<p>All I know is 100% of the time I email an old friend they are doing engineering at Stanford for grad school or something like that. I am 100% serious.</p>
<p>That's interesting slipper, maybe i'll go to Dimensions to sort out some of my thoughts.</p>
<p>Maybe you should try Who got in .com because there is a list of 226 applicants who have applied to various Phd Phyics programs across the country a lot of acceptances but seems like more rejections.</p>
<p>Penntogo probably hit the nail on the head that your chances are probably better coming from an LAC, if you really wnat to know the school that sends more PhD's in sciences, it is probably Bryn Mawr and Smith (both women's schools). </p>
<p>While I understand ones need for planning the next step, I also that a person's mind can and doe change a number of times from the time they enter college at 17/18 to the time they graduate so I am not of the mind set that a person should have such a narrow focus. You are talking to a person who started out in one thing, finished in another, holds an undergrad degree in an area they never worked a day in and is a PhD student ina a totally different discipline. </p>
<p>An interesting question would be to ask college graudates, how many actually followed the course they set at 17 (that would really be interesting).</p>
<p>Link to CalTech's Entering Classs PhD( Whom U.S. News and World report ranked had the # 1 PhD rogram in Physics)</p>
<p>The Caltech page shows that they take people from essentially everywhere. LACs are well represented. HYP stand out too.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The Caltech page shows that they take people from essentially everywhere. LACs are well represented. HYP stand out too.
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</p>
<p>I think you answered your own question. It seems that over the years that Caltech has just as many people in their Phd programs (maybe more) from "unnamed' schools as they do from "prestigious" schools. From the looks of things it seems that your chances would be better coming from an unnamed school.</p>
<p>However prestige is in the eye of the beholder. You need to go to the school that is overall the best school for you regardless of name. You know what it is you want or need in a college environment. Everybody knows somebody who got into HYP, MIT only to find out that it wasn't for them and transferred out. The same number of people also know people who attended these schools and loved their experience. </p>
<p>If you decided to change majors tomorrow and not pursue physicss, would you still be happy with the choice?</p>
<p>Good point, Sybbie. A friend of mine wanted to go to Missouri-Rolla to do engineering, but backed out because, if she changed her mind about her major, she'd literally be trapped.</p>
<p>I have always thought Dartmouth as smiliar to Princeton... more undergraduate students than graduates.. but the only difference is that (from what i have observed; not a proven fact) there aren't as many distinguished professors at Dartmouth (such as Nobel, McArthur, etc prize winners) as there are in Columbia, Princeton and Harvard etc schools... </p>
<p>But Dartmouth definitely has the undergraduate focus a good undergraduate institution should have.</p>
<p>That's true, Dartmouth and Princeton are quite similar. Main difference is that Dartmouth is not as researched focused as Princeton.</p>
<p>It is one thing to have a list of distinguished professors, but if those professors ar not teaching undergrad, just grad students or are simply doing research or writing their next book, you are getting no benefit from this outside of the press that they generate.</p>
<p>Do you know how many if any you will have access to in the class room?</p>
<p>There is no reason to imply in a knee-jerk manner that any school with a generally more famous research faculty will offer students less access to those professors. Professors are not sequestered or ripped away from teaching just because they establish a level of fame. The access to them will be no different from the access to any other professors in the department. The main difference is that courses taught by famous professors tend to have waitlists, or require the permission of the instructor to take.</p>
<p>Dadaist</p>
<p>People who are "generally more famous" are generally in far more demand than those less famous and are occasionally pretty full of themselves, not just in research, but in life in general (unless they are famous for their humility). It seems extraordinary to suggest that someone celebrated (and thus in demand) will be as accessible as a person of humbler and simpler means. Its common sense, Id think, but Im just guessing.
There is also the issue of those who genuinely like to teach and those who teach in order to do research.</p>
<p>That's generally not true FountainSiren. There are very few Noam Chomskys out there. Being very famous in your discipline generally means you're not famous at all. Both my parents are professors, and i've been around universities and academic life since i was born. Trust me, the most famous researcher in the world in automata theory, acts no differently from the guy with the office down the hall from him. Yes, there are some conceited "famous" professors, but i'd say its infrequent enough that i can't even establish a firm stereotype in my mind. I had dinner last weekend with my family at the house of one of the most famous engineers in the world studying risk analysis. Trained in the premier Soviet academies. And oh yeah, i stop in at his office all the time at the university and toss peanuts around. Then again, I have a professor this year who is of no fame, has only co-written papers with some famous people, and is phenomenally arrogant and inaccessable. Oh well.</p>
<p>My basic message is: don't make a stereotype for famous professors, it won't hold true.</p>
<p>Very few stereotypes are ever totally true and I certainly did not mean to imply that even a very famous professor would not have dinner with other professors and be welcoming to their children during office hours. I didnt mean to give that impression.</p>
<p>I also grew up under circumstances wherein some famous intellectuals befriended my family and thus me. However, I was thinking of random students at X research U showing up at class, not professional or family friends.</p>
<p>Yeah i understand what you mean. But having grown up around professors i know they're multifaceted, real people. I think its just odd to label someone "inaccessable" just because their 15 hours of research a week has brought them more repute than their another professor's 15 hours of research a week. I draw the line between aloof/inaccessable and normal based on a professor's lifestyle. If s/he is the type that is constantly on a plane, soaking up fame and kudos, then it might be fair to pop out a label. But your average famous professor isn't all that different from others.</p>
<p>Neither of my parents are professors; what's worse is that we have never had any famous intellectuals hanging out at our house: I better go to Dartmouth, Sybbies right!</p>
<p>While Dartmouth professors may not have the prestige that some are looking for all of them have no qualms about and do invite students to their homes for dinner. </p>
<p>I am glad to know that my lowly unconnected freshman daughter (whose mother is not a professor just a PhD student) was still deemed worhty to dine with professors anyway. </p>
<p>Even after being unwashed in the woods for a few days (after the DOC trips) there were still professors who were not put off by the looks and smell of them sat had dinner and discussions with them. One even stayed at dinner and talked to them while his wife was in labor.</p>