Find the Best College for Astro Physics/Cosmology: Tips and Advice

[laurlaur]

Please Help With My College Search!

So, I am currently a Junior at my high school and, although you never know for sure right now, I am pretty positive that I would like to do a career in the Astro Physics/Cosmology area. I currently have a 4.22 GPA (I am in honor classes) and am not planning to let that fall in any way. I'm going to be honest too, I do not count myself as a super smart brainiac, however I love to be challenged, I am an extremely motivated and determined person (if you couldn't already tell) and it's this career that interests me most and fits all the things I want to do in my future.

Where I am really stuck is where to go to college, I want to do something great but I feel like the only Physicists people listen to are the ones who have gone to Harvard and Cambridge and despite my GPA and service learning hours I don't think I would have a chance at getting into those colleges But I'm not going to let that stop me, so if anyone has some good advice on some great Colleges/Universities for what I want to do, that are not nearly impossible to get into, and any other good advice on this career please help me out!

 

[fss]

You are asking an open question with very vague qualifiers. If you are smart, motivated, and hard working you can do well in any program at any university. You don't need to go to Harvard or Cambridge (or any other "big name" institution) for an excellent Physics education.

 

[eri]

Weighted GPAs are meaningless; every high school has their own weighting system, so it's impossible to determine what a 4.22 means. What's your unweighted GPA, SAT scores, and class rank? Those actually count when applying for colleges.

I'm not sure why you think "the only Physicists people listen to are the ones who have gone to Harvard and Cambridge" since it's unlikely you've been reading physics journals (and most of the physicists interviewed for popular TV didn't attend either, unless you've only heard of Hawking) but that's certainly not the case. You can do good physics just about anywhere. And fortunately for you, you can major in physics (since you'll need a PhD in physics or astronomy to work in the fields you listed, cosmology isn't a major, and astronomy majors usually don't include enough physics to get you into grad school) at pretty much any 4-year college or university. In fact, your local state school might have a great program (especially if you're in CA, TX, VA, MI, MA, HI, WA, WI, AZ, FL, NC, OH, etc).

 

[laurlaur]

I live in Arizona currently so if I could get opinions on which colleges/universities in this state that would be great, but I am not limiting myself to only ones here so any from other states would be appreciated as well. And no, I have not yet read many journals so I am gladly wrong about what I said, but it just seemed that way to me for the documentaries and books I'd read. My parents are not super supportive on my wanting to do this career either, which might put in for some of my hesitant/down attitude on it. If you know good statistics on how much you make in this field and pro/cons I could tell them about to let them know I am serious about this it would be very helpful!

and I have a 3.9 unweighted and am ranked 47 out of 780
also I go to a public school and my friend that goes to a charter school thinks she's going to look a lot beter then me even though I get beter gades than her. Is that true though, will going to a public school make me look a lot worse next to her?

 

[fss]

APS releases yearly data on salaries for physics (and numerous other) degree graduates.

http://www.aps.org/careers/guidance/statistics.cfm

 

[jtbell]

I live in Arizona currently so if I could get opinions on which colleges/universities in this state that would be great,

I understand the U of A in Tucson is pretty good for astrophysics. As you may be aware, they were responsible for the Mars lander a couple of years ago.

 

[eri]

U of Arizona in Tucson is a top-10 astronomy school with a large physics program as well. They have a ton of access to telescopes on surrounding mountains, especially Kitt Peak, and are home to NOAO as well. It's a fantastic school for astronomy. ASU also has many good programs.

 

[laurlaur]

thank you! I am definitely going to look more into U of A now!