Hi! I’m a high school senior accepted to several universities as a physics major. Two of the schools are Rensselaer and Case Western, and I was wondering how the research compares at the two. I am looking towards going to grad school for physics in the future, and obviously research is the largest gold star to have on a resume when applying. I don’t really care about the locations of the schools or the social lives of students (I made sure I was okay with these things before applying), just research and quality of education.
I have seen that both universities are classified as R1 (with some websites saying RPI got demoted to R2, but I can’t find confirmation on that). Does this make a big difference?
Thanks for the response! Why is research output not a good gauge? Doesn’t more research mean more opportunity, or are you saying that despite having more research it may be limited (or soft limited) to graduate students?
Yes, that was essentially my point. In order to understand the amount of overall research activity as it might apply to you, you would need to adjust for aspects such as the size the institution and the relative prominence of graduate students. Ideally, an undergraduate should seek opportunities for having their research mentored, which will depend more on collaborative relationships with faculty than the gross research productivity of the institution. The schools that have produced Apker recipients should offer you a sense of the range of environments that can launch top physicists (with RPI included, in 1988): LeRoy Apker Award - Wikipedia. That noted, research remains very important to a nascent physicist, and will help determine the level of the graduate program you later pursue.