<p>Interesting site for Astronomy/Astrophysics majors and those generally interested in that ultra genius stuff.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link. I'm planning on studying astronomy/astrophysics and it's a good site.</p>
<p>Princeton has accomplished some pretty amazing stuff in that area, including some significant discoveries. Here's one I recall:</p>
<p>Yeah. Seems about right. If you're going to put UChi in there, I would say Harvard deserves to be in there as well (not least because of the immense number of Ph.D. opportunities available somewhere as large as CfA), but Princeton easily has one of the world's best astro programs. Note something important: they're talking about grad schools here. But it's interesting nonetheless (those schools are all also noted as some of the world's tops in undergrad astro with the exception of UChi).</p>
<p>If you go to Princeton as an undergrad with the desire to be an astronomer, you would be hard-pressed to do better with school choice. Princeton's focus on the undergrad is famous and this shines through in the astronomy department as well. This past week I was at the AAS meeting (you astro buffs certainly heard about a lot of the major discoveries presented there although I'm sure mine wasn't one of them :p) and the friendliness the Princeton professors I met there blew me away like core collapse blowing away a red giant's outer layers (haha sorry, needed the geeky astro joke :p). They seemed to be generally interested both in me and my research and since both study brown dwarfs, we were able to come up with some really interesting follow-ups to my research that are closely linked to research going on at Pton. The other astronomers I met, by contrast, seemed to treat me more as a colleague (not to say the Pton people didn't, but having so much more experience with undergrads, they were able to treat me as a mixture of the two) with little regard, if any, to the fact that I'm in high school.</p>
<p>Princeton's focus on the undergrad education really helps any astronomer-in-the-making, and significantly. For the few of us who were lucky to get real research experience, a place like Harvard--where they coddle you less but the motivated student has all of CfA, the world's largest astro research institute, to look for research opportunities--may be better. But Princeton has one of the world's best astro programs and you really can't go wrong with it. So yes, for an aspiring astronomer who is just beginning to dive into the field, I can maybe think of no better place than Princeton for undergrad ;)</p>
<p>Querty--If we end up at Princeton or some other school together, we'll probably be studying together. And if you really want to go into astro as a career, astro is an extremely small field so we'd be colleagues and definitely know each other, school regardless. So see ya around, maybe :)</p>
<p>Anywho, my pro-Princeton-astro rant is officially over. haha</p>
<p>And, Xiaohui Fan is amazing :p</p>
<p>If you guys ended up at Princeton with me we'd totally make up like a 1/3 of the undergrads concentrating in astro. That'd be ridiculous.</p>
<p>I had my Pton interview yesterday and I was lucky enough to get an interviewer genuinely interested in astro (as well as many other things I like) :) That was really cool. Anyway, like I said, we should remember each other now because even if we go to different schools, if you guys get Ph.D.s there's no way we can avoid each other forever! lol</p>
<p>I'm so glad I picked the right ivy league school to apply to. I originally picked Princeton solely because of its excellent financial aid program and because ... it's Princeton. It gladdens me GREATLY to hear that it's tops for the program I want to study. I want to go here more and more with each passing day...</p>
<p>I'm hoping to see some of you astro geeks @ P'ton next fall! Good luck!</p>
<p>Damn, how many astro geeks are there here?? :p And meanwhile I have yet to find just one in the Harvard forums, lol.</p>
<p>I thought Cornell would be better with Astro than Pton. I mean heck they even got Carl Sagan there... Astro geeks, ha.. It's great. Try not being one.</p>
<p>Carl Sagan is dead. One researcher--especially one who is not even there anymore--doesn't make a school dominant in any subject. That being said, Cornell is well-known as one of the nation's best astronomy programs but that seems to be primarily on the basis of its dominance in radio and planetary astronomy. Outside of those two areas, Princeton definitely takes Cornell.</p>
<p>Someone needs to make some pun using the word "astronomical".</p>
<p>Or "Uranus."</p>
<p>Or "brown dwarf." Oh, the Gary Coleman jokes I've made while practicing my presentation at school...</p>
<p>Princeton astrophysicist Professor gets great news:</p>
<p>"The society cited Paczynski "for his highly original contributions to a wide variety of fields including advanced stellar evolution, the nature of gamma ray bursts, accretion in binary systems, gravitational lensing and cosmology. His research has been distinguished by its creativity and breadth, as well as the stimulus it has provided to highly productive observational investigations.</p>