I’m not a physicist, but want to offer my two cents. First, as others said, undergrads aren’t really going to be studying theoretical physics, so if he continues to be interested in it, the grad school he attends is more important. Second, UT-Austin is a really big school while UCSB is smaller. Some people hate being at a giant public university, and would prefer a smaller school. At the same time, though, a big school is going to have resources (academic and non-academic, like clubs, guest speakers and concerts) that you’re not going to have at a smaller school. And both of those schools are in warm-weather climates, while Colorado and Rochester have real winters. Does your kid have experience with real winters? Would he hate the snow and the cold?
Your kid should pursue study abroad programs. A friend at my college (a really smart physics major) did a semester or a year abroad at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. My nephew is just finishing his undergraduate program at a small liberal arts college in Connecticut where he’s majoring in psychology and English and he did a semester abroad in New Delhi and then returned the following summer for an internship and to start his own non-profit organization. My nephew also did internships just about every other summer.
But be sure to check what credits your school will accept. My son had a really hard time getting his high-ranked engineering college to accept any credits for his “core” classes. So basically, if he studied abroad, the only things that he could transfer were GenEds.
Since he placed out of a bunch of those, the idea of studying abroad was in many respects the equivalent of an expensive vacation, which might potentially extend his time before graduating. Which was unfortunate, as my son was close to fluent in German, very interested in European history, and very interested in European air/space industry.
In my nephew’s case, the study abroad program was arranged through the university and the courses were approved before he left the US. It was kind of a rip-off, though, in that he paid the same tuition fees he would have had he been in the US that semester. But a semester at a public university in New Delhi is much cheaper than a semester in almost any US college, so had he simply gone to New Delhi and taken classes, he would have saved thousands of dollars.
And in some study-abroad programs, you’re taking classes from professors at your university, just in a foreign location, perhaps one owned by your university.
My informal opinion (not based on having actually attended any of these schools) is that the Claremont Colleges are overpriced havens for children of privilege, and Occidental is a great backdrop for shoot movies set at a generic Southern California school. However, one of the absolutly smartest and most accomplished people I’ve ever worked with did his undergraduate at Harvey Mudd and sings its praises over nearby Caltech, which pains me greatly to admit. Claremont itself is not much of a college town, though, and it’s basically an hour from anywhere in light traffic. For the money, I’d just go to Caltech, Standford, or UC Berkeley, all things being equal.
I did this and I’d actually kind of recommend against it. Except for the couple of numerical methods classes I took, I found the basic comp sci curriculum to be almost absurdly trivial (anybody should be able to learn the basic sorting methods from a handbook in the span of a few hours rather than spending the better part of a semester-long “data structures” class on it) and they really liked using either toy languages that weren’t suited for doing real work (Pascal, Smalltalk, Prolog) or else really difficult and esoteric languages that were painfully difficult to do any real work in (C++, Java) rather than the kind of functional, straightforward scientific languages an engineer or scientist might use to quickly solve problems and do simulation (then FORTRAN or Lisp, today Python, Scalam, Julia) or integrated computing environments like Matlab or Mathematica. Many of the tools available today will take your relatively naive code and optimize it for multiprocessor/multithread computation with little effort or understanding of the inner workings on the part of the person writing the code. The only reason I can see going in for a CS major along with physics is if you actually want to write production-grade simulation tools where a focus on writing highly optimized compiled code is cruicial, and even then, I think you’d learn more in the practice of actually working in a commerical coding environment versus taking classes in computation theory unless you’re really interested in that for its own sake.
While I think study abroad is in general a good concept, I question how good worthwhile it is for someone in a highly technical discipline unless they’re going to study at a top flight school where they have a good command of the language. It is sometimes hard enough to get the right combination of classes and credits to graduate in four years even staying at one school, and it can be really challenging to make that work going to a school that doesn’t adhere to an ABET curriculum even if the classes are accepted by your home university.
On the other hand, if you have an opportunity for an internship abroad you should absolutely take it even if it isn’t exactly the kind of research you want to do or it extends your education by a year because the overall experience and exposure to people from other countries and culture is invaluable. If you are going to work in a field in theoretical physics, or indeed, any heavily research-oriented field, you are almost certainly going to end up collaborating with collegues across national borders if not having to live in another country in order to find stable work. I certainly wish I’d done that because I might have been more compelled to stay in physics, or at least in the sciences, and since the US has elected to cede the leadership in cutting edge physics to international consortiums and research centers like CERN (and largely true of non-applied research in general), having early international exposure and career networks is critical to finding work and securing funding for research.
