How to Apply to Ursinus College for a Physics Degree: A Physics Major With Applied Physics and Astrophysics Tracks, Faculty-Led Student Research, a Five-Year Pre-Engineering Program With Columbia and Other Schools, No Application Fee, Test Optional, and How Domestic, International (Including Chinese) and Transfer Applicants Are Admitted

Ursinus College is in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, about 25 miles from Philadelphia. The physics degree is offered by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and students apply to the College through the Office of Admission. The department is based in Pfahler Hall, which the website says was recently renovated at a cost of over $15 million and has the Marsteller observatory on the top floor. This article follows the College’s website and is organized for US domestic applicants, international applicants and applicants from China, followed by transfer students. Mathematics is in the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics and is not covered here; neither is computer science.

1. The physics program and how admission works

• Degrees and tracks: the department page says Ursinus offers a major in physics with optional Applied Physics and Astrophysics tracks, and a minor in physics. The Requirements page lists a Physics Track, an Applied Physics Track (Option A, and Option B for students in the pre-engineering partnerships), an Astrophysics Track, and requirements for secondary school teaching certification. All programs require students to study fundamental topics in classical and modern physics. Degree type: the pre-engineering page says participants may pursue the Applied Physics track and “earn a B.S. from Ursinus”; whether the Physics and Astrophysics tracks lead to a B.A. or B.S. is not stated in the pages read. The Registrar says either a B.A. or a B.S. requires 128 semester hours.
• Major requirements (as listed on the Requirements page):
  • Physics Track: MATH-112; PHYS-121Q, 122Q, 201, 207W, 299, 450W; any one of CS-173, CHEM-107, CHEM-151, BIO-101Q, ENVS-100, NEUR-100; any two of PHYS-328W, 329W, 338W, 339W; any three of PHYS-304, 401, 409, 410; and at least four credits of additional work at the 300 level or above.
  • Applied Physics Option A: MATH-112; PHYS-121Q, 122Q, 201, 207W, 299, 328W, 329W, 338W, 339W, 450W; any one of CS-173, CHEM-107, CHEM-151, BIO-101Q, BIO-102, ENVS-100, NEUR-100; any three of PHYS-304, 306, 401, 405, 409, 410; and either an internship (PHYS-381 or 382) or at least two credits of research. Option B, for students in the pre-engineering partnerships: CS-173; MATH-112; PHYS-121Q, 122Q, 201, 207W, 299; any two of 328W, 329W, 338W, 339W; one of PHYS-304, 306, 405, 409 or 410; and one year of coursework toward an engineering major at a partner school. The page notes that Option B requires courses beyond those of the pre-engineering program and is entirely optional.
  • Astrophysics Track: MATH-112; PHYS-121Q, 122Q, 201, 207W, 299, 450W; any one of CS-173, CHEM-107, CHEM-151, BIO-101Q, BIO-102, ENVS-100, NEUR-100; any two of PHYS-328W, 329W, 338W, 339W; any three of PHYS-304, 401, 409, 410; PHYS-301; and at least two credits of research.
  • The page adds that majors fulfill the W, oral presentation and capstone requirements through PHYS-207W and at least two of 328W, 329W, 338W, 339W and 450W, and that students planning graduate study in physics or astrophysics should add courses from PHYS-305, 306, 401, 409, 410 and MATH-235, 310, 413.
• Minor: 20 semester hours, including PHYS-121Q and 122Q, at least one of PHYS-201, 207W or 299, and eight credits of additional work at the 200 level or higher (excluding PHYS-450); MATH-112 or equivalent is a pre- or co-requisite for PHYS-122Q and higher.
• Naming a major when applying, when to declare, and internal transfer into physics: not stated in the pages read, so not published here; please ask the Office of Admission or the department and check the course catalog. The admission steps contain no major-selection step; you apply to the College, and the pages read show no school-level cut-off for physics. The pre-engineering page advises interested students to contact the departmental pre-engineering adviser at the earliest opportunity to plan a program of study.
• Pre-engineering program: after three years of prescribed work at Ursinus, students may apply to the engineering schools of Columbia University (Combined Plan Program in Engineering), Case Western Reserve University and Washington University in St. Louis. The page says Ursinus grants the B.A. after the requirements are met, usually in the fourth year, and the partner grants the engineering degree after the fifth year. Students may apply to other engineering programs, but their program of study should be approved by Academic Standards and Discipline. An event notice on the department page calls the Washington University program the “Dual Degree 3 + 3 Program”, while the pre-engineering page describes five years in total; please check with the department. Engineering is not covered in depth here.
• Teaching certification: besides physics courses, the requirements include one of BIO-101Q/102Q/ENVS-100, MATH-112, CS-173 and PHYS-499; to be approved for student teaching a candidate needs a 2.50 average in the required physics and mathematics courses and demonstrated communication skills. The experiential learning page says certification students spend one semester of senior year teaching at a local high school.

