<p>The reputation of the university or the reputation of the program? (I'll be doing my undergrad in Canada, and my grad in the US, by the way.) </p>
<p>I'm trying to decide what university to attend next year, and I feel tempted to go to the most reputable/prestigious one, but I have to maintain a high GPA for grad school. One of the schools I'm considering probably isn't that well-known in the US, but the specific program is strong and might be known by professors in that field. I also think I might be able to achieve higher marks there. What should my priorities be?</p>
<p>The following are probably not true about professional schools (e.g. Law, Med, Business), but if you’re going into a research-intensive field, grad schools don’t care about the overall reputation, and they even don’t care as much about (though they would help) GRE & GPA, as long as they’re not ridiculously bad.</p>
<p>They do care about:
Research (preferably authorship in papers)
Good recs (from your PI/professors)
As you mentioned, a specific program that is well-known in the field</p>
<p>Grad schools are more about what you want to do. Thus, you should not go to a grad school because of its prestige but its depth of research in your field.</p>
<p>The reason you would like to attend a well-known university for undergrad should also not because of its prestige but because of the numerous opportunities it would offer. Of course, Canadian universities, especially the large ones (with lots of grants), would fulfill this requirement as well.</p>