<p>Other than Princeton and MIT, which other college/universities have strong programs in physics (specifically quantum physics)?</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>
<p>UC Santa Barbara was recommended to my S because of his interest in Physics. High number of Nobel prize winners there. He chose elsewhere, but was very interested in this possibility. Beautiful location. If you are not a California resident, that may make it harder, but not impossible, I don't think.</p>
<p>According to USNews Top Graduate Physics Programs:
1.MIT
Stanford
3.Caltech</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure these schools are good for undergrad too :D</p>
<p>I also recommend UC Santa Barbara - they have a selective, prestigious physics program for honor students who get to work on graduate level practically from freshman year on, stipends to leading universitites over the summers, ambitious program with brilliant faculty...</p>
<p>oh, and then there's the beach ;)</p>
<p>I'll just point out that Reed College is the only college in the country with a nuclear reactor run by undergraduate students. It's a real asset to their physics program.</p>
<p>Haverford College also has excellent physics.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I also recommend UC Santa Barbara - they have a selective, prestigious physics program for honor students who get to work on graduate level practically from freshman year on, stipends to leading universitites over the summers, ambitious program with brilliant faculty.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>argh! UCSB has elite post-doc physics, Nobel laureates and all. The new nanotech center is cutting edge. It is NOT true that undergrads partake. Honors undergrads get a heavily marketed advantage, but I'd suggest looking very closely before jumping in. Undergraduate education is not their focus. But it's true about the beach :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Reed College is the only college in the country with a nuclear reactor run by undergraduate students
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, I recently got to visit their reactor and spoke with the director. Great program!</p>
<p>Somehow, the thought of undergraduates running a nuclear reactor is not that comforting to me! ;)</p>
<p>SJMom: okay, you're not comfortable with undergrads running a nuclear reactor--now couple that with Reed's reputation for drug use.... (It didn't get the nickname "Weed" without some justification.)</p>
<p>Seriously, from what I can tell, the reactor is a) very small, b) very safe, and c) very carefully handled. There's a forty-hour training course just to start with. My D got in to irradiate some nickels as part of a chem experiment last year, though. Very cool.</p>
<p>The operators are fully tested and accredited by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the reactor is ultra-low-power.</p>
<p>I'm sure the reactor is as safe as any other reactor in the county. I'll try to be more careful about my humor in future. ;)</p>
<p>No, please don't be more careful! We have precious little humor on these boards!</p>
<p>I thought University of Missouri-Rolla also had a nuclear reactor.</p>
<p>Back to the original list however, I will note and stress that the list is mainly for GRADUATE programs, not undergraduate, and in physics the difference can be pretty huge- a lot of schools can only focus on one or the other, for example, and liberal arts schools wouldn't be on the list whatsoever (such as Williams, Haverford, Swarthmore, Harvey-Mudd...). I often tell people that a good way to find physics programs is to take a look at which schools are strong in engineering, as those schools require a great physics program by nessecity.</p>
<p>Finally, I need to have a shameless plug for my own school, Case Western Reserve, which is considered to have the best undergraduate labratory program in the country per its last accredidation. There's also a quantum computing team based here and I'm at the beginning of the required full year of quantum mechanics, so if that's what really interests you we've got plenty. :)</p>
<p>Edit to add that I misread the original list; I thought it was another one I've seen thrown around the forums here lately. Sorries...
That having been said, seeing as 1 in 20 undergrads in physics go on to become physics professors and the like, to a certain extent I don't know how much one should weigh the listing beyond a general gauge. Just a thought.</p>
<p>to celloguy</p>
<p>"argh! UCSB has elite post-doc physics, Nobel laureates and all. The new nanotech center is cutting edge. It is NOT true that undergrads partake. Honors undergrads get a heavily marketed advantage, but I'd suggest looking very closely before jumping in. Undergraduate education is not their focus. But it's true about the beach"</p>
<p>Actually, UCSB has a special program for hot physics undergraduates. These hand-picked students have no undergraduate graduation requirements. They take 'regular' classes if they want to (most do take some, especially in other sciences) but the bulk of their time is spent on graduate-level work along side physics grad students and post docs. Nephew did this program - he'll finish his Phd next year, after only 6 years at UCSB.</p>
<p>Absolute numbers rather than percentages would be more helpful- a large school can have a larger dept. and not make the list. I would rather see a breakdown of schools with a-b, c-d, etc. numbers of undergrads and grad students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Absolute numbers rather than percentages would be more helpful
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Knock yourself out. Custom database searches of the NSF PhD origins data can be done at:</p>
<p><a href="http://caspar.nsf.gov/%5B/url%5D">http://caspar.nsf.gov/</a></p>
<p>Once you get the hang of it, you can easily create an Excel spreadsheet listing the number of Physics PhDs earned by graduates from each of the 674 colleges and universities producing at least 1 over the ten year period (or any other period you specific). The top producer in raw numbers was MIT with 252 future Physics PhDs over the ten year period. One hundred fifty-four schools produced 1 each over the period.</p>
<p>Have fun!</p>
<p>katliamom -- glad to hear this is happening; apparently it's still a secret to the physics profs there I've talked to. Your nephew must be very special.</p>
<p>actually, is there a stats-pro out there who could run the numbers for UCSB undergrad physics? I have a kid doing physics at an LAC, another kid working in the field, but I'm not confident about my stats ability and I'm curious. UCSB doesn't show up on the top 100 (no surprise there). I worked in a research hothouse there years ago and was warned away from UCSB for undergrad. Maybe that has changed radically?</p>