<p>I was considering UMich for Astronomy/Astrophysics/Physics, but I was wondering if anyone that had experience with any of these departments, in addition to the math department, could give me some advice on the quality of these programs at Umich. I am also considering Michigan Tech, Northwestern, and Michigan State.</p>
<p>ahh! my answer!</p>
<p>Of the four schools you are looking into, Michigan is the best for those majors. Michigan is definitely top 10 in Mathematics and top 15 in Physics. I also gather that Michigan is very strong in Astronomy and Astrophysics.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info</p>
<p>The math and physics department are both great and have equally intelligent students, but the math department can be slightly more intense than physics if you go honors. I think the astronomy department here is supposed to be one of the best in the country, like top 5. I could be wrong on that, but there are plenty of great astro courses to take here and some great facilities for astronomy.</p>
<p>How is teh University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign in math and physics department?</p>
<p>Illinois is slightly better than Michigan in Physics and Michigan is slightly better than Illinois in Math.</p>
<p>Hold up there just a minute Alexandre. To say that UIUC is SLIGHTLY better than Michigan is math is being far too generous to UIUC. Most rankings have Michigan around 7th in math and UIUC somewhere in the 30's or 40's. If UIUC were only "slightly" better in math, I would have gone there being happy to get such a great math education for in-state tuition, but I paid out of state because Michigan is just that much better. Its math honors program is essentially the same sequence offered for top math majors at Harvard and the like (I just talked to a H math major in math 55 yesterday and the topics were essentially identical). Also, Michigan physics is something like 13th, so UIUC can't be that much better (it's definitely not top 5).</p>
<p>I didn't say that UIUC has a slightly better math department than Michigan...I said Michigan has the better math department. And I said that UIUC's physics department is only "slightly" better than Michigan's. All in all, I agree with you, in Physics, the difference between UIUC (top 10) and Michigan (top 15)is only slight. In math, the gap between Michigan (top 10) and UIUC (top 30) is larger.</p>
<p>Sorry Alexandre, I meant to say that saying Michigan is SLIGHTLY better in math than UIUC was a stretch. mixed up the school names, whoops. There is not a significant difference in physics departments, but there is a world of difference in the math departments.</p>