Looking for intellectual schools with good science

College Search & Selection
21

<p>Those #s still have as denominators all students, not just those interested in PhDs, or even majoring in the given fields.</p>

<p>By contrast the AIP studies at least limit to physics majors:</p>

<p>“Physics bachelor’s receiving their degrees from departments that
grant graduate-level physics degrees are more likely to pursue
graduate study in physics.”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/bach2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/bach2010.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>“•Physics bachelors from large departments are more likely to attend graduate or professional school with the intention of earning a degree in any field than physics bachelors from smaller departments (Figure 1).
•Graduates of large departments rate their physics and math preparation for a career more highly than graduates of smaller departments”</p>

<p>[Bachelor</a> plus 5 Report](<a href=“http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/highlite/bachplus5c/bachplus5c.htm]Bachelor”>http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/highlite/bachplus5c/bachplus5c.htm)</p>

22

<p>For all disciplines combined here is where most PhDs actually come from, undergrad schools of PhD and Doctoral Degree earners 1994 to 2003 :</p>

<p>1 University of California-Berkeley 4,470
2 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 3,134
3 Cornell University 3,033
4 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2,931
5 University of Wisconsin-Madison 2,667
6 University of Texas at Austin 2,613
7 Harvard University 2,545
8 Pennsylvania State U, Main Campus 2,519
9 University of California-Los Angeles 2,454
10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2,078
11 Brigham Young University, Main Campus 2,049
12 University of Minnesota - Twin Cities 1,970
13 Michigan State University 1,917
14 Stanford University 1,894
15 Yale University 1,877
16 Ohio State University, Main Campus 1,876
17 University of Florida 1,863
18 University of California-Davis 1,829
19 Texas A&M University Main Campus 1,770
20 University of Pennsylvania 1,688
21 Purdue University, Main Campus 1,654
22 University of California-San Diego 1,624
23 Rutgers the State Univ of NJ New Brunswick 1,607
24 University of Maryland at College Park 1,592
25 Princeton University 1,585
26 University of Washington - Seattle 1,580
27 Indiana University at Bloomington 1,575
28 University of Virginia, Main Campus 1,567
29 Brown University 1,554
30 University of Colorado at Boulder 1,510
31 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1,453
32 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State Univ 1,386
33 University of Arizona 1,356
34 Duke University 1,313
35 Northwestern Univ 1,273
36 University of Massachusetts at Amherst 1,265
37 University of Chicago 1,263
38 University of California-Santa Barbara 1,251
39 University of California-Santa Cruz 1,209
40 SUNY at Buffalo 1,169
41 Iowa State University 1,164
42 Boston University 1,144
43 University of Iowa 1,138
44 Florida State University 1,110
45 Oberlin College 1,107
46 Columbia University in the City of New York 1,101
47 University of Missouri, Columbia 1,086
48 University of California-Irvine 1,077
49 University of PR Rio Piedras Campus 1,034
50 University of Georgia 1,011
51 College of William and Mary 1,005
52 Arizona State University Main 985
53 University of Rochester 983
54 University of Notre Dame 983
55 University of Nebraska at Lincoln 978
56 University of Kansas, Main Campus 952
57 University of Tennessee at Knoxville 951
58 North Carolina State University at Raleigh 929
59 University of Delaware 921
60 Miami University, All Campuses 904
61 Washington University 897
62 University of Pittsburgh Main Campus 881
63 Colorado State University 847
64 Louisiana State Univ & Agric & Mechanical 844
65 Rice University 842
66 New York University 842
67 University of Utah 834
68 Dartmouth College 817
69 San Diego State University 814
70 Johns Hopkins University 805
71 University of South Florida 794
72 SUNY at Binghamton 793
73 Auburn University, Main Campus 786
74 Wesleyan University 780
75 SUNY at Albany 775
76 Swarthmore College 770
77 Carleton College 766
78 University of Connecticut 764
79 Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus 757
80 Baylor University 756
81 Southern Illinois University-Carbondale 752
82 SUNY at Stony Brook, All Campuses 751
83 California Institute of Technology 738
84 Carnegie Mellon University 736
85 University of Oklahoma, Norman Campus 718
86 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 712
87 Tufts University 702
88 Georgetown University 699
89 Oklahoma State University, All Campuses 692
90 University of Southern California 692
91 University of Kentucky 690
92 University of Cincinnati, All Campuses 687
93 University of Oregon 683
94 University of South Carolina at Columbia 680
95 Texas Tech University 678
96 University of New Mexico, All Campuses 674
97 Ohio University, All Campuses 667
98 Temple University 664
99 University of Houston 647
100 Williams College 644</p>

