Thoughts from current students or parents – or anyone with knowledge of academic reputation – on the relative strengths of the science departments – particularly Physics – at Clark University vs. College of Wooster vs. Muhlenberg?
Many factors in play, but one last application potentially hangs in the balance.
Thanks…
Muhlenberg is one of the best all around schools in america!(IMO) great campus, overall you have very supportive professors, happy students etc…other things you may not think of…close to a major hospital,(hopefully never needed) close to an airport etc…,
college of wooster would be my second choice on the list! also has a great rep and great school…and going to the school at c of w… would be an awesome 4 years too.
clark I am sure is a good school but IMO it would not be on my list. (does not make me right just my opinion)
Thanks, we definitely have a sense that all three are great all-around schools, with friendly kids and supportive professors. Wooster has an edge because of its mentored undergraduate research and IS projects, the accelerated masters program at Clark looks interesting, and Muhlenberg just made a great impression overall.
No question that they’re all good options, but I’m wondering if anyone can speak specifically to the sciences, and thus offer something that will tip the balance for or against submitting one more application. When I look at various lists of colleges that send students on to science PhDs, Wooster seems to make a generally stronger showing than the other two, but all have pretty small Physics departments. Just trying to get a read on whether one significantly outranks the other in this area … or not.
This may well be info you’ve already dug up on your own, but it looks like Clark has both the most full-time, non-adjunct physics faculty and the most majors, for whatever that’s worth.
Muhlenberg science gets high marks for pre-med with a good track record of sending kids on to med school, but that would be from more of a bio focus vs physics
Just for clarification - as I went back and browsed the titles of your previous threads - your S has a final list somewhere of mostly LAC’s that he has applied to. You are posing this specific question in order to determine which of these three LACs your S should add to his applications? In other words, he is not planning to apply to all three, so which of the three listed would the CC community recommend he add to his already robust list - based specifically on strength of Physics curriculum?
I ask only because I got a much better sense of your S and what he is looking for from your previous threads. And it appears he has already applied to 14 schools.
@lots2do I was trying to keep this question as generic as possible to get opinions uncolored by the existing list – just raw, straight-up impressions of the schools’ respective science programs in a way that might tip the balance one way or the other.
But yes, adding one more from this group would bring the list to 14, but I want to be sure it is not a frivolous addition given that there are several appealing EA options in play already. Kid is on the fence, as am I.
Talk to faculty, visit if you can, see what prevoius students have done for research and internships, look at class catalog, do they have the things your son is interested in?
Wooster.
@mommdc We have visited all three. We have looked online and tried to suss out and evaluate program information as best we can. (We’ll probably defer talking to faculty until we see which options are really on the table, though.) I’m just asking for firsthand impressions from anyone in the CC community who happens to have them.
It would be easy to just toss in the extra application. But I want to be sure there’s a strong chance that it would be a contender against the ones we already know about. Just looking for another set of (subjective) data points to help sort that out.
I’m curious about what you will decide as Wooster and Muhlenberg are still under consideration but Clark has fallen of the list. Then again, my daughter doesn’t intend to pursue Physics.
I’m a current Wooster student, although I have no experience with the physics department. I think that from a research experience and mentoring standpoint, Wooster is one of the best in the country, especially among LACs. Students not only do a senior year research project (Independent Study), but they also have a smaller project in junior year to prepare them for the senior project. We also have paid research positions available for first-years, sophomores and juniors, both during the school year and during the summer. During the summer we also offer some fantastic internship opportunities in the region through AMRE (Applied Mathematics Research Experience).
Thank you, @cubsfan95! I also noticed – though I doubt it has any immediate impact – that the newly named future president of Wooster is a physicist.
In any case, after digging around a bit more, we found Muhlenberg and Wooster comparable in many respects, and did see that Muhlenberg had an interesting relationship with Brookhaven National Laboratory (http://www.muhlenberg.edu/main/academics/physics/research/) but it wasn’t enough to tip the balance against Wooster’s IS offerings. While Clark has an excellent reputation in psychology, we couldn’t find anything that trumped the others in physics in particular or the sciences in general.
So from this particular cluster of schools, we decided to stick with Wooster.
My son is a freshman at Wooster, planning to major in geology, and he is having an incredible experience there so far. Wooster has a lot of strong science departments, offers great advising and opportunities, and really tries to find the best in each kid. I think the mandatory IS creates a very positive reverberation throughout the college experience there. Since everyone must work at a high level, every resource is there for every student and they take advantage of them. No one can drift through, they all have to find a subject they dig into deeply and produce a big piece of work. As a mother, i also like that they have an infirmary that is staffed 24/7, that’s unusual anymore. It’s a great place.
For physics specifically, look for at least the following junior/senior level physics courses offered on a regular basis (minimum once every two years, every year or every semester is better):
mechanics
statistical and thermal physics
electromagnetism*
quantum mechanics*
physics lab
*often a two course sequence
Additionally, math through multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations is needed. Real and complex analysis and abstract algebra are also commonly recommended.
Thanks, @ucbalumnus . Here’s what I think i see for Wooster.
http://physics.wooster.edu/Default/courses.html
mechanics (annual)
statistical and thermal physics - (bi-annual but also offered as a tutorial)
electromagnetism (annual, but appears to be just one semester)
quantum mechanics (bi-annual, but I think just one semester)
physics lab (integrated with coursework)
Also, independent study and several other 300-level electives. Not a huge spread, but I think solid.
In math (http://wooster.edu/academics/areas/mathematics/courses/) I see most of the courses you mentioned, but am embarrassed to note that I can’t parse whether complex analysis is included because there’s no course by exactly that name and I no longer recall how it all fits together.
Wooster MATH 33600 is the complex analysis course.
Here is the data on research spending in the sciences as reported by the NSF
…Clark…Wooster
Total Sciences…5.2M…1.3M
Life Sciences…735K…319K
Physical Sciences…691K…407K
Physics…242K…138K
Environmental Sci…1.6M…153K
Social Science…1.6M…68K
Muhlenburg had no reported research spending.
Clark has an interesting history in that it started out as the first graduate only school in America and then added a small undergraduate college.
Most other schools have grown in the opposite direction. Clark was one of the founding members of the AAU - which is basically an academic research frat. The first American Nobel Prize winner in Physics was a professor at Clark.
Technically, it is classified as a research university, but I tend to think of it as a “Research LAC” with an MBA program. It has 2300 undergrads and about 1100 graduate students on a 50 acre campus in downtown Worcester, MA. Historically, the location has been a liability (relative to other Massachusetts colleges), but it has improved in recent years. The UMass Medical Center is in Worcester as well along with Holy Cross and WPI. Clark has a small masters and Phd program in physics, which suggests that it would have a larger selection of higher level courses than a school that does not, but you can verify that by looking at course listings.
https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&fice=3037&id=h2
https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=report&fice=2139&id=h2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_University#cite_note-ChronGT-10
I cannot comment directly on the programs you are asking about, however I know the advice we were given when deciding on a program for our ds and it echoes what has already been mentioned in this thread: 2 semester sequences for E&M and quantum and frequent course offerings. (Fwiw, our ds actually took a 2 semester sequence for mechanics as well, but a lot of universities merge them into a single course.)
@xraymancs is a physics prof who posts and is very helpful. Here is a link to one of his responses: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18005192/#Comment_18005192
You might try PMing him.
Thanks @Mom2aphysicsgeek. That’s a very useful thread! At this point the die is cast in terms of where the applications are going in (a lot of factors to consider besides physics), but perhaps I’ll reach out to @xraymancs when the admissions results narrow the field.