<p>Basically, I don’t want to go to a school that doesn’t prepare me for Grad school, so naturally, I’d like the Bachelor’s program to be strong enough to prepare me for that goal.</p>
<p>You’re not understanding what I’m saying: do not focus one what grad <em>school</em> you want to go to, determine what level of grad <em>program</em> you want to aim it.</p>
<p>If you’re looking to go directly to a PhD program, you’ll want a path that provides you with strong LOR’s (Letters of Recommendation) and strong in this case means from people who are known in the field and have some what. If Professor Schlobotnik is a world expert on I/O queing algorithms or some such and teaching at Northeast Central Amalgamated State, that’s a fine LOR. Chances are that he’s not and if someone of his caliber isn’t teaching at NCAS, then NCAS isn’t a good school for you.</p>
<p>Some people get into top PhD programs by first taking a Masters somewhere; going for a Masters gives you more leeway for where you take your undergrad but beware that if you want a top PhD program, you want a Masters from as strong an institution as possible. If all you want is a terminal Masters, you should probably check out the placements of various programs to figure out where you should be aiming for and then see what undergrad schools they pull the majority of their applicants from or at least what <em>level</em> of undergrad school.</p>
<p>In short, I think you need to start worrying about horses before considering the cart.</p>
<p>That’s like asking if colleges look at what high school you went to.
Strong question.</p>
<p>More than likely I will attend Beloit college (a lesser known school, no?) and I plan to study anthropology. I really want to shoot for top grad schools - do I have a shot? I worry because I didn’t get in to UChicago or even UMich for undergrad…(deferred for both, eventually rejected from Chicago and waitlisted at Mich)</p>
<p>School name matters for sure. I attend a public state school for chem eng and I have a 3.85 GPA overall, 770/750 GRE score, 2 publications in prestigious journals with high impact factors, over 6 years of research experience, leadership positions, blah blah, good essays (assuming so because I was also awarded an NSF GRFP fellowship).</p>
<p>I got accepted to only one top 5 program and rejected from three. </p>
<p>I honestly believe that if I had the same stats and went to a more prestigious school (something like UMich, where I had a chance to go to but couldn’t because of financial issues) I would have been accepted to more schools.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s a generalization that you just can’t make. The fact that you got into <em>one</em> Top 5 program is a lottery victory in itself. Graduate programs routinely get hundreds of applications for a half-dozen slots. At these levels of selectivity, any number of issues could have created your results. For instance, the professors in your sub-specialty of interest at one of those schools may not have taken any new students that cycle, leaving you without a potential advisor. At another, you were simply outcompeted by other applicants.</p>
<p>A quick google search will tell anyone not familiar with Beloit College that it is a solid and respectable school. Now just be a b****** rock star from mars.</p>
<p>You can e-mail some profs from the department you’re considering for undergrad and ask where their students end up - I asked one of my professors, and unfortunately he only knew personally one student who applied for PhD programs in the last few years in social psychology (which is what I was considering at the time), so I only got an idea of where that student got in, and have no idea of his stats. But it did provide me with an idea of what level programs to realistically shoot for (of course, now I’m more interested in marketing so I’m back at square one 
). It doesn’t mean my school didn’t prepare students for graduate school - it just meant that most students at the small private LAC weren’t as interested in research as maybe students are at a larger state school.</p>
<p>Does graduating from a school with an ABET accreditation in your major (comp sci in my case) affect/increase the chances of getting into a good grad program? Or is it just for jobs?</p>
<p>I’m a bit on the fence with ABET, since some (if not, a good majority) good comp Sci schools aren’t ABET accredited (I.e: CMU, UCSD), but are exceptional schools.</p>