Rank da schools!

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buddyo
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:45 pm

Rank da schools!

Post by buddyo » Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:37 am

What do you dudes and dudettes think about the following schools? You can comment on how you feel about their programs, their location, their professors, or personal bias! If you're very motivated, you could even give me YOUR definitive ranking.

University of Rochester
Stony Brook University
University of Washington
Carnegie Mellon
Boston University

p.s. I'm looking at High Energy Experiment

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butsurigakusha
Posts: 293
Joined: Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:05 pm

Re: Rank da schools!

Post by butsurigakusha » Thu Mar 20, 2008 3:06 am

they are all good schools

sltrukshan
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 11:30 pm

Re: Rank da schools!

Post by sltrukshan » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:30 am

How about these schools. Please rank .....

Uni. of Massachusetts Amherst
Uni. of Houston
Uni. of Kansas
Colorado State University
Uni. of Mississippi
Wayne State University

Thanks in advance

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dlenmn
Posts: 578
Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:19 pm

Re: Rank da schools!

Post by dlenmn » Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:43 am

@buddyo

I don't know much about the field, but I'd guess that Washingon and Stony Brook go first because they appear to have more faculty working in the area. Also, Stony Brook runs Brookhaven National Lab, right? Having some big particle accelerators a few miles away would probably be helpful for you.

gatr1126
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:56 pm

Re: Rank da schools!

Post by gatr1126 » Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:10 pm

I'm in the high energy theory department, but in most cases there's a pretty strong correlation between rankings of theory and experiment for the school. I did do a lot of research in applying to those schools (applied to BU, Stony Brook, and UMass-Amherst myself, only accepted to the last one), so here's my take.

1. Stony Brook - Particle and nuclear experiment is what they do best, considering they operate the Brookhaven national lab. There's also a lot of other stuff going on with ATLAS and Super-Kamiokande.
2. University of Washington - They're program is freaking tremendous. More physics faculty than I've seen at pretty much any other institution. Probably ranked higher than SB in overall physics department, but they're just about tied (if slightly under it) in high energy experiment. They've also got a lot at CERN (ATLAS, ALEPH detector) and Fermilab (D0).
3. University of Rochester - UR isn't as highly ranked in physics as most of these others, but AMO and particle experiment are definitely their thing (this is one case in which they're so so at theory, but insanely good at experiment). It's really a tie between them and BU in this field, I think.
4. Boston University - Great above average sized department. Theory kicks it's butt since they've got Shelly Glashow, but they're no slouch. They had a big hand in discovering the top quark in D0 and are taking a major effort in ATLAS developing algorithms to find that mischievous Higgs boson.
5. Carnegie Mellon - Great school, but not as well known for experimental high energy. Pretty small department.

Hope I helped a tad. I think you really couldn't go wrong with any of the top 4. They're so close that deciding between 1 and 2 or 3 and 4 is really going to be a subjective opinion.

buddyo
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2008 3:45 pm

Re: Rank da schools!

Post by buddyo » Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:05 pm

Thanks so much!



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