PHYSICS RANKINGS

Our Mission

The Physics Rankings Project is your ultimate source for understanding and using rankings of physics departments in the U.S. Our mission is to provide comprehensive insights and analysis of the rankings out there, helping students and academic professionals make informed decisions about their academic pursuits. Our approach is to understand what USNWR, Niche, SCIMAGO, edurank, research.com, QS and THE and physics-schools.com have to say. Then we combine that with an in depth study of each department. This, allows a more precise understanding of US programs. TPRP is the only ranking system that offers an eyes-on analysis of each program in its listing.

Exploring Physics Rankings

In choosing a physics program, you must choose the kind of program desired (size, focus areas, on or off campus research, and so on). You must also consider the relative success of such programs in producing desired outcomes, the quality of a given program to deliver the best in class of that program type, and the specific success of a program within the physics disciplines it targets. Small school or big school, Ivy League or a west coast juggernaut, better prestige or better environment? These questions must be made within the context of the student's strengths and desired career outcomes. What rankings do is present a broad brush-stroke of experiences available at different institutions. But it is just the starting point. From choosing the right school, to excellence in your studies, ultimate success or failure is always what you make it.

Insights and Analysis

To achieve a ranked system TPRP bins the programs according to:

1. Average of all rankings we could find including: USNWR, THE, QS, Niche, Research.com, EDUrank.org, physics-schools.com, SCImago. (the rep and output of the program)

2. Overall programmatic review including courses required to graduate, courses offered, level of courses as could be determined, other academic preparation requirements. (how hard do you have to study?)

3. Size and breadth of program as judged by concentration areas available to students. (what all is available at a given program)

4. Infrastructural resources (what is the local environment like?)

Motivation for this site

The ranking systems and metrics, for ranking U.S. physics departments are varied and highly subjective. In one case it is a survey of opinions, in another it is a bibliometrics score based upon key words deemed relevant to physics research.

How does such information help a student decide what grad school fits them best or instructs a department in trying to understand how well their program is being received? Taken on its own, it doesn't, but in aggregate, when combined with an eyes-on look at each program to compare infrastructure, curriculum, and student/faculty environment, perhaps it could be helpful.

TPRP applies a standard for course offerings, curricular requirements, years of study, publication expectations, access to cutting edge lab facilities, and faculty productivity as determined from the 5 departments that produce the largest number of PhDs in physics nationally. A given department is measured against this standard and this is averages with all other rankings using all methodologies. The meta study allows an estimate of a given program's experience.

Physics departments are incredibly costly for universities. So much so that many are closing them down or offer only a BA. But in fact our analysis shows that on the whole, they are incredibly productive departments and add far more to a university than they cost.

References