<p>I need an idea of where a good place would be for grad. school.
Physics Major.</p>
<p>That’s way too vague; there are several questions that you need to ask yourself before any of us can give you anything remotely resembling an answer.</p>
<p>Do you have research experience? If so, in what physics subfield?</p>
<p>What is it that you would like to do in physics?</p>
<p>What’s your GPA? Did you take the physics GRE? General GRE?</p>
<p>Because, in the end, the answers to these questions will be, together, very helpful in building a PhD application.</p>
<p>For a PhD, check out this list:</p>
<p><a href=“NRC Rankings Overview: Physics”>http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-Physics/124754/</a></p>
<p>juillet: That ranking methodology is very confusing!</p>
<p>Okay, here’s how it works.</p>
<p>S-rankings: 100 academics are asked about characteristics which make doctoral programs successful and high-quality; they were asked to rank those 21 characteristics in order of importance. A computer randomly sampled 50 of them and averaged their rankings of each characteristic to create regression weights (e.g., to determine whether professors on average thought time to degree was more important than faculty citation rates.) After doing that, they used the regression equation to create rankings for the programs. They did this 500 times, which means that they get 500 non-unique rankings for each program. Then they eliminate the top 25 and the bottom 25, and report the middle 95% range.</p>
<p>R-rankings: 100 academics are asked to directly rate a sample of programs in their field from 1 to 6. A computer was then used to randomly select 50 surveys and average those surveys’ ratings of each the program. The computer was then used to compare all of the programs in the field to the ratings for the sample; programs with similar characteristics to the sample programs were rated similarly. For example, let’s say Princeton’s sociology program (one of the sample programs rated) was consistently rated around a 5.7 on the reputational survey. If Michigan State’s sociology program has very similar characteristics to Princeton’s sociology program, it would be rated very highly as well. They did this 500 times, which means that they get 500 non-unique ratings for each program, and rank-ordered them. Then they eliminate the top 25 and the bottom 25 rankings, and report the middle 95% range.</p>
<p>From the NRC website:</p>
<p>The basic idea was to discover discrepancies between the characteristics that faculty members said were important and the characteristics that they (perhaps unconsciously) seemed to value when they rated actual programs. (You might tell a surveyor that nutrition is the most important quality of a restaurant, but when you’re asked to rate specific restaurant chains, it might become apparent that you actually value low prices.)</p>
<p>The S-rankings are based on what faculty say are important; the R-rankings are based on how they actually rank the programs when given the chance.</p>
<p>I know they are more complicated than, say, the U.S. News rankings - but the rigorous method is partially why they are better than the USN rankings. Not only do you get an idea of the program’s relative position to other programs in the same field, you also get an idea of the preciseness of that estimate. A program with a small range (let’s say, 2 to 6) is a program that has a pretty consistent reputation among academics. A program with a larger range (let’s say, 15 to 35) has a more variable reputation among academics.</p>
<p>You can see the same NRC data and rank according to criteria you choose at <a href=“http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/physics”>http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/physics</a></p>
<p>juillet, thanks for that very helpful explanation.</p>