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I am planning to apply to the top physics schools and think I have a good chance. But in case i don't get accepted I also want to apply to schools other than Princeton, Harvard, Caltech, MIT, Stanford. Any suggestions on other colleges with top quality physics opportunities.

By Drusba (Drusba) on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 09:44 am: Edit

Some: University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Cornell, Michigan, Texas, Maryland, Johns Hopkins, Colorado.

By Jamimom (Jamimom) on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 10:15 am: Edit

Berkeley, Wisconsin, Purdue, Texas A&M, UCLA, Minnesota, Washington, Arizona, , Columbia, Mich State, Stony Brook, Rutgers, U of Penn, U of Rochester, U of Florida, Northwestern, U of C Davis.
Also some of the LACs are really seeking physics majors. I know Wesleyan loves physics majors.

By Carolyn (Carolyn) on Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 11:24 am: Edit

Harvey Mudd, Carleton and Reed would be good LAC choices for undergraduate physics. Reed has its own Nuclear Reactor for undergraduate research and all three schools send a high number of students on to graduate school in physics. All have top notch academics.

By Untitled (Untitled) on Friday, September 26, 2003 - 05:33 am: Edit

Thank you very much for your help.

By Berkcogsci (Berkcogsci) on Tuesday, September 30, 2003 - 08:47 pm: Edit

Berkeley undergrad physics are horrendous in regard to instruction/rigor. Not recommended. Harvey Mudd is top notch with small class size and excellent curriculum.

By Sac (Sac) on Tuesday, September 30, 2003 - 08:50 pm: Edit

Berkcogsci,
Could you amplify your comment on Berkeley, please. Too rigorous? Not rigorous enough? Thanks.

By Berkcogsci (Berkcogsci) on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 - 01:42 am: Edit

What I meant was, its Certainly among the most rigorous in the nation. One will find an extremely challenging and educational experience. However, the academic environment for Undergraduates in this department is lacking. Equiptment& undergrad hall very aged. The instructors are notoriously sterile, unengaging and generally seem unhappy teaching undergrad classes. The department ranking for undergrad has dropped as a result of this. I do know for a fact though that the GRADUATE program is entirely different, being among the top 3 for certain. Undergrad is still top notch in rigor and excellence, but I have yet to meet ONE satisfied physics student who Enjoyed his experience at Cal.


Hope that clarifies

By Sac (Sac) on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 - 01:47 pm: Edit

Thanks. I don't know whether you read the report on the physics department there that was done earlier this year by a committee of visiting professors from other top departments. (I think it's posted on the UC website. Anyway, I looked it up after the Chronicle wrote about it).
It talked a lot about the equipment and facilities problems, some of which I gathered are being caused because the university is upgrading one of the buildings. But it also talked about how much the physics undergrads seemed to like studying physics at Berkeley and what an impressive group they were.
Do you think this was just the particular group of students the committee met with? Something they said to the committee that's different from what they say to each other? I'm especially interested in the comment about the professors being notoriously unengaging.
The reason I'm asking is that this might be one option for our son who thinks he might be a physics major. Any other thoughts or info you have as someone who's had that experience or knows others who have would be great.

By Marite (Marite) on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 - 02:12 pm: Edit

Sac:

My experience is that, usually, those who have the most gripes are the ones who line up to talk to visiting committees, so it's interesting that the undergrads seemed to like Berkeley physics. I suspect S is ruling out Berkeley because of size, though!

I believe you visited Yale earlier. Could you share your reaction to Yale's math and physics depts? Thanks!

By Sac (Sac) on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 - 02:40 pm: Edit

Hi Marite,

You and I have to stop meeting like this. We did go to Yale but it was not a productive visit so I can't tell you anything about their math and physics. At that point physics was not on my son's radar and college visits were more about getting a sense of the atmosphere, which for him included mostly whether he got a whiff of much jazz on campus or nearby. At all the other schools we strolled through the philosophy, math, and music departments, looking at bulletin boards and sometimes collaring a student. We were thwarted at Yale because the music building was locked and I don't think we tried any other departments.

It was a gloomy day, made worse because we had the worst meal of the trip in the dining hall and because they forgot our scheduled info session and kept a roomful of people who had crammed themselves into corners, the floor, and even spilled out into the hallway, waiting a half an hour. The adrep who finally showed up was a football player with an attitude who told one poor kid who approached him with parents in tow that based on his grades he shouldn't bother to apply. My son overheard this and thought the guy was unnecessarily blunt. He felt for the kid.

None of this has anything to do, of course, with what your son's reactions might be. There are two other stories that might or might not have some relevance:

While we were all waiting at the admissions office, a very nice student who was there took pity and came in and offered to answer any questions. She was very candid, and said she hadn't wanted to come to Yale originally because she wanted to go to somewhere more liberal like Berkeley. But she enjoyed Yale and was staying for medical school. Someone then asked about the residential college system, which is the feature all the tour guides tout, and she said she didn't actually like it. It was great the first year because it gave her an automatic group of friends. After that, she found it somewhat claustrophobic because it was hard to branch out and make friends around her interests rather than around where she was living.

The second is that while on a tour at MIT, I talked with a mother from San Francisco whose older child is at Yale. This girl came in thinking she'd major in chemistry. When she told her first chemistry professor where she was from, his response to her was: why are your parents spending all this money to send you to study chemistry at a place like Yale when you could be going to the University of California? In any case, this girl decided to major in English and is happy at Yale.

See, I told you I couldn't really offer anything that would help. Let me know what you dig up.

By Marite (Marite) on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 - 05:45 pm: Edit

Sac:

One of these days, we should indeed get together!
I was interested in Yale because it's a reasonable distance from Cambridge and has a graduate school which should allow S to take upper-level courses if he needed them and there is also the possibility of combining math & physics (which I understand is harder to do at Princeton).
But perusing the math department section of the catalogue, I think it is not quite on the same level as Berkeley, Harvard or MIT. By the way, I just found out that the Harvard Math Dept. provides a link to the Berkeley Math Dept (and there is also cross-registration with MIT). The most famous Yale math prof is Serge Lang, but he is over 70. The Physics Dept. at Yale, seems to have a lot going for it, and in general, from the website, it looks like Yale is committed to boosting its science programs. I know a graduate from our school who's gone to Yale to study Physics. I'll have to try to track him down.

If I were in California, I would definitely look seriously at the various campuses there. The level of excellence is there, and the instate tuition is very attractive. For out-of-state students, however, much of the savings would be eaten up by the costs of travel. Alas, I have the same reaction as Massdad about UMAss-Amherst: not quite up to the level of excellence we would like for our children.

By Sac (Sac) on Wednesday, October 01, 2003 - 07:55 pm: Edit

It would be fun to meet! Don't you find you get very vivid images of people from their postings on CC? I see you in a study lined with book shelves sagging under the weight of hundreds of books in different languages.

I once interviewed Serge Lang who also spends time at Berkeley (not to mention Paris). It was one of the most painful interviews of my life. There's a world of difference between the precision of a mathematician and a journalist, even a journalist who is trying her best to ask very precise questions. The result was actually so funny that I included it in the article as dialogue, just to show something about the character of a mathematician.

Our son will definitely apply to UCs. They are excellent and the price differential even with rising tuition is huge. We have a four day weekend and will use it to check out UCSD. Possibly UCLA or Irvine. If my son were dead set on physics we'd add Santa Barbara, but he's not, and Santa Barbara otherwise is not a good fit. The only problem for us with the UCs is that the best fit is Berkeley and he wants to go farther away than a few blocks. We'll also look at Pomona while we're down there.