<p>Which school is better for Physics? I know that UF is higher ranked in terms of engineering, but UM ranks the highest in Fl with a ranking of 47, as opposed to UF's 53. Which school will you find more intellectuals?? I do not want to be at a school that is composed of mediocre students..</p>
<p>Miami:
Pros:</p>
<ul>
<li>Private, so unaffected by budget cuts.</li>
<li>Relatively small.</li>
<li>Ranked best in the state.</li>
<li>It's in MIAMI.</li>
</ul>
<p>Cons:</p>
<ul>
<li>Expensive (but I will be able to pay for it)</li>
<li>Too hot.</li>
<li>I don't know if their Physics and Engineering programs are solid.</li>
<li>Not sure how well known it is outside of Fl.</li>
</ul>
<p>UF:
Pros:</p>
<ul>
<li>Solid academics.</li>
<li>Very well known outside of Florida</li>
<li>Nice weather.</li>
</ul>
<p>Cons:</p>
<ul>
<li>Huge.</li>
<li>budget cuts are decreasing the school's quality.</li>
</ul>
<p>Which should I choose???</p>
<p>(I posted this same thread on the U Miami forum because bias had to be taken into account).</p>
<p>This is for grad school, but if you look at the latest NRC-r and -s based ratings for Physics, UF is ranked much higher than Miami. Miami will give you advantage of smaller class size which you must balance against the better program and research ops at UF.</p>
<p>I’m not sure where you heard that UM is ranked higher than UF in Physics. But in 2010, USNWR Physics Grad Schools Rankings listed UF at #36 (score 3.4) and UM at #122 (score 2.2).
Don’t put too much value on someone else’s rankings. I suggest that you visit the Physics departments at both universities rather than rely on rankings.</p>
<p>I’m a current physics student at UF, and the upper level physics classes are fairly small (<35). There aren’t so many physics majors, so it’s actually a nice community.</p>
<p>Ugh, it’s such a difficult decision… I like Miami more overall, but I feel like their Physics department is weak and will not have many research opportunities.</p>
<p>You think private means they’re unaffected by budget cuts? Their endowment has plummeted just like every other school’s has.</p>
<p>UF is a no-brainer in this situation. Want to see how bad Miami’s physics department is? They have a single abstract in the American Physical Society’s March Meeting, which is the biggest physics conference in the world (see: [APS</a> -APS March Meeting 2011 - Search Affiliation MAR11](<a href=“http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR11/SearchAffil]APS”>APS -APS March Meeting 2011 - Search Affiliation MAR11) and type in “Miami”; 14 of the 15 abstracts are from Miami University in Ohio). It doesn’t even appear as if that one paper from Miami was done entirely by the Miami authors, as the last author is from ANL in Chicago (the position of prestige for faculty is the last author).</p>
<p>By contrast, UF has over 30 (got tired of counting, is probably higher) abstracts. This suggests to me that UF and Miami aren’t even in the same universe in level of physics research.</p>
<p>^ yeah, I was trying to be polite. They aren’t on the same level. But, if the OP is perhaps interested in applied physics, and is not intent on going to grad school, and needs to have smaller lower-levels classes, and doesn’t mind the extra expense (lots of ands!), then, maybe Miami would be a better choice.</p>