peegeo4: I am definitely NOT an expert, but I've been researching trying to find a good fit for my son. If you haven't looked at it, the American Institute of Physics has a very informative website. This link gives a roster of all undergrad physics depts in the US:
http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends...s/physrost.pdf
Our guidance counselor gave us a list of the Gourman report rankings for undergrad physics. They were:
The following is a list of schools that have been ranked (in order
1-35) in Physics:
California Institute of Technology
Harvard and Radcliffe College
Cornell University
Princeton University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of California - Berkeley
Stanford University
University of Chicago
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
Columbia University
Yale University
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of California - San Diego
University of California - Los Angeles
University of Pennsylvania
University of Wisconsin - Madison
University of Washington
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
University of Maryland - College Park
University of California - Santa Barbara
University of Texas - Austin
Carnegie Mellon University
University of Minnesota
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Brown University
Johns Hopkins University
Michigan State University
University of Notre Dame
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Case Western Reserve University
Northwestern University
University of Rochester
University of Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania State University - University Park
University of Colorado - Boulder
Of course, rankings are not everything, but using some of these resources
has been helping our search.