<p>Could anyone please tell me how is the physics program of middlebury? How easy is it for a physics student from middlebury to go to colleges like harvard, caltech or MIT for graduate studies?</p>
<p>OK, let me frame my remarks with the information that I am a physics professor at [Illinois</a> Institute of Technology](<a href=“http://www.iit.edu%5DIllinois”>http://www.iit.edu) and have been working on graduate admissions for the past few years. Middlebury College is a Liberal Arts College and as such probably has a relatively small physics enrollment. This means that they won’t have as many physics courses as a bigger school or a technical university like mine. The consequence of this is that you might take a few less courses at the upper division than you might have at another school. Many of our graduate students who come from this kind of program have only had one semester of Quantum Mechanics or E&M at the Senior level. This puts them at a slight disadvantage to students from bigger programs but it is not a big problem for our program because we give them an opportunity to take our undergraduate quantum sequence. Could it be an issue for getting into the kinds of programs you name? It all depends on your Physics GRE scores. If those are good then, no problem.</p>
<p>It looks like the students at Middlebury can get involved in research and this is a critical component of preparation for graduate school and getting into a strong graduate program.</p>
<p>Our undergraduate program is small too and I have noticed that the students who do take extra physics and math courses during their undergraduate studies and get good Physics GRE scores >70% can usually get into a top 25 program. Last year we had one go to MIT, one to Notre Dame, two to University of Wisconsin , one to University of Virginia, and one to Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>Talk to the faculty at Middelbury and find out where their students end up in graduate school. This will tell you a lot.</p>
<p>Good Luck!</p>
<p>I am a faculty member at Middlebury College. I’m glad to hear of your interest and I think xraymancs has given a thoughtful and helpful reply.</p>
<p>I’d just add that our average number of majors graduating per year (15) is not that far off from the number at much larger institutions. You can see a full list here:
<a href=“http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/physrost.pdf[/url]”>http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/physrost.pdf</a>
and as noted here:
<a href=“http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/physund08.pdf[/url]”>http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/physund08.pdf</a>
only 46 Ph.D.-granting institutions across the country average 20 majors per year or more.</p>
<p>xraymancs is right that we don’t match larger schools in terms of the quantity of courses we offer (I’d like to think that our quality is top-notch, however!) – in part because our enrollments have grown to their current levels mostly over the past 10 years (among other reasons, we opened a new science building in 2000) and we haven’t fully caught up. We typically offer the second term of senior E&M every other year, and haven’t offered a second term of senior quantum, though I have taught an independent study course to students looking to cover this material (2 will take it in our upcoming January term). We do emphasize participation in research, both within the term in senior work and through summer research positions.</p>
<p>Since I arrived at Midd in 2002 we have had students get in to all the schools you mentioned (one chose Stanford over Caltech for a physics Ph.D., one did a masters in engineering and another is doing a Ph.D. in climate/geophysics at MIT, one completed an astrophysics Ph.D. at Harvard and is now a leading researcher studying extrasolar planet atmospheres). We’ve also recently sent students to Princeton, Berkeley, and a wide range of other top schools.</p>
<p>Thanks NoahGraham and xraymancs! I’ve applied Middlebury for ed I with physics as an intended major. I’ve chosen Middlebury as my first priority due to its small size and more caring environment.Actually, I’ve a good physics background, and i’ve won a medal in international physics olympiad. My parents had suggested me to apply to big universities. But, I am really satisfied with my choice. Let’s see if I can get a chance to explore Middlebury’s Physics department.</p>
<p>^^^Can I just say how impressed I am that physics profs. from two outstanding institutions took time from their busy schedules to thoughtfully answer questions on this board. Bravo to Middlebury and IIT!</p>
<p>I was an art history student at Middlebury so my appreciation for IIT starts with their incredible campus designed by Mies van der Rohe. Really impressive!</p>