Which LACs have rigorous Physics programmes ?
Conditions: 1. They have an acceptance rate around 20%, 2. They meet 100% of the demonstrated need by International Students.
3. Great research structure
The colleges I have in Mind: Davidson, Hamilton, Grinnell, Vassar. If you guys know about their faculties particularly, Do give comparisons. If you have other suggestions, give them too!
Your number-one condition (and, to be honest, your sole condition) should be “Meets 100% need for international students,” as that’s a difficult find for students coming from outside the U.S. Your initial list looks good, and I can only speak for Grinnell, and even then, I can only speak about its overall science facilities, which are outstanding! I’m a humanities guy, but is there such a thing as a non-rigorous physics program? My gut tells me that you’d be fine at any of the schools on your list.
This is an older ranking from the NSF for top-producing undergrad schools that send students to eventual PhDs in science and engineering. Note how many LACs are on the list:
Top 50 Schools That Produce Engineering and Science PhDs
Cal Tech
Harvey Mudd College
MIT
Reed College
Swarthmore College
Carleton College
University of Chicago
Grinnell College
Rice University
Princeton University
Harvard University
Bryn Mawr College
Haverford College
Pomona College
New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology
Williams College
Yale Univeristy
Oberlin College
Stanford University
Johns Hopkins University
Kalamazoo College
Cornell University
Case Western Reserve
Washington College
Brown University
Wesleyan University
Carnegie Mellon University
Macalester College
Amherst College
Duke University
Beloit College
Bowdoin Collge
Wellesley College
Renssenlaer Polytechnic Institute
Earlham College
Franklin and Marshall College
Lawrence University
University of Rochester
University of California-Berkeley
Dartmouth College
Occidental College
Hendrix College
Vassar College
Trinity University
College of William and Mary
St. John’s College
Bates College
Whitman College
Brandeis University
Hampshire College
Actually, it should be “net price calculator shows that it is affordable for you as an international student” or “merit scholarship that is realistic for you as an international student makes it affordable”.
“Meet need” does not necessarily assure affordability, since the school may define “need” however it likes.
Hamilton’s faculty recently mentored an Apker finalist, which you reasonably can consider as an indicator of support for student research. Note also that Hamilton has integrated research opportunities into its curriculum through courses such as 298 (which can be repeated), 390, 550 and 551. A thesis is required.
https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/elise-lepage-18-an-apker-physics-award-finalist
https://www.hamilton.edu/academics/departments/Courses-and-Requirements?dept=Physics
AFAIK you only have one choice: Amherst College.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission
Its overall admit rate is about 14%. The rate for international students may be lower. Maybe much lower. Hard to say, because the CDS does not break out separate admission rates for international students.
Davidson, Hamilton, Grinnell, Vassar … and many others … may be fine alternatives (especially if they admit you but Amherst doesn’t). Big if! If they admit you, they do have an incentive to offer decent aid. Otherwise, if you cannot demonstrate ability to cover your costs, you may be denied a visa to enter the USA. In practice, this pressure to offer good aid … without a “need blind” commitment … is likely to ratchet up their selectivity for high-need internationals. So they may be more selective in your case than they appear to be on paper.
Irrespective of stated policies, a school such as Grinnell at 19% international enrollment seems at least as receptive to qualified international applicants as Amherst (at 8%).
@HasifAhmed The acceptance rate for internationals is not the same as the AR for US persons. It’s not necessarily proportionate either. Very few LACs post their International ARs. Wesleyan is one that does. (Scroll down to the section “International statistics.”
https://www.wesleyan.edu/admission/informationfor/international.html#
Each college has its own strategy for admitting and funding internationals. Usually this is a financial consideration. Some budget more to attract and fund internationals; some budget less. This information is not widely shared but you can get an idea of how friendly a college to internationals by looking at three data points on the college’s common data points:
The number of internationals enrolled as a percentage of the student body
The total dollar amount spent on financial aid to internationals
The percentage of internationals receiving financial aid
These figures are not random. They are the result of the college’s deliberate admission and financial strategy decisions. The colleges have targeted number for the percentage of internationals they want to enroll and the dollar amount that they want to spend on financial aid for internationals. They admit accordingly.
