<p>Any chance of getting into a good grad school if you're at UMW for your undergrad?</p>
<p>I was told people who do their undergrads at UMW find it insanely difficult to get into a good grad school. Say, you're a 3.8 GPA Business Major at UMW. Any chance of getting into UVA, William and Mary, or UNC-Chapell Hill/UNC- Charlotte for Grad School?</p>
<p>Or if not, what about a school like GMU, JMU, or UMBC? Any chance? Thanks.</p>
<p>Of course! Getting into a good grad school depends on your GPA, GRE scores, recommendations and accomplishments in your field (such as internships, papers, special projects you may have worked on), not simply the name of your undergrad college.</p>
It might be good to distinguish between graduate schools and professional schools. Admissions to professional schools {law, medicine, business, dentistry}is highly dependent upon GPA and scores. There is no reason to expect that anyone from a larger university would have an advantage over someone from UMW. Graduate school (usually an academic degree-MA or PhD in an academic field) is a different story. If you intend to go to graduate school it may be important for you to be selective about the activities you involve your self with. Typically admissions to grad programs is done by the faculty members in that particular area. They like to see high grades and scores but they also like to see research, writing and professional activities in their field.
The challenge is that faculty members in universities usually do more research, writing and publishing then do those in smaller colleges. So they can involve more students in their activities. On the other hand, sometimes the only activities the undergrads get to do are the most menial and least meaningful. Usually students at a college who do work with faculty members end up doing more meaningful work because there are no graduate students so college students do the work that grad students would do at larger places. But students at colleges have to really look for those opportunities whereas in a large university, in some departments most students are doing that so you just have to look for the announcements about when to sign up.
There will be more of a research climate at a university-whereas at a college you’ll need to be proactive. You are more likely to have a professor who knows your name and who is interested in working with you, once you express interest, at UMW then at a large university.