CSPLO is heavy in engineering majors. Not many engineers go on to PhDs.
Well, they are in California, and in the “top med schools”, which are research-oriented.
For example, go onto any CSU premed site and count the number of non-hooked students who are accepted into an allopathic med school. (Hint: the numbers are really small.) Part (a major?) of that is low MCAT scores. In contrast, nearly a third of the class at UCSF hail from Cal and Stanford.
As one Med Dean used to question, why would anyone think that a 3.75 from Cal State LA is viewed the same as a 3.75 from UCLA? A frequent Admissions poster on a popular premed site, says the same thing about Yale vs. the University of New Haven.
Re #21
Suppose both students had 3.75 and the same high MCAT score?
Didn’t read all of the posts but will still add my .02 worth. I have a very high respect for Cal Poly SLO and I agree that my first thought when I read the OP’s post was that free SLO beats full pay UC hands-down. But, upon further reflection, for phd, my concern would be the difference in approach between SLO and the UCs. SLO is specifically “hands-on”. The UCs are reknown for being more “theoretical”. If you’re more interested in going the phd route, I believe that a more theoretical education is the better preparation. If you’re shooting for industry, hands-on is often seen as very desirable to employers. So your son might want to think about that aspect of his choice.
From the 2014-2015 CPSLO career survey at https://careers.calpoly.edu/search.php , it looks like physics is somewhat of an outlier in sending graduates to PhD study.
Major PhD-bound/resp/all PhD schools
--All-- 26/2191/4098
--Agriculture-- 5/461/NR
--Architecture--0/151/NR
--Engineering-- 6/548/NR
--Business-- 0/416/NR
Economics 0/33/68
--H/SS-- 1/321/NR
Anth/Geog 1/8/38 UCSB
Art 0/22/62
English 0/26/69
History 0/21/45
Philosophy 0/6/17
Political Sci 0/27/67
Psychology 0/54/110
Sociology 0/13/51
--Science-- 12/294/NR
Biochemistry 2/15/42 UCSB, Michigan State
Biology 3/76/206 Baylor Med, UCD, Washington
Chemistry 2/12/31 UCLA, Chicago
Math 1/41/58 UCLA
Physics 4/19/35 UCLA, Colorado, Oregon, Kent State
Note: economics is under business, so it is not part of H/SS (which they call “liberal arts” but do not include science and math under that term).
The UCB physics major survey at https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/Survey/2015Physics.pdf lists, out of 94 total graduates (the 14 responses appears to be an error), 9 went to physics PhD programs, and 3 went to other PhD programs. It does appear that UCB has slightly higher placement in “top” physics PhD programs (probably 6 out of 9, versus 2 out of 4 for CPSLO).
Of course, these samples are not huge, and would not be that big even if you go through several years of surveys. So, while they may be of interest, use them cautiously.
Check your own data source, cub. For example, Bio majors (typical place for premeds, and 200+ grads each year):
Just two med acceptances among Undergrads and Grads:
MD – Offshore med school
MD - Tulane
But then, the spin:
But even then, I sorted on the whole class (all majors), and could not find 20 med school acceptances listed. Under a quick scan, I only found 1 DO acceptance and the 2 MD’s above. Perhaps I missed a few, but no way they have 50% acceptance rate. It defies common sense.
Unless the rest of the medical school applicants and matriculants took gap years after graduation (which seems to be common generally), so their immediate post-graduation destinations reported in the survey were something other than medical school. Whatever the discrepency is in the medical school information, it does not say much about your claim, since there is no information on applicant GPA/MCAT and admission rate (like this UCB table at https://career.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/MedStats/Acceptance-Rates-MCAT-GPA-2014.pdf ). Nor are medical school issues particularly relevant for a prospective physics major looking at PhD study in physics.
Nope, I took that into account when I included both Undergrads and Grads in my sort/search.
I was addressing Earl’s post upthread. But med school acceptances maybe relevant if, as I assert, they too are prestige-focused, at least in California since the instate med schools are all highly ranked, and big time research schools. In other words, if grads from a CSU were perceived the same as grads from a top UC, then the admission results would not be dissimilar, after accounting for differences in class size and self-selection of ‘who wants to be PhD student?’ (or med student).
