<p>...you major in something that people at your undergraduate school rarely choose as their major? I'm not talking about the school having a flat out bad program, but it's just not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of that school, like majoring in English at MIT.</p>
<p>Little if at all. GPA, GRE, languange, reseach, experience, etc. all come before that in order of importance.</p>
<p>Do you mean for a profession graduate degree (e.g. MBA) or for graduate academic degree (e.g. Masters and PhD)?</p>
<p>For the former, no one cares. </p>
<p>For the latter, coming from a school that is well recognized in your field (assuming your major and your graduate studies are in the same field) matters quite a bit. Not entirely necessary but coming from a place that the grad program adcoms know of (because they recognize the faculty at that school and its respected in their field) is a huge bonus.</p>