Physics at Northwestern University

What traits are you looking for in a physics school? To help you decide if Northwestern University is right for you, we've gathered the following information about the school's physics program.

Northwestern is located in Evanston, Illinois and approximately 22,603 students attend the school each year.

Want to know more about the career opportunities in this field? Check out the Careers in Physics section at the bottom of this page.

Northwestern Physics Degrees Available

• Bachelor’s Degree in Physics
• Master’s Degree in Physics

Northwestern Physics Rankings

The physics major at Northwestern is not ranked on College Factual’s Best Colleges and Universities for Physics. This could be for a number of reasons, such as not having enough data on the major or school to make an accurate assessment of its quality.

There were 6 students who received their doctoral degrees in physics, making the school the #97 most popular school in the United States for this category of students.

Physics Student Demographics at Northwestern

Take a look at the following statistics related to the make-up of the physics majors at Northwestern University.

Northwestern Physics Bachelor’s Program

For the most recent academic year available, 72% of physics bachelor's degrees went to men and 28% went to women. The typical physics bachelor's degree program is made up of only 25% women. So female students are more repesented at Northwestern since its program graduates 3% more women than average.

About 52% of those who receive a bachelor's degree in physics at Northwestern are white. This is typical for this degree on the nationwide level. Prospective students may be interested in knowing that this school graduates 11% more racial-ethnic minorities in its physics bachelor's program than the national average.*

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor's in physics.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	5
Black or African American	2
Hispanic or Latino	1
White	13
International Students	2
Other Races/Ethnicities	2

Northwestern Physics Master’s Program

For the most recent academic year available, 62% of physics master's degrees went to men and 38% went to women.

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Northwestern University with a master's in physics.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	1
Black or African American	0
Hispanic or Latino	1
White	4
International Students	5
Other Races/Ethnicities	2

Concentrations Within Physics

The following physics concentations are available at Northwestern University. The completion numbers here include all graduates who receive any type of degree in this field from Northwestern University. Some of these focus areas may not be available for your degree level.

Concentration	Annual Degrees Awarded
General Physics	47

Related Majors

• Materials Sciences
• Astronomy & Astrophysics
• Geological & Earth Sciences
• Chemistry

Careers That Physics Grads May Go Into

A degree in physics can lead to the following careers. Since job numbers and average salaries can vary by geographic location, we have only included the numbers for IL, the home state for Northwestern University.

Occupation	Jobs in IL	Average Salary in IL
High School Teachers	43,720	$72,370
Natural Sciences Managers	1,950	$118,480
Physicists	810	$114,320
Physics Postsecondary Professors	640	$92,130

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• Image Credit: By Madcoverboy at en.wikipedia under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.