even if it means a walk to class of 15 minutes. My S lived on campus his first two years and subsequently was quite happy living in houses he shared with other students just across Route 1–even though it meant a 15-20 minute walk. He made life-long friends at UMD and he took full advantage of all the facilities and events that UMD offered. Oh, and he was never without a party on the weekends, unfortunately. He didn’t find UMD to be a commuter school.</p>
<p>I will however second your support of UMD’s physics and astrophysics programs. As you say, Goddard Space Flight Center is next door in Greenbelt. NIST, the Nat’l Institute of Standards and Technology, is a 30 minute drive. Both are sources of summer internships in physics and astrophysics. There are many Nobel laureates at UMD and in these federal institutions. As a graduate of another state flagship, I’m not unmindful of the competition UMD and these federal institutions present to the University of Colorado and its Nobel laureates and federal neighbors in the areas of physics and astrophysics. </p>
<p>UMD-College Park is an amazing school for physics. I do not know much about its undergraduate program but its graduate program is certainly world class. You should look into Carleton and Grinnell too. Both are quite generous in terms of financial aid and have strong physics programs. For research, you’d probably have to go to some other school for a summer program or something, and fortunately, there are such opportunities available for physics (Grinnell will give you money if it’s an unpaid internship/research opportunity).</p>
<p>OP, I think you have to first look at UMD-CP, for some of the reasons I enunciated above. It will be the least expensive state school for you and perhaps the least expensive overall. There will be merit aid for you, probably of 5K for four years, at least. My D had about your GPA and SATs and she was interested in neuroscience, and that is what they offered her this year. I think that’s a realistic figure to expect. I don’t know what your family’s financial situation is, but you should run the net price calculator and see if you might qualify for any non-merit aid. Most middle class people do not get anything more than an offer to take out a student loan of $5500 because UMD’s cost of attendance is not very high. Even without non-merit aid, it is likely your costs to attend would not be more than $20K each year.</p>
<p>There may be privates that will offer you financial aid enough to take you below $20K/yr, but it is unlikely that they will offer you the strengths in physics AND astrophysics that UMD will–unless they are the ones @rhg3rd mentions. The state schools that might offer you such strengths are pretty expensive: Boulder, for instance, is about 44K/yr and you’re not likely to get enough merit to bring that down to 20K, but do look into it; the UCs you would want and Michigan are ridiculously expensive to OOS students. Alabama, however, is very popular here on CC and has a full tuition scholarship for which your upcoming SAT might automatically qualify you, and they have some new engineering and science facilities that are popular, but I’m not sure how strong they are in your fields of interest. Still Alabama is a state option if for some reason UMD won’t fit, and the NASA Marshall Space Flight Ctr is in Huntsville. </p>
<p>So I’m suggesting you look at the state schools (particularly in Maryland, Arizona, New York, and the south) first because of your financial needs, and then look at the private schools @rhg3rd points out, and then look at the schools that are strong in physics/astrophysics according to any rankings of undergraduate physics programs you can find. Reed College is often recommended on CC for math and physics, for instance. If you don’t score above 1400 on the SAT, study your butt off and retake it because 1400 is the cut-off for Alabama and waaaay too low to get you into the privates with lots of aid.</p>
<p>@rhg3rd: Reed is indeed in Portland, OR, not Seattle, WA. my bad.</p>
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<p>UMDCP has 93% of frosh living in the dorms. While only 47% of all undergraduates living in the dorms seems much lower, that is likely because of the usual pattern of resident (as opposed to commuter) students moving to nearby off-campus housing in the upperclass years after living in the dorms as frosh.</p>
<p>Most of UMDCP’s humanities and social studies appear to be quite respectable.</p>
<p>^“that is likely because of the usual pattern of resident (as opposed to commuter) students moving to nearby off-campus”</p>
<p>Sheer speculation! Everyone drives on I495/95 from Montgomery County, Baltimore, Annapolis, Columbia and even Northern VA. Most of the state’s population is within commuting distance. The 1300 acre campus has hundreds of acres of packed parking lots - an area larger than ucb’s entire campus. Construction of the WAMTA purple-line, which will run through the campus, is scheduled to start in 2015. </p>