<p>I know that I have seen posts which reference acceptance rates into graduate school for students from different colleges. I think that would be a valuable tool in evaluating different undergraduate programs... </p>
<p>I just don't know where to look? Is it a US News and World Report survey or is there some other site that tracks this. My son is thinking about engineering at a couple of different schools (College of New Jersey and Rutgers) and would like to check this. Help?</p>
<p>I can't remember who tracks this but there are lists out there that look at the percentage of the incoming class that get accepted into one of the top 5 medical, law or business schools. Perhaps someone could jog my memory.</p>
<p>It would be less useful than you think. It might simply reflect the selectivity (or the underlying wealth) of the undergraduate student body (many of whom might have done equally well, if not better had they gone elsewhere), and would provide no measure of the "value added" by the institution itself in graduate admissions.</p>
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It might simply reflect the selectivity (or the underlying wealth) of the undergraduate student body (many of whom might have done equally well, if not better had they gone elsewhere), and would provide no measure of the "value added" by the institution itself in graduate admissions.
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<p>Perhaps the OP simply wanted to find a school where his son would be around other smart, ambitious people. Of course no school will turn an average student into one that goes to a top school.</p>
<p>Well, all I want to do is confirm that the acceptance rates for graduate schools are reasonable from two schools that my son is viewing as safety's. If he winds up at one of these two schools, is it reasonable to expect he'll be able to get into some solid grad school programs (assuming a good GPA).<br>
I also thought it might be interesting to see how the safety schools compare to some of his higher rated colleges....</p>
<p>It's probably true that acceptance rate probably only reflects the average strength of the undergrad student body i.e. how selective the college is, rather than the "value added" as mentioned above.
I would say that for grad school admissions, the specific department matters far more than the prestige of the overall school. If you're in a department that's well regarded in your major nationwide, it doesn't matter if you're coming from Berkeley or a CSU.</p>
<p>So let's look at those departments - agreed, anecdotes are not evidence. My d. has a 5-6 year graduate fellowship at an Ivy U., with her department ranked in the top 3-5 in the country. There is not a single first-year student from an Ivy (or even a top 20 university). And the faculty? There is one with a Harvard B.A. The rest have their undergraduate degrees from the following:
- Baldwin-Wallace College
- Queens College
- University of California - Davis
- Carleton College (but in a different department)
- University of Missouri - Kansas City
- Reading University (UK)
- University of Amsterdam
- Brandeis University
- Brooklyn College
- University of Toronto</p>
<p>These are the folks that the Ivy University thinks are best qualified to be teaching the Ivy undergraduates.</p>
<p>Should at least make you think that the answer to this question might not be as simple as it might seem.</p>
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[quote]
There is not a single first-year student from an Ivy (or even a top 20 university). And the faculty? There is one with a Harvard B.A. The rest have their undergraduate degrees from the following:
- Baldwin-Wallace College
- Queens College
- University of California - Davis
- Carleton College (but in a different department)
- University of Missouri - Kansas City
- Reading University (UK)
- University of Amsterdam
- Brandeis University
- Brooklyn College
- University of Toronto</p>
<p>These are the folks that the Ivy University thinks are best qualified to be teaching the Ivy undergraduates.
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</p>
<p>True but quite incomplete and also utterly misleading. Aren't faculty selected based on their graduate education? How many faculty members from the non-Ivy schools have a PhD from Princeton or from a better graduate school? </p>
<p>Examples? </p>
<p>** I studied Physics at Carleton College (B.A. 1990), Composition and Theory at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati (M.M. 1995), and Composition at Princeton (Ph.D. 1999).</p>
<p>** I grew up in New York City, and went to the High School of Music and Art, and Queens College in the City University of New York; graduate study was at Princeton University, 1966-69; Ph.D., 1973. I joined the faculty in 1969. My early musical interest was in performance (French Horn, Dorian Quintet, 1965-66).</p>
<p>**B.A. Reading University 1977,
M.M. King's College London 1978,
Ph.D. Stanford University 1982. </p>
<p>**After graduating from the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts in New York City, and from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, Peter Jeffery received the Ph.D. in Music History from Princeton University in 1980. </p>
<p>**Education: B.Mus. University of Toronto, 1987; M.A. McGill University, 1993; Ph.D. Princeton University, 1997.</p>
<p>Of course, that's just the point. It ISN'T misleading. Those august institutions of graduate education chose as future faculty students who "bubbled up" from so-called "lesser" undergraduate institutions, who were then admitted to high-powered graduate schools, and then were chosen to, among other things, teach undergraduates at an Ivy-League institution.</p>
<p>I can't imagine why you would think this misleading, when you are in fact making my point. The OP asked acceptances into graduate schools - and what you've done, anecdotally of course - is indicate to what extent folks from lesser undergraduate colleges were chosen for some of the best.</p>
<p>The further point that I made, but you didn't, is that, among their current graduate students, dozens of applicants from top universities were past over in the selection process.</p>