<p>Obviously many students at the above institutions received undergraduate training sufficient to accomplish such objective. Regardless of whether or not many others at these places made different career choices.</p>

23

<p>To make it meaningful for a high school student to assess her relative chances of earning that future PhD, and also the proportion of fellow students sharing her goal, can you repost adjusting for school size? E.g., one of a hundred vs. one of ten thousand presents a different experience for her.</p>

24

<p>

</p>

<p>Counting the number of courses? And then what? For someone who likes the term, denominator … how about controlling that “metric” with the number of registered students, the number of declared majors in that specific area? </p>

<p>Let’s not fool one another here. Your point is easy to understand and has been stated before. You consider the number of courses and their frequency important. I can see why that is important. On the other hand, when viewed in its proper context, it does not matter if the number is relevant to the actual DEMAND for the courses. </p>

<p>Let’s take a city wide approach in Los Angeles? Does anyone think that a Physics student would be hampered at Caltech and have an endless choice of classes as UCLA? Betcha that the numbers of courses will not be the same! And, for another twist, how do you think Physics students fare at Harvey Mudd when compared to UCLA?</p>

25

<p>re#23</p>

<p>class size is irrelevant, since it includes different proportions of people whose objectives are completely irrelevant to the question at hand… The only relevant denominator is the # of students of comparable capabilities who want a phd. I do not have that denominator. No other denominator is relevant. Use of other denominators, particularly a denominator of every warm body that happens to be there no matter what they are studying, can produce misleading results.</p>

26

<p>“You consider the number of courses and their frequency important. I can see why that is important.”</p>

<p>Good, cause that’s all I’m saying. They are important. I have not looked but I bet there are some teeny programs that really do not offer many upper level courses, and that can limit an individual.</p>

<p>The one time I looked at Harvey Mudd, I found that the area I wound up specializing in was completely absent there. They had zero courses in it. So yes, that would be a ding against Harvey Mudd in my book, in terms of lack of breadth limiting one’s vistas. I haven’t looked at it for anything else. There’s no doubt brilliant people can go on to get a phd, that doesn’t mean they had access to learn everything they may have wanted to during their undergrad, if only those courses were available to them. That’s a separate issue.</p>

27

<p>“The only relevant denominator is the # of students of comparable capabilities who want a phd. I do not have that denominator.”</p>

<p>Then posting something irrelevant to small schools will have to do. :(</p>

28

<p>How did we get onto a Ph.D. discussion?</p>

<p>We’re not talking about Math here. We’re talking physics with its attendant labs, equipment, etc. Size matters, facilities matter, along with the research faculty are doing.</p>

<p>OP, monydad’s link to the IPEDS database is quite relevant, as was his suggestion to determine how many faculty members are in the Physics Dept. Then simply do a #students graduating * 4 / # Physics faculty. This will tell you about access to faculty. However, it will not tell you about breadth of course offerings. Take a peek at the Physics courses offered at Berkeley, or UT Austin, or Stanford, or Rutgers, or USC. There are dozens and dozens, which gives a student the opportunity to begin pursuing a concentration in a dozen different specializations while an undergrad.</p>

<p>Per his link, Williams as an example graduated six (6) Physics majors last year. SIX! while graduating 25 mathmeticians and 63 Biologists. <a href=“College Navigator - Williams College”>College Navigator - Williams College;

