Does the prestige of your undergrad engineering program matter in grad/law school admissions?

Graduate School
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<p>So I'm trying to get a sense of my future career as a high senior still trying to choose which undergrad school to attend.
There're two schools that I'm seriously considering:
1. A very young and inexpensive state school (although up-and-coming), 20 minutes drive from my house (University of Texas at Dallas)
2. A prestigious (very well known in the tri-state area) ivy-caliber school in NYC (the Cooper Union, which started charging tuition starting from my class)</p>

<p>The cost of Cooper Union's prestige, in this case, is 20K per year, which will likely get me into some debt (not too much though since my parents are, graciously, willing to help me cover the tuition)</p>

<p>I'm gonna do electrical/computer engineering, with the ultimate plan for grad school since I don't want to spend the rest of my life in the technical field. After undergrad study, I'm considering:
1.working a few years then move up to managerial positions that allow me to lead projects while getting my employer to pay for grad school, or
2.going right into a master's or PhD program then land a job..</p>

<p>To attend Cooper Union will very likely get me into the first scenario, as opposed to a cheaper UT Dallas for the second one.</p>

<p>The consensus seems to be that it doesn't matter where you went for undergrad, since all ABET-accredited engineering program teach essentially the same things--and prestige only gets you OPPORTUNITIES and can't replace actual knowledge/skills and experience that actually get you job offerings--so UTD seems a really practical choice. But with my plan for grad school (possibly an MBA, or even law school if I were to become a patent attorney), would attending a more (regionally) prestigious school be a better choice? </p>

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<p>For MBA and JD programs, there are other forums on CC that are better suited to answering the question, and I would refer you to them:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/professional-graduate-school/”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/professional-graduate-school/&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>For an EE or CE grad program, my answer is this:</p>

<p>Prestige does play a part in getting into grad school, although it is a relatively small part on average. Grad admissions is very individual and holistic, and in theory you can get everything you need at any ABET-accredited school. In practice, there is a distinct advantage in having some quality senior or grad-level coursework in your proposed specialty, and especially in having some quality research experience, and “better” schools tend to offer more opportunities for both the classes and the research. You are also aided by the academic reputation of those professors who write your recommendations, and again a “better” school will have, on average, more highly regarded professors than a “lesser” school.</p>

<p>So IF you are aggressive in seeking out those top professors, and IF they are researching something of interest to you, and IF you go after those extra coursework and research opportunities, THEN the “better” school can give you an edge on grad admissions.</p>

<p>That having been said, the vast majority of it lies simply on your own dedication and ability, and the way those change from school to school has little to do with any rankings and more to do with how well that particular school fits your personality and needs.</p>

<p>I should add (from experience) that most schools have a level of academic rigor roughly on par with their rankings, and making a big jump in school quality can mean a hard time adjusting to a suddenly higher academic standard. In this way, a “better” school can often help you to finish grad school even when it doesn’t help you get in.</p>

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<p>I do believe that the prestige of your undergrad program does matter, to a degree.</p>

<p>For example, a student with a 3.5 GPA from MIT likely has an advantage over someone with a 3.5 GPA from some no name school, assuming everything else is equal (courses taken, test scores, etc.)</p>

<p>Likely, the 3.5 from MIT might have better odds of admission over a 3.6 from a no name school (again, assuming everything else is equal)</p>

<p>How much of an advantage is hard to say. But, in general, I believe an advantage does exist.</p>

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<p>For example, a student with a 3.5 GPA from MIT likely has an advantage over someone with a 3.5 GPA from some no name school, assuming everything else is equal (courses taken, test scores, etc.)</p>

<p>I always very much dislike this example because the assumption is that it becomes harder to get an A as institutional prestige goes up, and it assumes that “everything else can be equal.” I have found that the former isn’t necessarily true - top schools are actually pretty well-known for rampant grade inflation, and I think graduate admissions professors are well aware of that. The latter definitely isn’t true - all other things will never be equal, because you’re always comparing two completely different students. They may be roughly similar, but there will be something to distinguish them. And graduate school admissions are holistic; they take into account a lot more than just the GPA. For that reason, I am not sure I’m willing to believe that a 3.5 from MIT always has an advantage over a 3.5 from UT-Dallas.</p>

<p>(But a 3.5 from MIT with 2 years of research experience in one of the best engineering labs in his subfield and three letters of recommendation from well-known, prominent engineering scholars at MIT will have a definite advantage over a UT-Dallas applicant with 2 years of research in a good but not excellent lab and letters of rec from some good but not well-known engineering scholars. That’s saying something different, though.)</p>

