<p>the waiting is terrible and the deferred, waitlist, who wants you is worse. </p>
<p>Think there is any truth the idea that the undergrad school is not that important, it is the grad school that counts. so why do we all waste so much time worrying about all of this. </p>
<p>10 safe apps might be better than so many won't get into anyway apps!</p>
<p>You get out of it what you put into it. It really depends on a variety and combination of criteria. That being said, it also depends on the graduate program and the combination of majors that may or may not open doors later.</p>
<p>Believe me that 10-15 years down the line, you will not be asked what school you went to if you have appropriate experience. They will want to know that you do have a degree, but mostly, it is your work experience.</p>
<p>Well, I'll list the undergraduate almamaters of every President from 1950 until now and have you decide: </p>
<p>Dwight D. Eisenhower- US Military Academy
John F. Kennedy- Harvard University
Lyndon B. Johnson- Southwest Texas State University
Richard M. Nixon- Whittier College
Gerald R. Ford- University of Michigan
Jimmy E. Carter- US Naval Academy
Ronald W. Reagan- Eureka College
George H.W. Bush- Yale University
Bill Clinton- Georgetown University
George W. Bush- Yale University</p>
<hr>
<p>Looking at that, it really doesn't matter. Look at the number of Governors that attended their state schools. North Carolina Governor Mike Easley attended UNC- Chapel Hill, for instance. You can be a success from any school, as long as you work hard enough. Going to a top school opens doors at first but if you don't work hard and keep it, those doors close. If you go to a lower ranked school, you can open those same doors with hard work and determination.</p>
<p>The place where you end up working probably matters too</p>
<p>
[quote]
One-third of the Forbes 400 is concentrated in two places: California, which has 89 billionaires, and New York City, with 44.</p>
<p>The billionaire-free states are West Virginia, Vermont, Alaska, Maine, Delaware, Mississippi, Iowa, New Mexico, Kentucky and North Dakota. (South Dakota has one.) Even Wyoming, the least populous state, has a billionaire -- Christy Walton (No. 7, $15.6 billion), one of eight Wal-Mart family members on the list, four of whom are in the top 10.</p>
<p>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The</a> Super-Rich Get Richer: Forbes 400 Are All Billionaires - washingtonpost.com</p>
<p>For some post-grad it might matter, (Harvard, Yale, whatever), but otherwise, the adage holds true (at least what I've seen).</p>
<p>To answer your literal question: Of course it matters. But it matters in a different way than many people think.</p>
<p>Where you go to college will greatly influence your college experience. Your college experience, like other major experiences, will shape your personality and character. And these will continue to shape your life down the road.</p>
<p>It is not, however, a case of "If you go to a top 20 school, your life will be awesome, otherwise it will be ruined." </p>
<p>I will say, however, that having a prestigious degree to put on your resume can land you a couple of interviews that you might not have gotten otherwise, because people who read resumes have limited info, and it's a data point. Of course, if you get the interviews and then it becomes clear that you're not qualified or you otherwise screw up, that prestigious degree won't save you.</p>
<p>If you are asking whether the prestige of the undergrad degree or the prestige of the grad degree helps more in terms of jobhunting, it's usually the grad degree.</p>
<p>It matters to some degree. You'll obviously get more prospects and options coming out of Harvard than your local CC or non-prestigious state school. However, it's how you use your environment that ultimately decides if it benefits you. For example, I'll put my money that an ambitious student from a state school who works hard, gets stellar grades, actively participates in the community, and searches dilligently for jobs to succeed over the guy from Harvard who just sits around and goes to class who doesn't have any plans for the future and hopes that the future will just fall on his lap because he came from Harvard. </p>
<p>To use the age-old cliche, it doesn't quite matter on where you end up, but how you make of the time there.</p>
<p>I second jessiehl.</p>
<p>Prestige doesn't matter, but fit does... Everything else is up to your willingness to work.</p>
<p>It helps to go to a top-tier university since there will be slightly more opportunities available. But of course it is not necessary to even get an education to succeed as long as you have wonderful personal traits that makes you exceptional. However, a great education at an amazing university will undoubtfully increase your chance for success. To each his own of course.</p>
