Selecting the "Best" College

<p>YOu didn't say which science, but here's some data:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.earlham.edu/%7Eir/bac_origins_report/biosci.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.earlham.edu/~ir/bac_origins_report/biosci.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.earlham.edu/%7Eir/bac_origins_report/chem.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.earlham.edu/~ir/bac_origins_report/chem.html&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.earlham.edu/%7Eir/bac_origins_report/physics.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.earlham.edu/~ir/bac_origins_report/physics.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>From what I've read, personally I doubt that the academic quality of the science education at the first five schools is different enough to materially influence whether you achieve your objectives.(Except: I know nothing about Whitman) . However, these schools differ in: size; location; distance to a major city; predominant social character of student body. </p>

<p>So if I were you I'd also give some consideration to which environment you'd prefer to be in for the next four years.</p>

<p>By the way Bucknell is (or at least used to be) very strong in the physical sciences. It probably doesn't show up on these % PhD lists because they have a lot of science-oriented students who become engineers and go into industry, instead of going the PhD route; it is the only college on your list that has an engineering program.</p>