2. Prerequisites, AP/IB credit and honors

• High school courses for admission (admission requirements page, which says these are the minimum academic requirements per the faculty handbook): at least 16 academic units, of which 11 are core: English 4 years, mathematics 3 units (Algebra 1 and 2 and either Geometry or Pre-Calculus), lab science 1, social science 1 and foreign language 2 in one language; at least 2½ more units from calculus, advanced mathematics, statistics, computer science, solid geometry, trigonometry, science and others. The page says a competitive applicant will have completed significantly more college-prep work. Whether high school physics is required for the physics major is not stated in the pages read.
• Math preparation for physics courses (courses page): PHYS-121Q (Spacetime and Quantum Physics, uses calculus, offered in the fall) has MATH-105 or MATH-111, or permission of the instructor, as a prerequisite or corequisite; PHYS-122Q (Electromagnetism and Thermodynamics, spring) lists PHYS-121, MATH-106 or MATH-111, or permission; PHYS-201 and PHYS-299 involve PHYS-122 and MATH-112. There are also algebra/trigonometry-based PHYS-111Q and 112, with MATH-105 or equivalent algebra and trigonometry preparation as the prerequisite. The content of MATH-105, 106, 111 and 112 is not described in the pages read. A math or physics placement exam is not mentioned; please ask the department or the Registrar.
• AP: the Registrar says AP credit depends on the score, each department sets the scores it accepts and the equivalent course, and the chart is in the First Year Student Academic Guide. That chart was not read, so how AP Physics 1/2, C: Mechanics, C: E&M and Calculus AB/BC map to physics courses is not published here; please check the guide or contact the Registrar (registrar@ursinus.edu).
• IB: students with the IB may receive up to one year of college credit; the exact credits and equivalents are set by the Registrar and the relevant departments; no credit for SL exams, and HL scores of 5–7 are considered.
• College courses taken in high school: evaluated from an accredited institution’s transcript with a grade of C or better; the Registrar determines the equivalent; high-school algebra and vocational or technical courses do not count.
• Labs and the capstone: PHYS-121Q and 122Q each include three hours of lab a week. The department also offers PHYS-328W (Analog Electronics), 329W (Digital Electronics) and 338W and 339W (Advanced Physics Laboratory I and II), each a two-semester-hour course with about three hours of lab a week, described as emphasizing laboratory technique and written communication of results (338W and 339W also oral communication; their prerequisite is PHYS-207W). PHYS-450W is the department’s capstone Seminar: each student investigates the primary literature on a current topic, and the products are a formal literature review paper and a presentation; the page says it is offered every other year.
• Honors and research: PHYS-491 (Research/Independent Work) is open to candidates for departmental honors and to other students with the permission of the chairman, and PHYS-492W requires a major paper and an oral presentation; the experiential learning page also lists a senior honors thesis. Grade conditions for entering departmental honors are not stated in the pages read.

3. Rounds, materials and testing

• First-year rounds (Apply page; no year is printed, so check that they apply to fall 2027 entry):
  • Early Action (non-binding): 1 November, decision in mid-December, reply by 1 May
  • Early Decision 1 (binding): 1 December, rolling decisions; aid applicants must apply within two weeks of submitting the ED application and receive a package about two weeks after admission; merit pre-read requests are due “Friday, November 20”
  • Early Decision 2 (binding): 1 February; pre-read requests due “Friday, January 22”
  • Regular Decision: 1 February, decision by mid-March, with highly qualified applicants possibly released on a rolling basis; applications may be accepted after the deadline as space allows
  • Spring enrollment: apply by 1 December and indicate a January start
• Fee: applying is free for first-year students, through the Common Application, the Coalition application or the Ursinus application.
• Materials (application checklist): official high school transcripts, the Secondary School Report and a recommendation from the guidance counselor, and a personal essay. A science-teacher recommendation is not listed. Home-schooled students and students whose schools give narrative comments in place of grades must provide detailed information on the depth of their curriculum, including reading lists.
• Testing: SAT or ACT scores are optional. An interview with an admission counselor is “highly encouraged but not required”.
• Physics competitions: the pages read do not say how competitions such as USAPhO are viewed in admission.

