<p>I've been looking for colleges that have very good physics departments and more specifically offer Applied Physics as a major, though to the best of my understanding Engineering Physics is a very similar major. So far I know that Harvard and Yale offer applied physics, but its Harvard and Yale, haha. My top choice, Columbia University SEAS, offers Applied Physics as well as my safety school, New Jersey Institute of Technology, but I am having a hard time locating other good schools for Physics Departments.</p>
<p>Also, would MIT, WPI, RPI or similar good engineering schools offer good resources, etc for majors in Physics or Engineering Physics?</p>
<p>MIT is <em>the</em> best for engineering and science. You can't lose, except that getting in is no easier than any other top school. RPI and WPI are more of engineering schools, and they aren't as well known for science. With that said, they probably have decent physics departments anyway.</p>
<p>U Washington and UC Santa Barbara both have good physics programs. I don't know about applied physics though. Same for Michigan and Illinois.</p>
<p>1 Cornell University Ithaca, NY
2 University of California--Berkeley Berkeley, CA
University of Michigan--Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI
4 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA
University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL
6 Pennsylvania State University--University Park University Park, PA</p>
<p>For many, a career in physics implies earning a PhD, so undergrad schools historically producing a high percentage of future PhD earners may be of interest to you. This was originally posted by interesteddad.</p>
<p>Here are 100 to consider. These one hundred colleges and universities produced the highest percentage of future Physics/Astronomy PhDs per graduate over the most recent 10 year period. Obviously a lot of tech schools are represented, but there's something for just about everybody (different sizes, different locations, different selectivities):</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees:
ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>
<p>Number of Undergraduates:
ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database</p>
<p>Formula: Total PhDs divided by Total Grads, multiplied by 1000 </p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period</p>
<p>
1 California Institute of Technology 96
2 Harvey Mudd College 64
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 29
4 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology 20
5 Reed College 13
6 Carleton College 13
7 Princeton University 13
8 University of Chicago 13
9 Rice University 13
10 Case Western Reserve University 9
11 Harvard University 9
12 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 9
13 Swarthmore College 9
14 Haverford College 8
15 Stevens Institute of Technology 8
16 Whitman College 8
17 Grinnell College 7
18 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 7
19 Colorado School of Mines 7
20 Yale University 6
21 Williams College 6
22 University of Rochester 6
23 Amherst College 6
24 Goshen College 5
25 Cornell University, All Campuses 5
26 University of Dallas 5
27 Wabash College 5
28 Stanford University 5
29 Beloit College 5
30 University of California-Berkeley 5
31 Carnegie Mellon University 5
32 Johns Hopkins University 5
33 Hastings College 5
34 Lawrence University 5
35 Illinois Institute of Technology 5
36 Columbia University in the City of New York 4
37 Oberlin College 4
38 Monmouth College 4
39 Bryn Mawr College 4
40 Gustavus Adolphus College 4
41 Kalamazoo College 4
42 College of William and Mary 4
43 Earlham College 4
44 Worcester Polytechnic Institute 4
45 Pomona College 4
46 St Olaf College 4
47 Georgia Institute of Technology, Main Campus 4
48 Rhodes College 4
49 St John's University (Collegeville, MN) 3
50 Bates College 3
51 Macalester College 3
52 Brown University 3
53 Wesleyan University 3
54 Bethel College (North Newton, KS) 3
55 Brandeis University 3
56 Kenyon College 3
57 Hope College 3
58 St John's College (both campus) 3
59 Franklin and Marshall College 3
60 Bowdoin College 3
61 Washington University 3
62 Walla Walla College 3
63 Middlebury College 3
64 University of Missouri, Rolla 3
65 Drew University 3
66 Guilford College 3
67 Southern College of Seventh-Day Adventists 3
68 Moravian College 3
69 Clarkson University 3
70 Polytechnic University 3
71 Hamline University 3
72 Tougaloo College 3
73 Vassar College 2
74 Andrews University 2
75 University of California-San Diego 2
76 Lehigh University 2
77 College of Wooster 2
78 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2
79 Wake Forest University 2
80 Duke University 2
81 Albion College 2
82 University of Virginia, Main Campus 2
83 Trinity University 2
84 University of Alabama in Huntsville 2
85 Benedictine College 2
86 University of Puget Sound 2
87 Michigan Technological University 2
88 Dartmouth College 2
89 Cooper Union 2
90 Pacific University 2
91 Florida Institute of Technology 2
92 Xavier University 2
93 Northwest Nazarene College 2
94 South Dakota School of Mines & Technology 2
95 Hendrix College 2
96 Bucknell University 2
97 Millsaps College 2
98 Southwestern University 2
99 Bethel College and Seminary, All Campuses 2
100 Wofford College 2
101 Wellesley College 2
<p>Definitely look at New Mexico Tech. They are located right next to White Sands and they have a Very Large Array right on-campus. There are no PhD students but the school still attracts tons of research funding, so you will have a great shot at doing research as an undergrad.</p>
<p>As vossron pointed out above, NMT is great at producing physics PhDs. Tuition is dirt-cheap too.</p>
<p>Here are the GRADUATE physics rankings from US News.
Brown and Dartmouth are the only Ivies NOT in the top 15.</p>
<p>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA 5.0
1 Stanford University Stanford, CA 5.0
3 California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 4.9
3 Harvard University Cambridge, MA 4.9
3 Princeton University Princeton, NJ 4.9
3 University of California--Berkeley Berkeley, CA 4.9
7 Cornell University Ithaca, NY 4.7
8 University of Chicago Chicago, IL 4.6
8 University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign Urbana, IL 4.6
10 University of California--Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 4.5
11 Columbia University New York, NY 4.3
11 Yale University New Haven, CT 4.3
13 University of Maryland--College Park College Park, MD 4.2
13 University of Michigan--Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 4.2
13 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 4.2
16 University of California--Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 4.1
16 University of California--San Diego La Jolla, CA 4.1
16 University of Texas--Austin Austin, TX 4.1
16 University of Wisconsin--Madison Madison, WI 4.1
20 Johns Hopkins University (Rowland) Baltimore, MD 4.0
20 University of Colorado--Boulder Boulder, CO 4.0
20 University of Washington Seattle, WA 4.0
23 Pennsylvania State University--University Park University Park, PA 3.8
23 SUNY--Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY 3.8
23 University of Minnesota--Twin Cities Minneapolis , MN 3.8</p>
