Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:56     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Are you wealthy OP? Life of an academic is for the 2nd generation wealthy, who can deal with the low pay for years of grad and post doc and lecturer roles. Pay is so so, and it’s very possible they will never make tenure and drift from college to college as lecturer.

Applied physics, like working at JHU-APL, an engineering company, might offer a better career path and lifestyle.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:55     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:DD is pretty neurotic and a high scorer on exams but simply lacks extracurriculars. She aspires to be a physicist and in her free time, she’s president of the Quantum physics and robotics team. I’m concerned that without going to a top 20 university, she won’t be able to ever achieve her dream. Looking through the assistant professor page at Princeton, every one of them has a degree from MIT, Stanford, Tsinghua, and IIT, so what chance does she have getting into the professsion?

Im not sure why everyone is recommending $90k/yr SLACs for undergrad. UMD is one of the leaders in quantum physics if that's where her interest lies.
https://www.umdphysics.umd.edu/research/research-areas/quantum.html


She’s not interested in a big college
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:55     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:DD is pretty neurotic and a high scorer on exams but simply lacks extracurriculars. She aspires to be a physicist and in her free time, she’s president of the Quantum physics and robotics team. I’m concerned that without going to a top 20 university, she won’t be able to ever achieve her dream. Looking through the assistant professor page at Princeton, every one of them has a degree from MIT, Stanford, Tsinghua, and IIT, so what chance does she have getting into the professsion?

Im not sure why everyone is recommending $90k/yr SLACs for undergrad. UMD is one of the leaders in quantum physics if that's where her interest lies.
https://www.umdphysics.umd.edu/research/research-areas/quantum.html


Cause a $70k/year out of state public is a waste of money

Its $55k and about 15-20% of OOS receive some merit.

60k according to the Maryland website. Still a waste of money at 40k for a public school, just stay in state.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:53     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:DD is pretty neurotic and a high scorer on exams but simply lacks extracurriculars. She aspires to be a physicist and in her free time, she’s president of the Quantum physics and robotics team. I’m concerned that without going to a top 20 university, she won’t be able to ever achieve her dream. Looking through the assistant professor page at Princeton, every one of them has a degree from MIT, Stanford, Tsinghua, and IIT, so what chance does she have getting into the professsion?

Im not sure why everyone is recommending $90k/yr SLACs for undergrad. UMD is one of the leaders in quantum physics if that's where her interest lies.
https://www.umdphysics.umd.edu/research/research-areas/quantum.html


Cause a $70k/year out of state public is a waste of money

Its $55k and about 15-20% of OOS receive some merit.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:51     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:DD is pretty neurotic and a high scorer on exams but simply lacks extracurriculars. She aspires to be a physicist and in her free time, she’s president of the Quantum physics and robotics team. I’m concerned that without going to a top 20 university, she won’t be able to ever achieve her dream. Looking through the assistant professor page at Princeton, every one of them has a degree from MIT, Stanford, Tsinghua, and IIT, so what chance does she have getting into the professsion?

Im not sure why everyone is recommending $90k/yr SLACs for undergrad. UMD is one of the leaders in quantum physics if that's where her interest lies.
https://www.umdphysics.umd.edu/research/research-areas/quantum.html


Cause a $70k/year out of state public is a waste of money
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:49     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
One of the smartest people I know went to UMD for undergrad, studied physics and went on to get a PhD in Physics at Harvard.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:47     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:DD is pretty neurotic and a high scorer on exams but simply lacks extracurriculars. She aspires to be a physicist and in her free time, she’s president of the Quantum physics and robotics team. I’m concerned that without going to a top 20 university, she won’t be able to ever achieve her dream. Looking through the assistant professor page at Princeton, every one of them has a degree from MIT, Stanford, Tsinghua, and IIT, so what chance does she have getting into the professsion?

Im not sure why everyone is recommending $90k/yr SLACs for undergrad. UMD is one of the leaders in quantum physics if that's where her interest lies.
https://www.umdphysics.umd.edu/research/research-areas/quantum.html

Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:45     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:^ Harvey Mudd acceptance rate around 20%, it's not a difficult one to get in. I know high stats girls who applied ED with no much ECs, and got in.

Harvey mudd is very difficult to get into with a 13% acceptance rate and attracts a very niche personality. Also a terrible student quality of life. Much harder than others lacs to graduate and to do well.


The girl I mentioned found it a good fit. Academically challenging but manageable to her. She is also neurodivergent like OP ( autistic), don’t care about partying much. No ECs, ED got her in.

Neurotic doesn’t mean neurodivergent.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:39     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:^ Harvey Mudd acceptance rate around 20%, it's not a difficult one to get in. I know high stats girls who applied ED with no much ECs, and got in.

Harvey mudd is very difficult to get into with a 13% acceptance rate and attracts a very niche personality. Also a terrible student quality of life. Much harder than others lacs to graduate and to do well.


The girl I mentioned found it a good fit. Academically challenging but manageable to her. She is also neurodivergent like OP ( autistic), don’t care about partying much. No ECs, ED got her in.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:32     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:Sample of one - but my son needed a tutor to help in with AP Calc. His tutor had a PhD in astrophysics from Villanova and worked as an astrophysicist. He said if he had it to do over again, he would major in engineering. Way easier and more flexibility for different jobs/careers. He and 2 friends from Villanova were going to form a small business offering tutoring for higher level math and science courses as they pay was better.

Ops daughter wants to go into academia so this doesn’t matter.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:31     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:Sample of one - but my son needed a tutor to help in with AP Calc. His tutor had a PhD in astrophysics from Villanova and worked as an astrophysicist. He said if he had it to do over again, he would major in engineering. Way easier and more flexibility for different jobs/careers. He and 2 friends from Villanova were going to form a small business offering tutoring for higher level math and science courses as they pay was better.


Wow. How much do they charge per hour for the tutoring?
How much is a physics college professor making?
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 13:03     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:^ Harvey Mudd acceptance rate around 20%, it's not a difficult one to get in. I know high stats girls who applied ED with no much ECs, and got in.

Harvey mudd is very difficult to get into with a 13% acceptance rate and attracts a very niche personality. Also a terrible student quality of life. Much harder than others lacs to graduate and to do well.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 12:54     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Duke. Best physics guy I know went there.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 12:50     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:Williams, Hamilton, Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Reed.

Very unlikely op’s daughter is getting into any of these.
Anonymous
Post 06/16/2025 12:45     Subject: Top school to become a physicist?
Anonymous wrote:Some of the best places for studying physics is LACs. Carleton, Bowdoin, Harvey Mudd, etc. They sent many graduates to top PhD. programs.

The first two are not the best places to go for physics, even for lacs. I’d put 10 LACs in before Bowdoin is even mentioned