Prospective Students
Applying to Illinois
To get answers to your questions about our bachelor's degree programs in physics or to schedule a visit, contact Toni Pitts.
To get answers to your questions about our graduate program, contact Denise Donnelly.
Why Study Physics?
We like to say that physics is the liberal arts education for today's technological society. Our graduates apply their physics training to careers ranging from patent law to software engineering to Wall Street finance. More than 70 percent of our graduating seniors go on to obtain advanced degrees in physics, biophysics, materials science, and electrical engineering, as well as law, economics, and medicine.
Why Study Physics at Illinois?
The undergraduate program in engineering physics at Illinois is currently ranked #4 in the country—tied with Caltech. It was rated higher in 2008 than MIT, Harvard, or Stanford by U.S. News and World report.
Illinois is committed to undergraduate education. In the last 10 years, we have completely recreated the way we teach, incorporating innovative educational technologies and drawing on the results of our nationally recognized physics education research group. We believe we are establishing a paradigm for science education for the 21st century—one that develops higher-order thinking competencies, promotes collaborative learning, and improves communication skills. Our approach to teaching benefits not only our undergraduate students, but it also gives our graduate teaching assistants excellent training in best practices for their own career development.
We have one of the biggest physics departments in the country. We value that size not for size itself, but for the wide range of opportunities it offers our students. Our undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is about 4 to 1 (same for graduate students). In a typical semester, we offer more than 50 course in physics, and we host more than a dozen special seminars.
The breadth and diversity of our research programs offer an outstanding range of research options. We enjoy outstanding research facilities with state-of-the-art equipment for everything from the latest materials characterization and fabrication facilities to biological physics to quantum information to massively parallel computing.
We provide many opportunities for undergraduates to tackle independent, hands-on research, which is becoming increasingly important for admission to the nation's premier graduate programs. To prepare undergraduates for research, we have developed a unique three-semester course sequence combining classroom learning with research group experience.
See what others say about our programs
- Condensed Matter Physics: ranked #1
- Quantum Physics: ranked #7
- Nuclear Physics: ranked #8
- Elementary Particles/Field/String Theory: ranked #12
- Other College Rankings
Not sure about how to interpret rankings? See the UI Library's "Caution and Controversy" page.