4. US domestic applicants

• Costs: one rate, with no in-state/out-of-state distinction. For 2026-27 the direct costs for full-time residential students are tuition $61,500, comprehensive fee $750, housing $10,404 and food $7,524, a total of $80,178; first-time first-year students also pay a $210 orientation fee. Estimated indirect costs are $3,322 (books $1,000, personal $1,500, travel $750, loan fees $72). Commuter direct costs total $62,250 (tuition plus comprehensive fee) with estimated indirect costs of $10,038. The website says residential students pay less than $29,000 a year on average.
• Aid figures: about 99% of students receive some form of aid; the tuition page says that in 2025-26 the College administered over $80 million in aid, nearly $65 million of it institutional scholarships and grants that need not be repaid (the scholarships page gives a different, 2024-25 figure of over $85 million and nearly $60 million).
• Merit scholarships: first-year applicants are considered automatically. The website says all admitted first-year students receive at least $35,000 a year, and the merit page lists the Zacharias Honors Scholarship at $45,000/year (average recipient typically has a high school GPA above 4.0), the Gateway Scholarship at $43,000/year (above 3.7) and the Ursinus Scholarship at $41,000/year (above 3.3); GPA bands are a guideline and the committee reviews holistically. Another page says top scholarships can cover full tuition while the top amount listed on the merit page is $45,000, so please rely on your offer letter. Merit awards apply only to tuition and fees and renew with a 2.0 cumulative GPA.
• Need-based aid: apply at the time of application and complete the FAFSA. The checklist page still says the 2026-27 FAFSA “is expected to open October 2025”, which is from the previous cycle; please follow the Financial Aid office’s latest notice.
• PERSIST scholarship for STEM fields: PERSIST: Scholarships in STEM (S-STEM), funded by the National Science Foundation, provides up to $15,000 of unmet need to full-time residential students with financial need in fields that include physics, biology, biochemistry and molecular biology, chemistry, neuroscience, computer science and pre-engineering. Eligibility includes meeting NSF’s citizenship or residency requirements, intending to live on campus, listing one of those majors on the application, and being Pell-eligible by the FAFSA. The page asks students to apply to the College by January 13 and complete the online application by January 15 (no year printed), with finalist interviews in spring, and says scholars join a cohort with faculty mentoring and academic support.
• State residents: priority or guaranteed admission for Pennsylvania residents is not mentioned in the pages read. A headline on the scholarships page mentions an America250 Tuition Promise for Montgomery County; the details were not read, so please check the website.
• Physics department scholarships: not described in the pages read.

5. International applicants

• Numbers and timing: the website says international students make up 5% of the community and come from 32 countries; most apply between September and March for the following fall, with a limited number accepted for spring. The Apply page says there are separate application procedures for international and transfer applicants; the international page gives no separate deadline, so please confirm with admission whether the rounds above apply.
• Materials: the Common Application or the Ursinus application; official secondary school transcripts (a translated course-by-course evaluation by a NACES member may be required, giving the US equivalency and US GPA; WES electronic transmission is encouraged); a personal essay; the school profile; an interview, “highly recommended, may be required”.
• English: if English is not your native language or the primary language of high school instruction, at least one official score may be required: TOEFL minimum 80, IELTS minimum 6.5, Duolingo minimum 105 “to be considered for admission”; admission may require additional proof in some cases. The pages read do not describe a way to be exempted, so please ask admission.
• Proof of funds: required before depositing; all incoming international students submit the Ursinus College International Financial Statement directly to admission, and a Form I-20 requires financial documentation supporting it.
• Costs and scholarships: the international costs page gives $79,562 for tuition, housing and food for 2025-26 (an earlier year; 2026-27 figures are in section 4). All qualified, admitted international students are eligible for merit awards and most specialty scholarships; institutional need-based aid requires the International Student Financial Statement. The website is not consistent here: the merit page says “all domestic applicants” are considered, while the international page says qualified admitted international students are eligible; please rely on your admission materials. The PERSIST scholarship has a US citizenship or residency requirement (section 4).

6. Applicants from China

• Gaokao: the pages read do not say whether the Gaokao is considered or how it would be used. Not published in the pages read; please contact admission (admission@ursinus.edu, (610) 409-3200).
• Transcripts and school-leaving materials: official secondary school transcripts are required, and a course-by-course evaluation by a NACES member such as WES may be required; there is no China-specific guidance in the pages read. Section 5 applies.
• International curricula: IB credit is evaluated as described in section 2.

