Best Southern California universities for Bachelor of Science degree in Physics?

As the question says: what are the best 4-year universities for getting a bachelor of science degree in physics. I don't mean best as in easiest, but universities whose degrees will help me transfer to an even better university like CalTech or MIT. They have to be in California; preferably in the Los Angeles region.|||It depends on what you want to do with your physics degree.





If you simply want a job, get into a university with a big name, like UCLA or USC (or even Harvey Mudd, like the above poster suggested).





If you want to do graduate studies in physics, get into a big research university, as they have more research opportunities.





These days, research experience is just as important in applying to grad school as grades and GRE scores are, so that should be one of your top priorities.





You should be fine if you get into one of the four "Coastal" UCs in Southern California (UCSB, UCLA, UCI, UCSD). USC and UC Riverside may have some research opportunities, but their departments are somewhat limited in certain fields. In NorCal, Berkeley, Davis, and Santa Cruz are good.





If you want to take a risk, you can try Chapman University, who just got Yakir Aharonov on their faculty. If you can get Aharonov as an undergrad advisor, you can get pretty far (I don't know whether he will be advising students, so you should contact him before applying).





My undergrad school, UC Irvine, is really good if you want to go to grad school in physics.* They send at least one student to Caltech each year for grad school (out of the ~10 students that apply), and I know of lots of students who have gotten into top 10 physics graduate programs like Princeton, Cornell, and UCSB.





In any case, you should look at the physics department websites and contact professors to see what kind of research opportunities they have.





* This is because they have tons of research opportunities, especially if you want to go into cosmology, astrophysics, or experimental/phenomenological particle physics. I know of some faculty members who are sending undergraduate students to CERN to work on the LHC, and some freshmen who are doing work in cosmology.|||Harvey Mudd college in the Claremont consortium is a very highly regarded school for mathematics and sciences. It's worth taking a look at.





http://www.hmc.edu/