<p>I wonder that if I am going to pursue a master degree, my undergraduate school and the gpa in the undergrad. which means more to the application for admission of graduate?</p>
<p>I mean,if you go to a better uni you may get a lower gpa, then how do you choose??</p>
<p>HERE IS MY CHOICES:UCB OR UCSD?</p>
<p>It doesn’t work like that. Prestige of undergrad school comes is less important than what you do at the school, but GPA is also not very important, as long as it’s decent (above 3.0 is almost necessary, higher is better - although that threshhold probably doesn’t apply to many master’s programs).</p>
<p>And besides:
<p>OK I see, thants very much!</p>
<p>I kind of disagree with proletariat. That’s a safe, politcally correct answer. But in the back of adcom’s minds, I think between a 3.0-4.0 GPA scale, the school’s prestige is more important than the GPA. </p>
<p>Ex/
-A 4.0 from Chico is worth less than a 3.0 from UC Santa Barbara (same major).</p>
<p>-A 3.9 from UCSD is worth less than a 3.5 from Cal (same major)</p>
<p>-A 2.9 from from Cal IS NOT worth more than a 3.3 from UCSD.</p>
<p>Considering that it’s August and you would’ve already had to choose between them for Fall enrollment, am I wrong in assuming that you have not yet applied?</p>
<p>Actually I am supposed to apply a transfer during november, I am in a CC now</p>
<p>Why do people always assume that they will get a better GPA at a lower-tier school? Some of the top-tier schools are known for their grade inflation.</p>
<p>My advisor was the Director of Graduate Studies and both of my advisors have served on admissions commitees, and I have to disagree with Denizen. Graduate admissions doesn’t work on a strict quantitative scale where prestige and GPA hang in some sort of balance. They look at you much more qualitatively than that. First of all, I’m not sure that prestige is more important than GPA. It really depends on the program and the individual professor looking at your application. Some professors will be more impressed by top departments and others will look for grades. Also, prestige doesn’t work in the U.S. News sense. Professors don’t care about U.S. News rankings; they care about what they know.</p>
<p>I definitely would not say that a 3.9 from UCSD is “worth less” than a 3.5 from Cal, especially if - let’s say - the program has had 5 successful graduates from UCSD but no experience with Cal. It also really depends on where your good grades are. If that 3.9 reflects a strong major GPA but the 3.5 reflects a weaker major GPA, I doubt that they would prefer the Cal student over the UCSD student simply because they went to Cal - all other things being equal. The other thing is that certain departments at UCSD might be better known in some fields, so a 3.9 may be much stronger there. Let’s say that UCSD has a tight classics department and this is for a classics PhD, and Cal’s isn’t as great. That 3.9 will be very strong. But all other things being equal, I still would not say that a 3.9 from UCSD would be worth less than a 3.5 from Cal. They simply are not that different qualitatively from one another, reputationally speaking.</p>
<p>Honestly, once you are over a certain threshold in the GPA (and GRE) department, fine distinctions matter less. If you have over a 3.5, it doesn’t <em>really</em> matter whether you have a 3.6 or a 3.8. They are going to turn to your letters, your statement, and your research/professional experience at that point.</p>
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<p>But let’s think about this a bit further. Do Cal, UCSD, and UCSB differ a lot in prestige? Not really. All are very well-regarded research institutions. We’re not talking about Podunk State here.</p>
<p>In any case, if you go to a college where you are one of the top students, you get the best opportunities, and can probably get better and more interesting undergrad research positions, possibly with the best scientists in the department. That confers a big advantage in rec letters and undergrad research.</p>
<p>A 3.5 Cal is definitely NOT worth more than a 3.9 UC San Diego. The UCSD student would have a huge upper hand in this case.</p>
<p>I’d argue it’s much closer to 3.5 Cal and 3.55 UCSD. I’m not even sure that Cal would be worth a .4 GPA difference against a CSU.</p>
<p>(I don’t think the previous poster understands how big a .4 difference is or how negligible the university name is.)</p>
<p>Oh, and juillet’s points about grade inflation are also worth considering. Not that Cal in particular has strong grade inflation, but it’s not always safe to assume that going to a less prestigious school will get you a better GPA.</p>
<p>@ denizen. your post seems inaccurate and definitely too biased to be of an use to the OP. where do you have proof of anything you just stated?</p>
<p>I’ll concede I dont know what I was really talking about. LOL. It’s a pretty inaccurate measure and my opinion should be taken w/ a grain of salt. </p>
<p>My point was I think school prestige matters to some degree, but yeah UCSD is such an excellent school you can’t really box it into my example. Cut me some slack guys…</p>
<p>ITS MONDAY!</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say that the idea of a 3.5 at Prestige U being more “worthy” than a 3.5 at Not So Prestigious U is wrong…but really, what are the odds of that factor being the breaking point in an application decision?</p>
<p>Master’s programs in WHAT? That makes a huge difference. Are we talking social work or computer science or business or philosophy? Some fields are much more driven by numbers, prestige and/or professional experience than others. </p>
<p>I’d also like to throw out there that a Master’s degree is not a common degree in many fields. In (pure) mathematics, for example, the admissions criteria to a Master’s degree program would be very different from what you’d expect because Master’s programs are remedial programs targeted at students who did not complete a full math major as an undergraduate. Strong math majors would apply straight to PhD programs without doing a Master’s first.</p>
<p>Just throwing this out there to make sure that what you are asking is actually what you intend to be asking.</p>
<p>I am going to apply a master in computer science or financial engineering, I major in math now.</p>
<p>You just said you were a Community College student in another post (which is what I assumed). You’re somewhat getting ahead of yourself considering that you haven’t even applied to any 4-yrs for your Bachelor’s yet.</p>
<p>Once you’re accepted and you have an actual CHOICE in which you attend, then you should be asking these kind of questions.</p>
<p>I have to do some prepare and choose courses to take according to the choice, but I think you’re right, I will come down to earth.</p>
<p>Transfer to the university that offers the best preparation for students in computer science and financial engineering. Although you are a math major, you will need a strong background in those other departments if you want to be a successful applicant to a graduate program.</p>
<p>Prestige DOES matter, but not to the degree that some people make it out to be. If you read the undergraduate threads, you’d think that careers live and die based on prestigious acceptances. That’s just not true. As Juillet points out, much hinges on the make-up of professors on the admissions committee and what they care about. Prestige matters in that the professors at top-ranked programs are more likely to know colleagues at other top-ranked programs, so the LORs may matter more. And top-ranked universities tend to have more opportunities available for their undergraduates. That doesn’t mean, however, that there are NO opportunities available for undergraduates at lower ranked schools and that those students can’t gain admission into top programs. </p>
<p>Right now, the most important consideration should be what’s right for you, personally. You aren’t talking about a stellar university versus a crummy one. You are talking about two universities that are well-known, albeit with different strengths.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about it. Like juillet said, grad schools are going to look at you more qualitatively than simply what school you went to. When you’re applying to graduate schools, they’d rather see someone who went to podunk-U with lots of involvement and undergraduate research experience than someone who went to prestige-U and did next to nothing thinking prestige is going to get them into the program. In the end, it’s not the name of the university that gets you into a graduate program. The advantage of these high-prestige universities is that you have opportunities to work with people who are the top in their field, and if you can work with them and get a great letter of rec from someone that like, you’re in a great place.</p>
<p>UCSD and UCB are both great schools. Apply to both places and see where you end up. That’s my advice.</p>
<p>As a UCSD graduate, “good luck” is in order if you think you’ll be getting a higher GPA by mere perception of prestige, OP.</p>