One of the things that assuaged our concerns was that numerous professors and advisors said pretty much what you said about quality of education. When we asked what was different or special about their program, they admitted that there wasn’t a lot of difference between undergraduate physics at B1G schools. A student would be taking pretty much the same courses, often from the same textbooks.
Particularly valuable was a phone call that we had with a physics prof. from Minnesota. We were expecting “Go, go Gophers,” but it was anything but that. First, he said that he thought that the college admissions process had gotten totally out of hand in terms of the competitiveness and the pressure on students. I think that most of us would agree with that. He also agreed that most B1G programs would be very similar. The best advice that he gave my son was to not sweat the decision. He said that students look for the one, true school and live in fear that they may select the wrong one. Most of the schools are very good at what they do and there are any number of them where our son would be happy. You get there, find a few friends, learn the crazy traditions that only your school does so well, and you’ll most likely love the school. If he was looking for a college, he would focus on fit and cost. So that is what we did.
We weren’t sure how to vet a physics department, but we did our best. The physics/astronomy building at Nebraska is fairly new, and we heard that is helping to get higher profile professors. The department is growing and, according to one professor, was recognized as one of the top “up and coming” departments. The list of schools where the profs had received their PhDs included U of Chicago, Northwestern, MIT, UCLA, Cambridge, so their backgrounds were solid and varied.
I did have some concern about Nebraska losing AAU status, but they seem to have moved forward with little impact from this.
We actually ruled out Ohio State because of marching band. Our son wants a good band and doesn’t mind a competitive tryout, but doesn’t want to be able to be challenged for his spot on the field on a weekly basis. They are cutthroat!