I think Stranger and Typo had great advice. When I entered college, I was pretty sure I was going to get a PhD, most likely in Physics. I didn’t, and don’t regret it.
The academic job market is HARD. There are many, many, many more PhDs every year than there are professorships. I knew guys doing post-docs at one of the most prestigious biology labs in the country, and they were excited to get a job offer from the tiniest non-research college in the most remote part of the country. Don’t even consider grad school unless you’re fully funded (MBA or other professional Master’s excepted. But don’t go to Law School unless you get into a top 3 school, and even then think hard about it).
Some good things said upstream, but I want to reiterate a couple:
–Shock of not being the smartest in the room: I went from small town Minnesota HS to the University of Chicago. Holy shit, was that a shock to the system. After graduating, it took quite a while for me to realize that I was not below average intelligence. UChicago just made me feel that way.
–Job opportunities for physicists: There is only a very small number of jobs for theoretical physicists, and they likely go to the very best people out there. A possible red flag that I see is the mention of rejections and wait lists. If the child has trouble getting into top tier undergrad colleges, I’m not hopeful that he can get into a top tier graduate program and be successful. A major change in work ethic may be forthcoming, though, so all hope is not lost. A bit of perspective may be necessary though.
It’s a topic for a different thread, but let me assure you there is ample evidence to the contrary. I’m not talking about my son per se, just life in general. The “highly selective” colleges have essentially become lottery schools for nearly everyone; being rejected says nothing about your eventual chances of success in life, in grad school or out of it. You make it sound like a kid is damaged or tainted if the Ivies don’t admit him or her, which is a gross oversimplification that is terribly unfair to a lot of hard-working kids who don’t make it into the Ivies.
Stranger - thanks for the thoughts. Well, my son didn’t get into Pomona - so much for being a child of privilege And yes, being an hour from places was an issue.
And I agree with CairoCarol about grad schools - getting into colleges these days is so…weird and complex, that you can never tell what they will lead to. I know kids who started off at 2-year schools and ended up doing grad work at interesting places, and kids who went to Ivy’s who can’t find a job.
It is so much more about “fit” - getting a solid education that a kid can use to pursue next steps is available so many places. It is about what you know about your kid, what your kid knows about themself, and what you can glean about a given school’s culture, network/community during and after school, reputation in certain fields, etc.
No kidding. He should be proud of getting into UT: this year, we had a kid with a 35 ACT, 2260 SAT, has already passed 12 AP exams (including calculus and computer science as a Freshman), 3.7, good extracurriculars, good essays–waitlisted at UT. Another little girl got into MIT but was rejected by UT–second year in a row that’s happened to one of our kids. I could go on and on and on. And traditionally selective colleges? You work your ass off your whole life for, at best, a slot in a lottery, and extraordinarily talented kids can end up no where.
The fact that upper-middle class parents increasingly would no more have their kid apply to college without the help of a professional counselor than they would go to court without a professional lawyer tells you how insane the situation has gotten.
Also, pretty sure CarioCaro’s son grew up abroad. He could probably benefit more from summers in the US!
Althogh where a student did his or her undergraduate degrees is a factor in a grad school application, I’m not convinced it is a particularly crucial one, at least not in the technical disicplines, and in fact paying massive tuition to go to a top flight school for undergrad may be counterproductive if you are going to have to carry those loans though grad school and your post-graduate career. What is more important than pedigree or even grades (above the threshold, of course) is being able to show a history of solid research experience in undergraduate school and professional references from people working in the field of interest. In technical fields, grad students are primarily recruited to be researchers, and showing both initiative and familiarity with doing research work. By and large, schools don’t hire grad students; researchers do, and most PIs are primarily interested in a grad student who is going to be up and running quickly and performing well with minimal investment on their part. Even better if you can show proposal experience, although that may be a double-edged sword when you get stuck turning rough proposal drafts into finished submittals instead of focusing on lab work or lit survey.
Get excelllent grades, look for solid research opportunities, network the hell out of people in the field, and apply to a wide selection of graduate programs. Getting into a grad school for physics isn’t the big problem; it’s finding a secure job in the field after you get that Ph.D. that is one of the biggest hurdles in the career of a physicist.
I think the implication was that a kid who didn’t have the choice to go to a top tier school hasn’t the chops to be stop tier successful anywhere. This is untrue.