<p>As much as I’d appreciate having a 5/1 student/professor ratio, I don’t think I’d appreciate being limited to a total Physics course catalog of 30 courses or less at college with 25 total physics majors.</p>

<p>I agree with the suggestions of Chicago (22), Carnegie Mellon (29), Rice (14), maybe WashU (18), but not Tufts as it also only graduated 6 physicists last year.</p>

29

<p>@DunninLA: Thanks for the suggestions. Many of those schools are ones I was already considering.</p>

<p>To everyone who has suggested small LACs: I appreciate your input and suggestions, and I know that the quality of a science education at LACs can be very excellent indeed; I’m simply not sure how comfortable I would be at a college of only one or two thousand students. I’ll certainly try to visit a few of the closer ones to try to get a feel for them.</p>

30

<p>“How long before we see a discussion about PhD productivity?” at #14. It was perhaps a silly request. :)</p>

<p>The relevancy was at #11, “I have a profound prejudice against studying science/math at a small LAC.” The original IPEDS PhD productivity numbers were intended to show that LACs do not present a disadvantage in preparation for advanced graduate study.</p>

31

<p>I’m starting to get the feeling that intellectual environment doesn’t mix well with strong engineering programs. Am I mistaken?</p>

32

<p>At my old school,. there were arts &sciences students studying in one college, and engineering students studying in another college. The mere presence of engineers in that other college had nothing whatsoever to do with what the students in the arts college did, or were like. necessarily.</p>

<p>“Intellectual” is a tricky word. Lots of those engineers were plenty smart. There’s a difference, to my mind, between “theoretical” and “intellectual”. There are many challenges in the applicable fields that also require application of mucho brain power. Besides which, the way these applicable fields are pursued in many top colleges can also lean towards the theoretical.</p>

<p>I am reminded of the "calculator war’ waged by two sophomores in my dorm, one a chemistry major in the Arts school, the other an industrial engineering major. They were trying to determine which of their respective favored techniques made a certain type of computation the fastest. I don’t remember the details, except the IE one. He was a brilliant guy. I don’t know about “intellectual”, but this was a pretty nerdy thing to be doing, even then.</p>

<p>IMO for a physics major it is advantageous to have an engineering school present, because it gives you more ways to branch out, and a greater pool of offerings that may prove to be relevant to you.</p>

33

<p>“…except the IE one”</p>

<p>uy, “won”</p>

34

<p>There are a lot of threads on the benefits of studying science at LACs. Most of them are “science at Williams”, “science at Williams vs. Middlebury”—that sort of thing—if you do a search. People mention no graduate students to compete with, great access to professors, wonderful facilities at Middlebury and others. But University of Chicago was the first place that came to my mind when I read your preferences.</p>

35

<p>Might look at Holy Cross-about 3,000 students with very nice campus including new $70 million science building. HC has very good physics, chemistry, biology majors.</p>

36

<p>We have the advantage of a lot of academic resources as H teaches at a top 10 college and down the road from a public Ivy. We talked to some of the math/science profs to help in D’s search. Disclaimer is that D always wanted a LAC, but several said that Williams may have the best undergraduate math program in the country. You’re close, check it out and sit in some of the math classes. Of course, if you are not an outdoorsy person and need a city, it’s not for you.</p>

37

<p>3,000-10,000 undergrads, intellectual and strong in the sciences?</p>

<p>Brown University
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Princeton Iniversity
Rice University
Stanford University
University of Chicago
Yale University</p>

38

<p>^ Aren’t most of these reaches for higher stats that the OP’s? I think they’re also mostly obvious top targets.</p>

39

<p>Those are indeed reaches. Rice could be a match. For a safety, University of Rochester would be good.</p>

40

<p>

</p>

<p>If possible, you might consider retaking the SAT and hope to boost your Math score, especially since you are looking at Physics program. In addition, many schools will expect strong scores in relevant SAT Subject Tests. </p>

<p>Hitting those scores out of the ballpark will change your landscape of reaches and safeties by a substantial margin.</p>