Looking for intellectual schools with good science

<p>The OP’s criteria:</p>

<p>– 3000-10,000 undergrads
– Good physics program
– Distinct campus near a town/city
– Co-ed
– Preferably in the Northeast</p>

<p>Suggestions so far that seem to meet all of the criteria
Brown
Carnegie Mellon
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
MIT
Rochester
Tufts
Yale</p>

<p>Suggestions so far that meet most of the criteria
Chicago (not in NE)
Harvey Mudd (not in NE, smaller than 3000 except for consortium)
Princeton (suburban)
Rice (not in NE)
Swarthmore (small)
Wesleyan (suburban)
WUStL (pre-professional but not overly athletic)</p>

<p>Other schools that may possibly work
Brandeis
Case Western
Clark
Columbia
RPI
William & Mary
WPI</p>

<p>@xiggi: I will certainly try to boost my math SAT I score, and in addition I’ll most likely be taking the SAT II Math II and the SAT II Physics sometime this year.</p>

<p>@warblersrule86: Thank you very much for organizing all those schools and for providing additional suggestions!</p>

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<p>I’m not sure I would trust those figures. The same link has Wesleyan listed as having only 12 physics “completions” between 2009 and 2010 when the department’s own site has nearly twice that many (23 and 22, respectively) in the last two classes – and even lists them by name: </p>

<p>[Wesleyan</a> University Physics Department People](<a href=“http://www.wesleyan.edu/physics/people/students.html]Wesleyan”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/physics/people/students.html)</p>

<p>“Williams as an example graduated six (6) Physics majors last year. SIX!”</p>

<p>I was wondering about that, too. What a school’s graduates *accomplish<a href=“proportionately”>/i</a> seems much more important than raw numbers. A smaller number of courses offered doesn’t matter so much if they are the right courses, the ones grad schools want to see.</p>

<p>To be precise: the OP said “in the northeastern quarter of the country.” Chicago falls easily within the northeastern quarter of the country. It’s certainly not in the northwestern quarter, and it’s nowhere near the southern half. </p>

<p>I’ve known lots of Westerners who characterize Chicago as a “northeastern city,” and that characterization makes some sense based not only on its actual geographic location in the northeastern quadrant of the country, but also because culturally, socially, economically, historically, and even architecturally it (along with other “older” Midwestern cities like St. Louis and Cincinnati) has more in common with west-of-the-Appalachians “eastern” cities like Pittsburgh, Rochester, or Buffalo, or even East Coast littoral plain cities like New York or Philadelphia, than it does with the West or the South. It’s just that Chicago is in that portion of the northeastern quadrant of the 48 contiguous states that is conventionally labeled “Midwest.” Oh, and that many people in the Northeast corridor seem to assume their narrow strip of coastal land represents a quarter of the nation’s land mass.</p>

<p>“the right courses”… are the ones you choose to take. If only they are available to be taken.</p>

<p>^ Well said. Also consider the forest; does the school have a track record of preparing students for what you want after your undergrad work?</p>

<p>“I’m not sure I would trust those figures.”</p>

<p>I’ve no idea, I got that link from another thread. On that same thread someone suggested another way, maybe that one is more reliable: </p>

<p>“You can also look them up in the Common Data Set file of every school that publishes one. They are in section J, “Degrees Conferred”. Google for [college name] + “Common Data Set”. You may need Adobe Acrobat Reader or MS Excel to display the file.”</p>

<p>

It IS ironic isn’t it that Chicago is 15 miles from NORTHWESTERN? :)</p>

<p>Well, I suppose in the 1850’s (when Northwestern was founded), Chicago seemed kind of Northwest to the people of the United States. You know, because it was in the “Northwest Territory.” History for the wolf.</p>

<p>OP, you would not consider Boston College or Boston University?
UMASS, UCONN, UVM? UVM being the only one in a city, if Burlington is “City” enough. :)</p>

<p>Re-read your first post, don’t like emphasis on sports!
Forget about my post #51</p>