Based on these 3 factors I would recommend you look at the following LACs:
Macalester, St. Olaf, Trinity (CT), Amherst, Grinnell, Middlebury, Dickinson, Colgate, Williams, Oberlin, Wesleyan
If you are female: Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley
That doesn’t mean that you won’t get lucky and get admitted to Davidson, Hamilton, Vassar, Carleton, Reed, Hamilton (or any other academically rigorous LAC) with sufficient financial aid. It just means that there are other schools that are relatively better (safer) choices for internationals needing a large amount of aid. So you should balance your list accordingly .
Please also note that this is on a per capita basis: "number of S&E doctorates per hundred bachelor’s awarded in all fields 9 years earlier "
In terms of actual number of PhDs:
University of California-Berkeley - 3,199
Cornell University, all campuses
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Pennsylvania State University, main campus
Harvard University
University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Texas at Austin
University of California-Los Angeles
University of California-Davis
University of California-San Diego
University of Florida
Brigham Young University, main campus
Stanford University
Texas A&M University, main campus
Purdue University, main campus
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
Rutgers the State University of New Jersey New Brunswick
University of Virginia, main campus
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Michigan State University
Princeton University
University of Washington-Seattle
Ohio State University, main campus
University of Pennsylvania
University of Maryland at College Park
Yale University
Brown University
Duke University
University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Arizona
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of California-Santa Cruz
University of Chicago
University of California-Santa Barbara
Northwestern University
University of California-Irvine
North Carolina State University at Raleigh
Boston University
Iowa State University
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Indiana University at Bloomington
Georgia Institute of Technology, main campus
California Institute of Technology
SUNY at Buffalo
College of William and Mary
Johns Hopkins University
Columbia University in the City of New York
University of Notre Dame - 683
The top LACs had 300-500’ish.
Colgate recently offered admission to just 7.9% of international applicants. I’m not sure why you consistently recommend it as a school that’s particularly receptive to students from outside the U.S. In the absence of this statistic for the other schools mentioned with it, it’s not clear whether they would be particularly receptive (i.e., more so than colleges you didn’t list) either.
https://www.colgate.edu/admission-aid/apply/first-year-class-profile
However, based on the factors you could isolate, @momrath, I agree that the schools you recommended definitely could be worth the OP’s interest and research.
Comparing the three data points that I listed, Colgate comes out relatively good. Not as good as some others but better than most of the other schools that the OP is looking at (except Grinnell).
According to their 2018-19 CDS, Colgate paid USD9.5 million in financial aid to internationals. 56% of their international students received aid. About 9% of their enrolled student body are non-resident aliens.
I wish all colleges would provide more and better information on international admissions. Lacking that, I can only make comparisons using what’s available, e.g., what percentage of the student body are non-resident aliens, how much the school pays in total in international aid and what percentage of internationals receive aid. When I see a school that is consistently on the higher side of the scale on all three points, I consider it a good choice.
I read in their student newspaper back in 2018 that Grinnell has the goal of 20% international students within a few years. They were over 15% then.
@HasifAhmed – I am just offering a word of advice:
Since research structure is one of your priorities I want to give you the warning that sometimes people are using that term in different ways.
A lot of the schools that tout their “research” are only talking about research opportunities for professors and graduate students.
If you want to be involved in research as an undergrad, you need to focus in on schools that offer research opportunities for undergrads. And… it sounds like you may need help with funding for those research opportunities also.
I recommend you proceed with caution through these “research” conversations and through the “research” rankings. They are not always talking about undergraduate opportunities. (Which is why some of the most reknowned “research schools” aren’t doing as well positioning their undergrads for grad school!)
The “Top 50” list above is an excellent list to start with, and the next things you may want to look for are:
-Undergrad internship opportunities
-Undergrad research opportunities
-International student policies (aid?internships?)
-Housing/board policies for international students over breaks
-grad school/job placement for physics majors
-talk to/email some physics professors or physics students at the schools
-international student policies
-campus diversity (will you feel comfortable)
-overall campus environment (is it a good fit)
I recommend you look into Earlham, Wooster, and Grinnel.
And maybe Connecticut College, also.
@RichInPitt (Sorry if I am being dense.) What is the purpose of this list? Are these the schools who awarded PhDs? Whose students went on to earn PhDs?
What is the point of raw numbers of PhD completion? Isn’t a per capita percentage a more valuable number?