Best Schools for Physics Undergraduate Degrees

[relativelyslow]

i am entering that hallowed time of college applications. though I've found two primary colleges (oberlin,lawrence), i was wondering: what colleges (undergraduate) are good for physics? I am under the impression rochester is so i was going to apply to it. my considerations for majors are physics, psychology, and music performance (i plan on double majoring two of the three and minoring the other, the minoring tending to be music at the moment)-just in case there is a school spectacular in all or two of those areas. thank you very much

 

[relativelyslow]

or just ones primarily good for physics

 

[Mirabilia]

By the way, ALL schools teach same curriculum but which school provides the most "research" funding in the area of physics. Use the "too-friendly" engine site, Google where seemly all answers come upon.

 

[relativelyslow]

some schools have different courses within physics, though; perhaps specialized areas. some schools are also stronger in physics than other courses. they can't all be the same or else it wouldn't matter which college you attend (because homogeny leaves no better or worse)

 

[ZapperZ]

some schools have different courses within physics, though; perhaps specialized areas. some schools are also stronger in physics than other courses. they can't all be the same or else it wouldn't matter which college you attend (because homogeny leaves no better or worse)

Actually, at the undergraduate level, it doesn't!

There have been similar threads such as this. What you want out of an undergraduate institution are (i) good instructions (ii) number of available courses each semester/quarter (iii) wide selection of classes that you can optionally take by the time you're a senior and (iv) possible research/individual study opportunities.

All of the above are not restricted to only "brand-name" schools. In fact, some of the lesser well-known schools can excel or even surpass those popular schools. Smaller schools, because they don't have that large of a range of research projects, concentrate more on instruction qualities. At the undergraduate level, you want a place that can give you the best instruction on the fundamentals of physics. These fundamentals are the same no matter where you study physics, and chances are, you would be using the same text as those kids in Harvard, Princeton, etc., but with smaller classes and more one-on-one interactions with your instructors.

Don't be fooled by schools touting all the big research projects, bit research grants, etc. Chances are, as an undergraduate, these things would not have any effect on you. You have plenty of opportunity to get involved with those when you start considering for graduate schools.

I hate to continue being tacky and advertise my journal, but I'm in the middle of writing a series of articles titled "So You Want To Be A Physicist". We are at Part 6 now. You may wan to give those a read...

Zz.

 

[theFuture]

From what I know about Rochester, it's fine for undergrad but the only big area of research going on there is optics stuff. Similar schools to Lawrence and Oberlin would include: Grinnell, Carleton and Macalester. Their music programs might not be on par with the others, but if it's not your main focus then that's probably ok.