Hi,
This is urgent. I want to study physical sciences. Physics possibly. I don’t have an exact preference for the location but suburban would be better. The MUST have is financial aid for international students. I am also considering Gettysburg. Help me decide. Which one is the best for international student to study physical science? Other college suggestion would also be appreciated.
All 4 offer financial aid to international students. All 4 claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need, at least for US citizens, but none of them are need-blind in admission decisions for internationals. Below are the number of international FA recipients and average awards, according to 2016-17 CDS data:
51 … $50,436 … Kenyon
61 … $47,242 … Connecticut
252 … $43,786 … Macalester
160 … $34,214 … Oberlin
Your results may vary. Run the online net price calculators to generate your own estimates (though they may not be entirely accurate for internationals). If you’ve already applied to all 4, then wait patiently for the admission and aid decisions. Nobody here can predict better than the online NPCs which of them will give you the lowest net cost (which in my opinion would be a good basis for choosing among these rather similar schools).
No, I still haven’t applied yet. So I am open to suggestions. As all of them provide aid, I want to focus on the quality of their physical science program. Which one has the best one? And you can include peripherals that would help me decide, like location, sports, city, the community. I would be very grateful for any help.
Why is this urgent? If you are planning to apply for this coming fall, you’ve left it a bit late to be honest. Conn College’s app deadline has passed. If this is for 2019, it’s not urgent. Kenyon probably has the most highly regarded professors, and beyond that I can’t tell you. They probably all have good physics courses. You have a computer and a world of information at your fingertips. Do some research. Understand that international students who are given aid will be exceptional. You need to have very strong grades, scores, and ECs.
I read some of your other posts. Each of these small LACs like admitting students who show interest, and they have seen many applications from foreign students. Anything less than 100% honesty is going to be spotted immediately. When a college admits only so many students for a small class, they tend to be very picky in who they choose.
There is no reliable, uncontroversial way to rank physics programs at LACs. Browse the online course offerings and faculty profiles. See if the offered courses seem to cover your needs.
For what it’s worth, the following list shows the number of physics PhDs completed by alumni in the decade 2007-2016. In parentheses after school names are the number of Bachelors degrees awarded in 2016 to students whose first major was physics.
1 .… Connecticut College (4)
10 … Macalester College (12)
13 … Kenyon College (9)
15 … Oberlin College (12)
20 … Grinnell (15)
23 … Lawrence (8)
39 … Reed (14)
Sources:
NSF/WebCASPAR (for column 1, earned doctorates)
IPEDS (for the number of degrees conferred)
I’d be a little concerned about the low numbers for Connecticut College. The other 3 on your list appear to be close enough that the differences may not be significant. The numbers for Grinnell, Lawrence, and Reed appear to be high enough that these schools might be worth considering (if you think PhD production is an indicator of academic quality when comparing similar schools).
Conn College, Kenyon, Oberlin, and especially Macalester all experience cold winter weather. Macalester is the only one located in a major city.
As far as I’m concerned, these schools (and about 30 or 40 other ~peer LACs) are pretty much the same in many important ways: liberal arts focus, small classes, selective admissions, many professors with PhDs from top universities. Macalester’s urban location is probably the most significant distinguishing feature for the 4 you mentioned.
Thank you tk21769. You are the best.
And Mx Lindagaf, I have a computer and I did my research, I know all these colleges provide great physics courses on paper but as you know, every college is different in its environment and the way teaching takes place. There are so many intangibles and I want to find a perfect match or close to perfect match for me.
Also, to your reference to my previous posts; I wrote what I and my friends, who are working very hard to find a suitable environment to spend our next four years on a foreign land, had in our minds. We got the response to our queries though they were controversial. That is what forums are for, I believe: to get answers to your questions and your ambiguities, the answers you can find nowhere else. That is why I am asking the questions about these colleges.
And I mistakenly wrote Connecticut college for Colorado College. Sorry for that.
Thanks to tk21769 again. You have been very helpful.
Oh … so you’re also interested in Colorado College (instead of Connecticut College).
One of my kids went there. He was accepted to Macalester, too…
Colorado College is a wonderful school in a beautiful setting.
It gets less attention on College Confidential than it deserves, probably in part because it’s not in New England or on the West Coast. In my opinion it has one of the most attractive locations of any LAC, because it combines all the resources of a mid-sized city with access to world class skiing, hiking, and other outdoor activities. The campus itself is quite nice, too.
When my S was there, I did not get the impression that physics was one of its strongest majors.
Maybe that has changed since he graduated. They did open a new science center a few years back; there is always some turnover in college faculty. My impression is that geology is one of its strongest majors. The block plan is great for any subject that benefits from off-campus field work (including geology, field biology, environmental science, maybe sociology, etc.) because having only one course at a time creates more flexibility to schedule that work (trips to collect rock specimens, observe animals in their natural habitat, etc.) Physics isn’t really one of those subjects. My S thought the math courses he took were pretty good but wasn’t so impressed with the 1 or 2 physics courses he took. I don’t really know if his experience was typical, though. Browse the course listings and faculty profiles. They do have professors with some pretty impressive credentials.
In the decade 2007-2016, Colorado College alumni earned 9 PhDs in Physics (according to NSF/WebCASPAR data).
CC awarded 8 Bachelors degrees in 2016 to students whose first major was physics (according to IPEDS data).
They awarded 19 to Geological/Earth Science majors.
For what it’s worth, the following site ranks CC #4 among “Best Value Small Colleges for a Physics Degree”: on one web site.
So maybe this department is stronger than I thought.