Outstanding Geology Departments

College Search & Lists
1

<p>Science Watch Magazine published a list of the most influential Geology Departments. Can anyone add some perspective on these and other outstanding programs? I am omitting Harvard.</p>

<p>Georgia Tech
U of Washington
Princeton University
Oregon State University
U of Maryland-College Park
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
U of Miami-Florida
California Institute of Technology
University of New Hampshire
University of Colorado-Boulder</p>

<p>Should U of Texas-Austin (the Jackson School) and Michigan State University have been on the Science Watch list?</p>

2

<p>Wow, my intended field of study is Oceanography and I’m only applying to UMD - CP off that list… I guess that’s probably bad.</p>

3

<p>Oceanography is just one sub-set of Geology. For the most part, it’s a whole other set of school that offer great Oceanography or Marine Geology programs. Mostly graduate study at that.</p>

4

<p>The “influential” here applies to graduate, not undergraduate, departments and relates to published research in the field. </p>

<p>If you look at the undergrad source of PhDs among all general colleges and universities, the number one producer in the field both corrected for school size and even in absolute number (quite remarkably) is Carleton College with only about 2,000 students. An 800 acre arboretum attached to the campus serves as a backyard research lab. There are yearly around 2 dozen declared majors. About 80% of graduates go on for advanced degrees. “As of 2000, the universities granting the most PhDs to our graduates include Stanford (18), Minnesota (14), Wisconsin-Madison (12), UC-Berkeley (11), Michigan (8), U of Texas at Austin (8), UCLA (7), U of Arizona (6), Columbia (6), U of Washington (5), and Princeton (4).” </p>

<p>For general overview of the department:
[Carleton</a> College: Geology: Facts and History](<a href=“http://apps.carleton.edu/curricular/geol/factsandhistory/]Carleton”>http://apps.carleton.edu/curricular/geol/factsandhistory/)</p>

<p>For a look at where Carleton grads can currently be found:
<a href=“https://apps.carleton.edu/curricular/geol/alumni_web/[/url”>https://apps.carleton.edu/curricular/geol/alumni_web/[/url</a></p>

<p>Outside of Carleton, LACs in general are disproportionately represented as some of the leading breeding grounds for future researchers in the geosciences. That very significant influence is obviously not represented in this list of graduate programs.</p>

5

<p>I am very surprised that Stanford isn’t there.</p>

6

<p>Things may have evened up all over, but when I was a Geo major in the 70’s Carleton was unusual in having 50-50 men and woman majors. I know Carleton is still particularly strong in sending women for PhDs in the physical sciences and for having half the science faculty being women (and from the convolutedness of that sentance, you can see why I wasn’t an English major, LOL)</p>

7

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<p>Many of the LACs with strong geology programs, including Carleton, have formed the [Keck</a> Geology Consortium](<a href=“http://keckgeology.org/]Keck”>http://keckgeology.org/).</p>