7. Research, internships and outcomes

• How research works (experiential learning page): students work on faculty-initiated projects, and faculty mentor student-initiated projects. Opportunities include independent study during a semester, the Summer Fellows Program and a senior honors thesis. Topics completed by physics majors include “Inelastic Proton Scattering from 50Ca”, “Energy exchange among ultra-cold Rydberg atoms”, “Gamma-ray spectroscopy of exotic calcium isotopes with the GRETINA array”, “Simulations of Stellar Cluster evolution” and “Construction of a Saturated Absorption Spectrometer”.
• Research groups: the department page lists five: the Glass and Materials Engineering Science Lab (Casey Schwarz; novel materials for optical devices and medical applications), the Nuclear Structure Group (Professor Riley; experiments at accelerator laboratories such as the John D. Fox Laboratory at Florida State University and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams at Michigan State University), the Ultra-Cold Quantum Dynamics Lab (Tom Carroll), the Ursinus Planetary Cratering Group (Kassie Martin-Wells; lunar impact cratering) and Eigen Modeling–Computations of Quantum Processes (Ross Martin-Wells; computer models of quantum processes). A news item on the page says Professor Martin-Wells received a NASA Research Initiation Grant to work with students on a crater classification tool.
• Internships and REUs: physics majors may also do off-campus internships, most often in the summer or winter break; recent ones have included engineering and pharmaceutical firms. The page also describes NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), where students receive stipends and in many cases housing and travel assistance.
• Outcomes (Careers & Outcomes page): alumni follow paths into a broad variety of fields; graduates have applied programming in Python, Java, IDL and Mathematica to problems in the curriculum and in independent research and are skilled at communicating technical material. The page lists recent graduates under industry and engineering, teachers and graduate school; employers named include Coherent Corp., Edmund Optics, Lockheed Martin, Merck and Los Alamos National Laboratory, and graduate schools include the University of Pennsylvania, Purdue, Columbia, Rochester and Brown. No placement rate or salary data is printed, and none is inferred here.
• One more figure: the department page says 30% of Ursinus physics majors since 2015 are women, compared with 21% nationally.

8. Transfer students

• Deadlines: fall 15 August, spring 12 January, with rolling decisions (no year printed, so check). Apply free with the Ursinus Transfer Application or the Common App. The website says most successful transfer candidates have a GPA of 3.0 or higher and are in good standing.
• Materials: a personal essay; final high school transcripts if under 24 college credits; official final college transcripts from every school attended, with grades; the Student Conduct Verification Form. A campus interview and a recommendation from a college instructor are optional. A transfer credit calculator and a transfer credit evaluation are available, and an unofficial evaluation can be given before applying once official transcripts are received.
• Credit: C or better; the Registrar decides equivalents, and courses with no equivalent transfer as free credits. A degree requires 128 semester hours, and in most cases at least 64 are completed at Ursinus, so at most 64 transfer (a petition for up to 96, with at least 32 at Ursinus, is possible in certain circumstances); students who completed a two-year associate degree typically start with junior standing and need at least 64 more credits at Ursinus. Coursework abroad needs a WES course-by-course evaluation. Physics-specific transfer conditions (GPA, calculus/physics sequence) are not stated in the pages read; please ask the department.
• Transfer scholarships (transfer page): Phi Theta Kappa members $43,000/year; Montgomery County Community College graduates with a 3.0 cumulative GPA in their associate degree $40,000/year; Delaware County and Bucks County Community College and Camden County College graduates reviewed for up to $40,000/year; the Transfer Ursinus Scholarship up to $40,000/year for all students reviewed; and a guarantee of a scholarship covering at least 60% of tuition for students transferring with an associate degree or 64 equivalent credits. Students previously admitted as first-years have their earlier merit scholarship honored on transfer (specialty scholarships excluded).

Checklist

US domestic applicants:

• EA 1 November, ED I 1 December, ED II and Regular 1 February; free first-year application; transcript, counselor recommendation and essay; SAT/ACT optional
• At least 3 units of high school math (Algebra 1 and 2 plus Geometry or Pre-Calculus); math preparation for physics courses is in the courses page; the track-by-track course lists are on the department’s Requirements page

International applicants (including China):

• TOEFL 80, IELTS 6.5, Duolingo 105 (when the native or instruction language is not English); the International Financial Statement; a NACES course-by-course evaluation may be required
• How the Gaokao is used is not published; contact admission

After entry:

• The AP chart is in the First Year Student Academic Guide; for pre-engineering contact the departmental pre-engineering adviser

Transfer students:

• Fall 15 August, spring 12 January; most successful candidates have a GPA of 3.0 or higher; up to 64 credits transfer (96 by petition)

Sources: Ursinus College, Physics and Astronomy; Department: requirements; Department: courses; Department: experiential learning; Department: careers and outcomes; Pre-Engineering; Admission: apply and deadlines; Admission: application checklist; Admission: admission requirements; Admission: international applicants; Admission: international costs and aid; Admission: transfer students; Admission: transfer checklist; Scholarships and aid; Merit scholarships; PERSIST: Scholarships in STEM; Tuition and cost; Registrar: transfer credit policy. The dates on the admission pages show no year, so check that they apply to fall 2027 entry and see the College’s website for the latest.