Physics at Yale

Colleges & Universities Yale University
1

<p>Is Yale Physics oriented?
How is the Physics department?
I know that Yale has a particle accelerator, right?
I’m interested in Physics and Astrophysics, but I wuold like to get involved in CS.</p>

2

<p>Pretty much awful compared to Harvard…</p>

3

<p>^Pretty much agree completely except I’d change ‘awful’ to ‘awesome’ (minor detail).</p>

4

<p>I’d give it a 9 out of 10. 1 being Harvard and 10 being not studying physics at all.</p>

5

<p>Gotta love people who can comment without even attending Yale :)</p>

<p>I think Physics at Yale, like it’s other departments, is top notch. The program is rated #11 at the grad level, which means it is superb and comparable to any other institution at the undergrad level.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t say Yale is “physics oriented” but there’s definitely a lot of resources for physics/science students and the school is putting in even more money to develop those fields further. I’m thinking of majoring in CS too and that department is excellent from what I’ve read.</p>

6

<p>The thing that worries me about applying to Ivies for science is that there are many schools with much less overall clout that are higher than HYP on the USNWR rankings for the fields you mentioned. But I’m an outsider, so…</p>

7

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<p>I used to feel the same way, but a lot of these rankings take size into account as well. A lot of Ivies have top notch programs but they’re not very large, so their ranking is lower. Yale SEAS has around 60 professors and graduates around 60 majors each year, so that’s a 1:1 ratio and you can’t get attention like that at a lot of larger programs.</p>

8

<p>The USNWR rankings cover graduate programs, not undergraduate programs. </p>

<p>Not strictly Yale-related or physics-related, but on the subject of smaller vs. larger undergrad schools for prospective science/engineering PhDs, a 2008 National Science Foundation report looked at the undergraduate origins of students who earned doctorates in science and engineering over a 9-year period. The report lists the institutions that sent the highest <em>percentages</em> of their undergrads on to doctoral programs: More than half of the top 50 are liberal arts colleges, and virtually all the rest are private research colleges. Yale is 17. Research universities did turn out the greatest absolute number of undergrads who went on for science PHDs.</p>

<p>[nsf.gov</a> - SRS Baccalaureate Origins of S&E Doctorate Recipients - US National Science Foundation (NSF)](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/?govDel=USNSF_178]nsf.gov”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/?govDel=USNSF_178)</p>

9

<p>Yale is stronger in nuclear physics than astrophysics. It is relatively weak (vis a vis its peer institutions) in CS.</p>