First of all, all of this reads like sound advice.
What is interesting is that it speaks to one part of CairoCarol’s OP - the fact that her son is focused on theoretical physics. If a kid is focus on an area like that, the approachese articulated in this quote above and much of the thread are really smart.
The biggest issues are how to factor in are softer, stuff like:
What is my kid ready for on their own, both in terms of social stuff and practical life skills?
What culture - values, competitiveness, etc. - will my kid best integrate with? How intense is the school, and what is the kid ready to deal with?
How strong is the school’s overall community and network? It mostly matters the first couple of years out, but some schools cast a much longer shadow in terms of how alums network with and support each other.
If a kid is only looking at undergrad as a stepping stone to a specific STEM career, they can approach their choice one way. If they are also looking to experience college as a place to transition out of the house, other criteria become more important.
When I was in college, I tried getting a co-op through the school. Had a counselor and all that jazz. I had a couple of interviews, but they all fell through.
I didn’t need a counselor to get the on-campus internship that I eventually landed, though.
I do disagree with you that “warm and fuzzy personal experience” isn’t possible at a big school. It is possible if you are majoring in a small enough program. Biology majors were a minority on my campus, and the number of students interested in ecology/environmental science was even smaller. Which means that we received more one-on-one attention and guidance than students in other programs got. The more capable students got to enjoy the “big fish in a small pond” experience that rarely occurs at a big school. The downside, though, was that we only had a few professors to use as resources. I went to graduate school with an interest in ecotoxicology not because I had burning passion for the field, but because that was all I’d been exposed to, research-wise, as an undergrad. I eventually changed directions, though, and it was all good.
I was in the odd position of advising a high school student this last summer. It’s a long story, but I took him on in our lab just because. Someone helped me out once upon a time, and you know, pay it forward. I’ll probably do it again next year - word is out that I’ll take on kids from time to time.
I was appalled at the cost of UPenn. Apparently, that is The school for high-performing undergrads at his high school, and he was convinced. I strongly cautioned against it - 50k/year for an undergrad degree. That’s insane. A few months later, he e-mailed me that he didn’t get in and was privately a little relieved.
My message to him, and really to any student, the school name doesn’t really matter. A motivated student who finds research projects and is productive will far outstrip the name on the diploma.
I’m a product of educational systems in which I was matched up with counselors and advisers and all of that nonsense. In all five major institutions I’ve been affiliated with, I’ve never had an assigned counselor/adviser that was worth anything (besides making sure I had the appropriate credits to graduate and my paperwork was filed). The most valuable mentors have been accidentally discovered - you go hunting for a research project as free-labor and in turn, the good mentor offers their advice and experience. A good mentor is invested in his or her student, because it’s a two-way street. Or at least, it should be a two-way street. If it isn’t, you have found the wrong lab and need to move along.
All in all - my advice is not to worry. All the schools are fine choices and if he wants it really badly, he can probably find a way to make it work.
Oh, but definitely learn how to write. That advice is spot-on. When my group hires, we’re always subtly trying to figure out if the candidate can write and how well.
That cost is not at all unusual. UT-Austin is about $50,000, UCSB is about $56,000 (both are out of state costs), Stanford is about $65,000 and Yale is about $67,000. Many, many schools (and not just the elite ones) are in that range.
It gets even weirder than that, though. The real cost is what you have to pay after financial aid kicks in, and that is unpredictable and highly variable. I’ve had many, many cases of students who found it less expensive to go to the highly selective school that took them than to state institutions. For kids with literally nothing (household incomes under $30K), the difference is extreme–state schools will still leave a gap of $10K a year (in addition to the loan offers to extend) that they expect students to fill god knows how, but selective schools will cover everything entirely though grants–even making up the gap created when illegal kids can’t get Pell grants.
But even kids with household incomes between $100-200K will get financial aide offers from elite schools, and they often bring the cost down to basically what a state school costs. This is especially true for second tier private schools. But some are still awful and offer very little need based aid and the only way to know which schools are which is to be a professional. So a middle class kid who gets into NYU, Purdue, and UCLA could well be left with no really affordable option, but the kid who gets into Rice, Boston College, and UNC-CH will likely be in much better shape.
