MTU Physics Seniors Excel on the Major Field Test

Whether you are comparing colleges where you can major in physics or are already attending MTU, you may want to investigate how well our majors learn physics.

The most recent Major Field Test for Physics result is:

This means that 99% of participating physics departments had a lower average than MTU. This puts the physics majors from MTU in the top 1% of all the physics majors at participating schools.

An explanation of how this data was obtained follows.

The Educational Testing Service (or ETS) is one of the nation's leading producers of standardized tests, including the well-known SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and GRE (Graduate Record Exam). They also have Major Field Tests designed for college seniors in various fields of study. (For more information, see their Web site www.ets.org.) The Department of Physics at Michigan Technological University participates in this program and gives the Major Field Test in physics to its senior physics majors. ETS grades the exams and then provides the means to compare our results with those of other schools. We consider these exams to be an excellent assessment of the quality of our physics program.

In the most recent data supplied by ETS, over 500 senior physics majors at 45 colleges and universities nationwide have taken the Major Field Exam in physics. These include the students at such schools as Kent State University, the U.S. Air Force Academy, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, the University of Missouri at Rolla, the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Western Michigan University and many other nationally recognized institutions.

Comparisons between students who go through our physics program at MTU and those who go through physics programs at other institutions can be made by the "percentile" results provided by ETS. The "percentile" associated with a test score for a given student is the percent of the total number of students taking the test who scored LOWER than that student. For example, if student Joe Smith receives a percentile ranking of 90%, that means that 90% of the students taking the test scored lower than Joe. That puts Joe in the top 10% of participating students nationwide. Notice that when you know the percentile of a score, there is little need to know the actual score itself.

However, ETS provides an even more convenient number to us. We receive a single composite percentile for all our physics seniors who take the test. This essentially gives us a percentile rating for our physics department compared to other physics departments nationwide. We have been very pleased with these results since we began administering the test, and present them here for your consideration as a prospective physics major at MTU.

Previous results for the MTU Physics seniors (exam not taken by the Class of 2000):

You can see that we have reason to be proud of our physics majors and the job our physics department does in teaching physics.