In any event, you already posted the relevant info from CP and Cal for physics.
For medical school, if more schools published admission tables by GPA and MCAT like UCB does, it would be easier to see whether your assertion is true. As it is, there is not enough evidence to see whether the difference includes a significant treatment effect as well as the obvious selection effect.
Your post reminded me of the article below. A disproportionate number of university professors come from top-10 schools. So for people dreaming of becoming a university professor the grad program is really important.
Here’s a quote from the article:
Oprisko’s experiences inspired him to research faculty hiring on his own. In 2012, he conducted a review of the 3,709 political science professors who were then employed by Ph.D.-granting universities and found that just 11 schools had produced 50 percent of the total. Harvard, at the top of the list, was responsible for 239 of the professors. Purdue, on the other hand, was responsible for 10 of them.
Re: #30
But then that comes to the hard to find information about whether top-end PhD programs for a specific major (physics for this particular OP) look favorably or unfavorably on a given school’s undergraduates when they apply to PhD programs.
The career surveys of UCB and CPSLO do provide some information (though most schools do not have surveys of this detail); see #24 and #25. For physics specifically, it does appear that UCB does have better PhD program placement, but coming from CPSLO is not an automatic disqualifier (unlike some of the examples previously given for other schools and majors, or perhaps CPSLO in most H/SS subjects). Even so, one needs to be cautious about making firm conclusions due to small sample sizes.
Yes, this is a case where decisions made (or forced by non-academic constraints like cost) by high school seniors and their parents, with very little actual information (or even the knowledge about what information to look for), can have a significant impact on future academic and career directions.
@anomander That article was a real eye-opener. So often you hear people say it’s not where you go to college, it’s what you put into it. If one’s goal is to be a professor, it seems that prestige may be worth the higher price.
There is also an intellectual level and social perspective that should be considered. Who will be your students peers, their future friends, will they fit in, have ample opportunities, and where do they feel best about attending? Not sure if you think there are differences between them, but those are other things you could consider in the equation.
It’s a long,narrow, poverty-stricken path to being a college professor (tenure track positions are almost like unicorns now) , and there are not many opportunities for PhD physicists in industry (will depend very much on specialty area).
Here’s the big shift in the past decade: smaller universities used be a fall back for many math/science PhD’s. But many are scaling back on tenure track appointments. Smaller colleges are struggling to make ends meet (Sweet Briar/ Mount St. Mary’s are just a few examples). When universities/colleges do hire new TT profs, administration wants new lines in business, comp sci etc., because that’s where the enrollments are growing.
I would encourage an undergrad physics major w/ a minor in something marketable, and keep their options open. This may be more doable in Cal-Poly than UCB, but I could be wrong. If attending UCB or UCLA, student would have a much better idea of the competition in the undergrad years itself. If pursuing a PhD., it must be from a top research university (public or private). I am on my department search committee and we routinely filter by name of PhD granting institution - and this is for 1-yr. positions, not even tenure track.
Not meaning to be a Debbie Downer, but here’s an article explaining job data for recent PhD’s:
Yes, it seems that most physics graduates I have heard about (whether PhD or BA/BS) are working in computing or finance, rather than physics.
CPSLO’s physics major appears to have a higher volume of major requirements than the UCB physics major (112 quarter units = 74+2/3 semester units, versus 58 semester units, though UCB physics majors are likely to choose 8-12 more semester units of major-related electives for a total of 66-70 semester units). CPSLO also has a higher volume of general education than UCB L&S (60 quarter units = 40 semester units, versus ~32 semester units). So CPSLO has less completely free schedule space (8 quarter units = 5+1/3 semester units) than UCB has (18-30 semester units) that a student can take course work in some other subject for a minor (official or otherwise).
Can I ask you about the time of the scholarship offer? Did the scholarship offer come at the same time as the admission acceptance for your son? Thank you.
Toured CAL yesterday. He did not love it. Admission officer was not encouraging about freshman/undergraduate research. She said you have to get out there and fight to get it.
Email offering admission was sent Feb. 22, Frost Scholarship email was sent Feb. 26, and offer to apply for the Honors program was sent March 1. @dennis956
Questions about this type of thing are best directed to the department of interest at each school.