Which college has the best science/physics program - Bates, Hamilton, or Haverford? And are their programs any good compared to research universities?
Hamilton and Haverford would be excellent for physics and have produced Apker Award recipients/finalists (for undergraduate research in physics) and Nobel laureates in science fields. These colleges would be excellent for math as well.
For indications with respect to the number of majors in various fields, you can read through these sites:
https://www.niche.com/colleges/hamilton-college/majors/
https://www.niche.com/colleges/haverford-college/majors/
https://www.niche.com/colleges/bates-college/majors/
I’m not sure that Research Universities appears in widely-read publications as a recognized category. USNWR, for example, lists larger schools simply as National Universities.
@nexir, You may want to consider Wesleyan.
Wesleyan has been awarded two Apker Awards in physics within the past 10 years.
Wesleyan’s Apker was won against much bigger schools because they competed against Ph.D granting institutions vs non-Ph.D-granting institutions.
Colgate 2007
Haverford 2008
Mt Holyoke 2009
Wellesley 2009
Williams 2010
Wesleyan 2010
Augustana 2011
Franklin & Marshall 2012
Wesleyan 2013
Loyola Univ MD 2014
Williams 2015
Should you elect to go the graduate school, Wesleyan is listed as a top Ph.D. feeder school.
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/infographics/top-feeders-phd-programs
There is no easy, uncontroversial way to evaluate department quality at small liberal arts colleges.
Most department rankings that do exist are based on faculty opinion surveys or on research production, and focus on research universities.
Have you looked closely at their online course catalogs and faculty bios? Visited and talked to students?
As for quality compared to RUs, it will depend on the universities you’re comparing. Top universities (or even some average-to-good ones) will tend to support more cutting-edge research. They may have bigger, better facilities than most LACs. They’ll probably offer more courses. On the other hand, those 3 LACs may offer undergraduates better opportunities for faculty-mentored research.
The number of physics majors at most LACs (or even at many ~peer universities) will be quite small.
I checked IPEDS for the number of graduating physics majors from 2003 to 2009, then averaged them.
I tossed in a couple of Ivies for comparison. Here’s what I find:
Average … School
13 … Brown University
12 … University of Pennsylvania
10 … Bates College
7 … Haverford College
4 … Hamilton College
I like LACs and am inclined to prefer them over research universities for many liberal arts majors.
For physics, though, you may be getting the benefits of small department size even at many RUs (while also getting the benefits of a university’s greater resources).
@tk21769: Are those major figures accurate? I checked the most recent IPEDS data and the averages you posted differ in cases by greater than a factor of three from the single year figure.
These are the IPEDS figures for physics majors for the most recent year available:
Haverford: 16
Hamilton: 13
Bates: 10
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Haverford&s=all&id=212911#programs
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Hamilton+College&s=all&id=191515#programs
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=bates&s=all&id=160977#programs
^^
That looks more accurate
Wrt Hamilton. Can these numbers be true?
Drama and Dramatics/Theatre Arts, General 2
Film/Cinema/Video Studies. 1
Music 1
Penn: 25
Brown: 21
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Pennsylvania&s=all&pg=4&id=215062#programs
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=brown&s=all&pg=3&id=217156#programs
What is IPED? and so to sum it up, should I not bother applying to LACs if i’m majoring in physics? The thing is, i’m looking for more schools that are neither “reaches” nor “likelys” for me - I just have UMichigan, USC, and Georgetown so far and its hard to find others.
If you like those universities and would be willing to compromise somewhat with respect to class size and perhaps research opportunities, then it wouldn’t make sense to apply to more generally selective schools such as Haverford:
Georgetown would be strong in some sciences, but would not be strong across the sciences.
The above said, LACs commonly enroll a greater percentage of physics students than “research universities.”
IPEDS is simply a data source.
