<p>Hello, I know there have been lots of threads about what schools are best for physics and I've looked at a lot of them, so I was just wondering whether I could get about 5 really good ones from each type of school(private uni, LAC, public uni) or just any advice in general about the topic , thanks guys. </p>
<p>Be aware to get a job working in physics, with physics will require a PhD. Even then the job market is very slim. There are many more PhDs graduating than their are academic positions opening, if that is where you want to go. Industry hires physics PhD too but of course there is a limit to that as well.</p>
<p>To be honest if you go to a college with good research oppurtunities and a history of placing students in graduate programs well that should be fine. Future employers will only care about your graduate school, not your undergrad, so focus on other aspects of a university that you would enjoy (location, size, weather etc.)</p>
<p>Most of the physics graduates that I know are working in computers; physics appears to be one of the more common majors of non-CS majors doing technical work in computers.</p>
<p>However, if your goal is to work in computers, majoring in CS is the obvious route.</p>
<p>I honestly feel that you will get the best undergrad physics education at a research university. This has been highly contested on this board, but honestly, the best research opportunities are all at research institutions and there is a much broader range of courses you can take, including graduate courses. You also can become friends with graduate students who are a great resource for advice and your professors may be very well known in their fields. I know people will argue that you can just do an REU, but those are only ten weeks as most people don’t get much done, especially if you haven’t had a high quality research experience before. You should do research doing the year to be competive for grad school especially.
I am currently visiting grad schools I have been accepted to including 4 top ten schools. I have been to one open house so far, and honestly most people seem to come from well known private and state universities. I have not seen many liberal arts students at all. I have also heard from one student attending a fairly well known LAC that LAC students typically do worse on the physics GRE which is actually nontrivial in grad admissions. This is unclear though.
Most Ivy League schools have great physics departments with the exception Dartmouth. Uchicago is phenomenal, MIT, Caltech, many of the UCs, Michigan, Minnesota, Penn State, Illinois, Johns Hopkins, Ohio State, uwashington, UT Austin etc.</p>
<p>Statistics show that there are many LACs that are highly-productive in terms of people that go on to earn PhDs int he physical sciences.</p>
<p><a href=“Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College”>http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html</a></p>
<p>For physical science, LACs like Harvey Mudd, Grinnell, Reed, Carleton, Haverford, Swarthmore, Wabash, all top the list are have a good amount of their students go to get PhDs. Of course the majority of these schools are selective and difficult to get into. Research universities on that list included MIT, UChicago, Rice, and MIT.</p>
<p>I think the fit of the school should be a more important factor. But of course, reseach oppurtunities are more prevalent at research universities as well as those upper division classes so that may appeal more. Of course one does not have to go to one of these schools on Reed’s list to get into a PhD program, they likely just have the resources available for people who plan to pursue such programs.</p>
<p>I don’t think those statistics necessarily determine the intrinsic quality of their physics program themselves, there are many good schools that you can go to that offer the things that someone needs to be competitive for grad programs. But LACs aren’t terribly crippled in that aspect as has been lead to believe.</p>
<p>However an issue with that list is that it didn’t really determine exactly what schools their graduates went to for graduate study. For all we know, 90% of the physics grads from Grinnell or something went to Northeastern Greenland State University or something.</p>
<p>Universities with Ph.D. programs in physics also have graduate courses available that advanced undergraduates can take to prepare themselves for a Ph.D. program. </p>