<p>Statistics show that there are many LACs that are highly-productive in terms of people that go on to earn PhDs int he physical sciences.</p>
<p><a href=“Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College”>http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html</a></p>
<p>For physical science, LACs like Harvey Mudd, Grinnell, Reed, Carleton, Haverford, Swarthmore, Wabash, all top the list are have a good amount of their students go to get PhDs. Of course the majority of these schools are selective and difficult to get into. Research universities on that list included MIT, UChicago, Rice, and MIT.</p>
<p>I think the fit of the school should be a more important factor. But of course, reseach oppurtunities are more prevalent at research universities as well as those upper division classes so that may appeal more. Of course one does not have to go to one of these schools on Reed’s list to get into a PhD program, they likely just have the resources available for people who plan to pursue such programs.</p>
<p>I don’t think those statistics necessarily determine the intrinsic quality of their physics program themselves, there are many good schools that you can go to that offer the things that someone needs to be competitive for grad programs. But LACs aren’t terribly crippled in that aspect as has been lead to believe.</p>
<p>However an issue with that list is that it didn’t really determine exactly what schools their graduates went to for graduate study. For all we know, 90% of the physics grads from Grinnell or something went to Northeastern Greenland State University or something.</p>