You can find a relevant opinion in Forbes written by the chairman of the Union College physics department:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/2015/04/10/why-small-colleges-are-great-for-science-students/
I ran my IPEDS query all over again to double-check the results.
Yes, I believe I’m accurately reporting the results of my query.
But again, I’m taking the averages of numbers reported for 2003-2009 (NOT for the most recent year(s)).
Why did I query those years?
Because that seems to be the longest run of contiguous years I could get, for purposes of normalizing 10 year PhD production rates by program sizes (not by institution sizes, which is how PhD production rates often get reported.)
I wasn’t necessarily going for the most recent years but for an available time window appropriate for normalizing PhDs granted in the decade 2006-15 (the most recent 10y window I found on NSF/Webcaspar).
There is a lot of variation from year to year over this range.
Here are the highs and lows I observe:
Averages … High … Low … Name
13 … 20 … 6 … Brown University
12 … 16 … 8 … University of Pennsylvania
10 … 18 … 5 … Bates College
7 … 10 … 4 … Haverford College
4 … 6 … 2 … Hamilton College
After seeing how small the program numbers are and how much they vary, I was reluctant to report PhD production rates normalized by program size. I’m thinking these rates could whipsaw quite a bit due to varying choices of just a few students from year to year. For purposes of this discussion, one take-away (for me anyway) is that in any given year, the number of graduating physics majors isn’t necessarily much bigger at some of the Ivies than it is at some of the top LACs (unless that has changed since 2003-2009.)
I would still recommend that OP explores this issue some more, here is a general article on the subject I read a while ago:
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/cech_article2.pdf
If those 3 represent a low reach / high match “Goldilocks” range in terms of ranking/prestige/selectivity, then there would seem to be a number of good alternatives that aren’t LACs. Examples: Cornell, JHU, Tufts, Carnegie Mellon, Boston College, UCLA, William & Mary, URochester, Brandeis, or Emory. Have these been considered and ruled out for some reason?
Adding LACs does increase the number of possibilities, especially if you want to focus on schools with the best need-based aid that are bit less selective than most of the Ivies, but more selective or higher ranking … or different in some other way … than some of the other top ~75 universities (like Case Western, Wisconsin, Penn State, or UMd-CP). I wouldn’t rule out LACs just because you think they’re all missing something that only universities can offer.
@nezir99 looking elsewhere I stumbled upon this PHD feeder ranking, hopefully the experts here can chime in on how good (or not) is the data…
Physics:
Cal Tech
Reed
Swarthmore
Lawrence University
Carleton
Haverford
Williams
MIT
CO School of Mines
Grinnell
Amherst
Princeton
Wabash
College of Wooster
Gustavus Adolphus
Vassar
Kenyon
Rice
Bryn Mawr
U of Rochester
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/infographics/top-feeders-phd-programs
The data appears valid, or at least within the usual range of error. Keep in mind, however, that PhD degrees may most often be pursued by those inclined toward academia as a career. Talented physics majors with multiple post-graduate opportunities may choose other directions.
@merc81 Thank you, glancing at it again I find it odd that Harvey Mudd isn’t listed?
@notigering : I’ll normally yield to data, but HMC’s omission (a good observation on your part) raises my skepticism in this case.
https://www.aps.org/programs/education/conferences/upload/Careers-In-Physics-Talk.pdf
Many students pursue a physics PhD to do original research in the private sector or work in the technology industry.
I know a number of physics PhDs in Seattle who work at the household name tech companies.
Fwiw, the individuals I know are at the level they are because they have a PhD.
Ditto CS PhDs
I’ve seen many of those colleges on other lists of schools with high rates of alumni-earned PhDs in STEM/physical sciences. Compare:
https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/ (see especially Table 4)
https://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html
However, besides Harvey Mudd, other schools I’d expect to see on that feeder list include UChicago, and possibly some other Ivies besides Princeton. Now, if we used program size rather than institution size as the normalizing denominator, we might see a rather different-looking list.