A List of The Best Colleges For Astronomy?

Question

I'm a Sophomore in High School and I want to be an astronomer. What are the best colleges and their requirements.

Answer 1

I just wanted to mention that you can't major in astronomy at MIT (I know cuz I went there) but you can major in physics and take lots of astronomy classes. That's what I did, and then I went on to graduate school in astronomy. So when you're looking at colleges, don't stop if the college doesn't have an astronomy major, so long as they offer several astronomy classes. Go to a "research" school where there are several faculty that do research in astronomy, and get involved in their research as an undergrad - that'll boost your chances of getting into a good grad school. And I want to second the suggestion of looking into NASA programs. I see summer programs at NASA for college students all the time (I'm a college astronomy professor), and I assume they have some for high school students, too.

Answer 2

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
A List of The Best Colleges For Astronomy?
I'm a Sophomore in High School and I want to be an astronomer. What are the best colleges and their requirements.

Answer 3

A couple that I have toured that have Astronomy programs: Northern Arizona University, University of Arizona.
Since you are a sophomore in high school, I have the perfect summer program for you! Its called Astronomy Camp, and Advanced Astronomy Camp. It is a week long program that is held in Tuscon Arizona. People from all over the country, and even one student from France attended when I went in 1995, as a junior in high school. These programs simulate what it is like to be an astronomer, and I got to work with the telescopes on Mt Lemmon and Mt Bigelow. I also got to tour facilities on Mt Graham. The advanced camp, which is the one I attended, allowed campers to stay in the astronomer's dorms for the week. It was a blast! I went on scholarship, I am sure you could too if you searched. Here are a few links: a few articles and the official site.
During this program, not only would you be able to work with research grade equipment, but you could tour a school with a good astronomy program.

Answer 4

You got a few more complete answers in the education section - go with those. I should have specified there that many colleges have REU programs you can apply to even if you don't go to that school - schools like Harvard, CalTech, Cornell, etc, as well as NASA and National Labs. Actually, if you want to get started even sooner, NASA has summer programs for motivated high school students and you can join a local astronomy club to learn how to use a telescope and get a feeling for the sky. That will come in useful if you want to work as a Teaching Assistant in college.

Answer 5

Try going to the Princeton Review. Just enter your email address and you have access to all their lists of best colleges for certain subjects as well as most popular majors. You can see what schools offer what majors. Great resource and is continually updated!

Answer 6

All the top science schools have astronomy programs. You know, MIT, Caltech, and so on. Most of the big name state universities do too, UCLA, University of Texas and so on.