I didn’t really touch on this, but the ability to communicate to audiences at various levels is absolutely cruicial in a research-oriented career. It doesn’t matter how good the quality of your work is; if you can’t communicate better than average, you’re likely going to be drowned out when it comes to reserach and grant proposals. Learning to present work in an informative but interesting manner, field tough questions from a critical audience (hint: don’t ever make something up on the fly or let someone box you into giving the answer they want versus the correct answer), write everything from single paragraph summaries to multi-hundred page theses and proposals, and summarize eighteen months of fruitful research into a journal submission in six to eight pages are all just as critical as being able to manipulate tensors or write a simulation of the behavior of a novel quantum field solution. Writing and presenting can also be fun and creative, too; there’s no reason you can’t add a bit of showmanship to a presentation or use some clever word play even in a technical journal; some our most famous technical terms in particle physics come from the most whimsical sources. Writing articles or essays to take complex technical subjects and make them comprehenisble to a non-technical reader is also a great way to really learn the material that you think you already know.
Realize, though, that most people do not pay full tuition. This is an argument for going to a school that will offer the most financial aid or tuition waiver versus the school with the hypothetical best reputation in some way. Virtually no one in technical fields pays tuition at the graduate level, but carrying $100k+ of student debt hanging over you through five or more years of grad school and then facing the prospect of either taking a low paying post-doc that would be great experience versus a well-paying job in some field where your mathematical prowess is desired but that is not interesting to you intellectually is not a great position to be in. Do not fall into the trap of believing that enormous amounts of student debt are “worth it” if you don’t have an expectaction of being able to readily pay them off by your career after graduation. A degree, academic references, and solid research/co-op/internship experience from a well-regarded state school trumps a diploma from those name-brand schools and enough debt to make the IMF say, “Damn, son, that’s a lot of money you owe!”
Even the scientists who eventually become wealthy through research or celebrity only do so well into their careers, and unlike careers in medicine or law, the opportunity to reach a mid-six figure salary if you so desire are slim-to-none. Starting out with massive debt may well force a student to make a career decision that is not commiserate with his or her interests or plans. And, frankly, the way we treat scientists who are not working on something with immediate commercial or military application is pretty shocking given the supposed role the US has traditionally enjoyed in science research, to the point that we are rapidly ceding that role in nearly all fields to Europe, Japan, Korea, and even nations like China and India which have traditionally followed research rather than lead in it.
Just got off a 10-hour plane flight and am fascinated to see how the thread has evolved while I was in the air. So much I could say, but just one observation regarding cost: it became increasingly clear to me, seeing what our son was offered and other kids in his class were offered, that at least some (and probably a lot) of colleges and universities are gaming the tuition process with merit scholarships. Setting aside need-based aid, “full tuition” is a concept that schools play around with and I doubt many people end up paying.
I may be wrong, but the sense I get is that schools are raising their tuition rates artificially high, then handing out “merit scholarships” as enticement to favored students. It’s a little like those “50% off sale!” signs that are permanently printed on store windows. Any school can set their tuition at a bazillion dollars, then hand out multi-million dollar scholarships to everyone, in varying degrees depending on how badly they want you, to make kids feel wanted.
You’re right that college pricing is weird; I was in college thirty years ago and one year, the annual letter announcing the next year’s tuition and fees noted that 27% of the tuition paid went to scholarships, so those whose parents could afford the whole amount were, in effect, subsidizing the rest of us on financial aid. And as for what lower-income parents pay, at Stanford, for example, if the family income is below $65,000 or so, the parents aren’t expected to contribute anything (although the kid is expected to chip in about $5,000, from whatever source; outside scholarships, savings, a summer job or an on-campus job). Families that make less than about $125,000 don’t have to pay for tuition, but might have to pay for the room, board and fees.
So, in short, few families pay the list price for college, and the private schools are more generous than the public ones.
I like to think of college costs like hospitals in the US. In a typical American hospital, the patients with insurance and those paying out of pocket subsidize the ones whose bills are uncollectable.
It depends on the school. Once you get into Ivys + MIT, it really is pretty much just need based aid, but there is a lot of it. As I said above, a lot of very solid, good schools offer enough to be just a little more expensive than the flagship state college. But even somewhere like Baylor or USC has plenty of kids paying full price–generally children of affluent backgrounds that were on the low end of the test scores/GPA average. They admit these kids knowing they will pay full tuition. There’s a reason schools that have “needs-blind” admission brag about it—most schools don’t, and admit a certain % because they can pay.
And there are some really stubborn exceptions. I have almost never seen a really good scholarship offer from Purdue. I am not sure I ever have. NYU will cheerfully admit students-very talented students–and leave a $40k/year gap.
And yes, being an hour from places was an issue.