<p>I'm finalizing my college list and was hoping for a few suggestions on safety and match schools. I already have the obvious super-reaches on my list, but I'm having trouble coming up with safety/low match schools. </p>
<p>Quick info about me:
Female, hispanic/white, want to major in physics
GPA: 3.99 UW
SAT: 2320
SAT IIs: 800s Lit, Physics, Math 2</p>
<p>Things I'm looking for in a college:
Medium to large (>5000)
Suburban/urban location, but with a nice campus
Strong science department (obviously), but with decent offerings in humanities and foreign languages
Good research opportunities</p>
<p>*Physics usually means research, which usually means PhD.</p>
<p>This is a repost of an original by interesteddad. Many schools are obvious choices, but some others just as good are easier to get into.*</p>
<p>Here are 100 to consider. These one hundred colleges and universities produced the highest percentage of future Physics/Astronomy PhDs per graduate over the most recent 10 year period. Obviously a lot of tech schools are represented, but there's something for just about everybody (different sizes, different locations, different selectivities):</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Formula: Total PhDs divided by Total Grads, multiplied by 1000 </p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period</p>
<p>
1 California Institute of Technology 96
2 Harvey Mudd College 64
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 29
4 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology 20
5 Reed College 13
6 Carleton College 13
7 Princeton University 13
8 University of Chicago 13
9 Rice University 13
10 Case Western Reserve University 9
11 Harvard University 9
12 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 9
13 Swarthmore College 9
14 Haverford College 8
15 Stevens Institute of Technology 8
16 Whitman College 8
17 Grinnell College 7
18 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 7
19 Colorado School of Mines 7
20 Yale University 6
21 Williams College 6
22 University of Rochester 6
23 Amherst College 6
24 Goshen College 5
25 Cornell University, All Campuses 5
26 University of Dallas 5
27 Wabash College 5
28 Stanford University 5
29 Beloit College 5
30 University of California-Berkeley 5
31 Carnegie Mellon University 5
32 Johns Hopkins University 5
33 Hastings College 5
34 Lawrence University 5
35 Illinois Institute of Technology 5
36 Columbia University in the City of New York 4
37 Oberlin College 4
38 Monmouth College 4
39 Bryn Mawr College 4
40 Gustavus Adolphus College 4
41 Kalamazoo College 4
42 College of William and Mary 4
43 Earlham College 4
44 Worcester Polytechnic Institute 4
45 Pomona College 4
46 St Olaf College 4
47 Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus 4
48 Rhodes College 4
49 St John's University (Collegeville, MN) 3
50 Bates College 3
51 Macalester College 3
52 Brown University 3
53 Wesleyan University 3
54 Bethel College (North Newton, KS) 3
55 Brandeis University 3
56 Kenyon College 3
57 Hope College 3
58 St John's College (both campus) 3
59 Franklin and Marshall College 3
60 Bowdoin College 3
61 Washington University 3
62 Walla Walla College 3
63 Middlebury College 3
64 University of Missouri, Rolla 3
65 Drew University 3
66 Guilford College 3
67 Southern College of Seventh-Day Adventists 3
68 Moravian College 3
69 Clarkson University 3
70 Polytechnic University 3
71 Hamline University 3
72 Tougaloo College 3
73 Vassar College 2
74 Andrews University 2
75 University of California-San Diego 2
76 Lehigh University 2
77 College of Wooster 2
78 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2
79 Wake Forest University 2
80 Duke University 2
81 Albion College 2
82 University of Virginia, Main Campus 2
83 Trinity University 2
84 University of Alabama in Huntsville 2
85 Benedictine College 2
86 University of Puget Sound 2
87 Michigan Technological University 2
88 Dartmouth College 2
89 Cooper Union 2
90 Pacific University 2
91 Florida Institute of Technology 2
92 Xavier University 2
93 Northwest Nazarene College 2
94 South Dakota School of Mines & Technology 2
95 Hendrix College 2
96 Bucknell University 2
97 Millsaps College 2
98 Southwestern University 2
99 Bethel College and Seminary, All Campuses 2
100 Wofford College 2
101 Wellesley College 2
<p>If you are willing to consider a smaller place, look at Bryn Mawr. Dorms like Hogwarts - I kid you not. Great science faculty with a good track record of getting students into grad school. Great liberal arts tradition for all the other stuff you want to do along the way. Incredible alumnae network for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>Same goes (well except for the dorms part I suppose) for the other top women's colleges.</p>
<p>You might be able to get into Cornell which is ranked #1 in Applied Physics undergrad, one of the best Physics departments in the Ivy League. Cornell is excellent for your interests and preferences. Beautiful campus on a hilltop overlooking a small city.</p>