<p>OK, going to an ivy league does not gurantee six figure incomes... I know some ivy grads that are unemployed...</p>
<p>It's your GPA and test scores (e.g. LSAT, GMAT), as well as your application that decides it. Grad school is what is important.</p>
<p>You should pick a college or university that is a good fit for you, since it is likely that you'd be engaged as a student and would tend to do better with respect to grades. That is why undergrad matters.</p>
<p>Here's a secret: Graduate committees and employers do not care so much about where you went to so much as they do HOW YOU DID where you went. So no, the name of the school doesn't really matter - it's how you did your you went, name or no name. A 4.0 from po-dunk State U. and good GRE scores (along with other factors) will make you a vialbe candidate for ANY school in the nation, Ivy League included. So work hard WHERE YOU ARE because WHERE YOU GO doesn't really matter in the long run.</p>
<p>Some great insight:
MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: "Value added"</p>
<p>Exactly. Mollie puts it so eloquently. Ugh its so hard to best her posts.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Here's a secret: Graduate committees and employers do not care so much about where you went to so much as they do HOW YOU DID where you went. So no, the name of the school doesn't really matter - it's how you did your you went, name or no name.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>From a CMU CS prof and grad admissions committee member (for those unfamiliar, CMU has one of the best CS programs in the world):</p>
<p>"Keep in mind that GPAs are evaluated in the context of the undergraduate program. A 3.4 GPA from a top-ranked CS undergraduate program like CMU counts the same as a 3.8 or 3.9 GPA from a less well-known CS undergraduate program."</p>
<p>The full paper is at <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/%7Eharchol/gradschooltalk.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf</a> if anyone is interested.</p>
<p>all above is exactly what I have heard. I know adults that have a degree from colleges that are not in the top cc schools (lower in the alphabet section) and went to a well known grad school and felt they should save their money for the grad degree. my own s is starting to wonder this....if he goes to a school that does not cost us or put us into debt, will we pay for law school...of course we will help either way but when you have multiple kids in school, saving for retirement, paying bills and taxes but make too much for fa, then you have to weigh what the cost of the undergrad degree is worth! talk about runon sentences.</p>
<p>I'll repeat what I've said on other threads... I went to a small liberal arts college in Oregon (Or- ah- gun, not Or-ee-gone for anybody from the eastern US), and now go to med school with a bunch of people from schools ranging from Ivies to giant state schools and everything in between. And there's no difference in our performance here based on where we did undergrad. </p>
<p>This is anecdotal, but, it seems like the people that went to "prestigious" undergrads are the ones that care the most about it. We have a professor here that constantly reminds people at some point in any lecture he gives that he attended Harvard. Which is fine, but one of our profs who did his grad/ undergrad at Illinois state schools has his own disease named after him. I guess Harvard prof might be jealous. It makes him seem like a small person when he introduces people based on where they went to school, not what they've done.</p>
<p>In my view, it all depends on your thinking. If you're as ambitious as the men whose names have been mentioned on the first page, you will more than thrive at even your flagship state university. To keep it simple, if you've got the drive, you'll succeed even if you attend your neighborhood community college.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if your overall view on life is pessimistic, and you like to believe that you won't make it big, chances are, that you never will. If a person doesn't wish to do well, even attending Yale won't help much. When all is said and done, it depends on what you do with the resources you have and not entirely on what you have.</p>
<p>The answer, like so many answers on CC, is that it all depends. Most importantly on you. Every school has truly great students. And virtually all schools have famous grads. However, the issue may be how many do they have? And, it is that, which may produce some of the differences in a probablistic sense. What are the odds if I go to x versus if I go to y (assuming equally excellent performance).</p>
<p>We have a friend who interviews for Google. They're only concerned with what you bring to the table, NOT your degree or name of college. I think we're entering a competence based work force. Better to be focused on the development of skills and problem solving than prestige.</p>