Aspiring Astrophysicist

Regulus7
Wed, 30 Sep 2015 00:51:31 +0000

I have a different take on this question. The OP seems to be set on an academic career in Astrophysics. This means that ultimately your selection to a graduate program will be more important than your undergraduate selection. Because you are enrolled in an undergraduate program at a good program such as U Chicago, this does not mean you will automatically be accepted into their graduate program, as the competition for those spots is global.

Here is my advice for what its worth. National rankings of Astrophysics programs at the undergraduate level are misleading. First, what the rankings tell you is how accomplished the faculty is and often what the facilities are, yet as an undergraduate you will have next to zero opportunity to work with faculty or to touch any of the facilities. Trust, me. Been there, done that. The better option I think is to attend one of the leading LAC with a very good astronomy department where maybe some of the faculty is doing research in some area that you find interesting, such as exoplanet transits, stellar formation or AGN structure or similar… anyhow you get the drift. My point here is simple, at one of these schools your passion will be rewarded with research opportunity, often co-authorship and publication in a leading journal. Ultimately demonstrating undergraduate accomplishment such as peer-review journal is a huge advantage for grad-school admission.

I am not sure why Columbia is in your search. Maybe you really like NYC. Apart from that, I would not rank Columbia anywhere near the top 10 for graduate level Astrophysics programs in the country. Indeed, two obvious standout programs are Cambridge and Oxford, which are not even in the USA… A strong performance in a LAC astronomy program will I bet go much further in getting you to your ultimate goal than being yet another physics/ math wonk at a major research university as an undergrad… your teachers will be graduate students who don’t care about you, you will never touch a telescope or have access to any serious computational resources… Forget these ‘ranked’ schools for pursuing your academic goal as an undergraduate. Rather look to enroll in a Caltech, U Chicago, Princeton or Harvard for graduate school… don’t waste your undergrad years in those places for Astrophysics. You’ll regret it.