<p>And to answer your question, no, I don’t think Cooper Union will necessarily be better for MBA or law school admissions either. Law school admissions are very numbers-focused, but if you look at the schools represented in the top schools’ classes their students come from ALL over. If you do really, really well in undergrad and on the LSAT, you can get into a top law school. With an MBA, it’s focused on leadership experiences and your work experience, so if you get a good job after college and work to try to advance relatively quickly, you can get into a good MBA program from UT-Dallas.</p>

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<p>@juillet–thanks a lot for your insight! (everybody else’s too!) indeed, the “holistic approach” matters a lot!
It’s good to hear that top grad school students come from all over and not just limited to Ivies or MIT! (I hope I got the right message)
Now that we seem to agree on the fact that the “prestige” is not a make-or-break part in graduate school admissions, I do wonder how essential undergrad research is in this process, since nowadays everybody who’s gone grad has at least some research done.
After further investigation, I realized that Cooper Union really gears towards preparing students specifically for the job market, and therefore practical training/teaching is emphasized over more theoretical research (notice CU doesn’t have a PhD program), that is to say CU teaches students how to get the engineering work done professionally; I also heard from current students that it can be very tough to find research positions at school since most professors don’t do research but are dedicated teachers.
Then on the other side, as a PhD-degree-granting university (albeit not that well known), UTD seems to provide much more opportunities to do research, as well as more internship possibilities due to all the surrounding big companies like Texas Instrument, Samsung, etc. </p>

<p>Now the question becomes, does student A, who
graduated CU with a 3.2 GPA (CU’s grade-deflation is well known in tri-state area), no research experience, some internship experience</p>

<p>have an advantage in MS/PhD admission over student B, who
graduated with 3.9 GPA in five years with a master’s degree already (UTD has a “fast-track” program), participated in lots of researches and internships and co-authored articles ? (assuming equal GRE and other test scores)</p>

<p>It seems to me Cooper’s regional reputation may become powerless…
(but it may be a different story if you’re trying to find a job in tri-state area–I don’t think your employers look at if you’ve done undergrad research as much as grad schools)</p>

<p>Another important question is, how do I objectively evaluate how “well-known” or “established” my professor is in his/her field. Here’s a list of UTD professors, and some of them seem really prestigious: <a href=“List of University of Texas at Dallas people - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Texas_at_Dallas_people&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>For example, do Dr. John H.L. Hansen (<a href=“John H.L. Hansen - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H.L._Hansen&lt;/a&gt;), Dr. Mark W. Spong (<a href=“Mark W. Spong - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_W._Spong&lt;/a&gt;) seem “good” candidates for me to go ahead and talk to and possibly ask for research opportunities? (their research all look really interesting to me!)</p>

<p>I think I should call them up anyways just to see what they have to say, or meet them at UTD–I bet they don’t usually have high school seniors asking them about research direction.</p>

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<p>Disclosure, as always: Engineering isn’t my field, so I’m commenting from a more general grad school perspective.</p>

<p>As I said in my first post, institutional prestige does not work that way. But undergraduate research is absolutely essential, especially in the STEM fields. Generally speaking applicants are not competitive without at least 2 years of research experience - so, starting research in your junior year at the latest, but preferably in your sophomore year or earlier.</p>

<p>So no, a student from a great school but with a lower GPA and no research experience is not as competitive (let alone more) for PhD admissions as a student from a good school with a high GPA, an MS, and high-quality research experience. Where you go doesn’t matter as much as what you do there.</p>

<p>Although I think you may have taken my MIT point the wrong way - I don’t mean that you have to work with well-known professors in order to get into graduate school. It can certainly help, but most undergraduates don’t, actually. I was only explaining one reason why an MIT undergrad might have an advantage over an undergrad from a regional public school; it’s not just because the name MIT dazzles people, but because MIT has resources (including well-known professors) that a regional public doesn’t. Think about it this way: if you get a recommendation from Professor Famous at MIT, the people reading your application at UIUC or Michigan or Princeton may have gone to grad school with Prof Famous, or organized a research symposium with him, or had lunch with him at a conference. At the very least, they’ll be familiar with his work in the field and can be assured that you got good research training in a good lab.</p>

<p>At UTD, your professors are more likely to be relatively unknown to the people reading your app at UIUC or Michigan or Princeton, but that doesn’t mean that they will dismiss your experience out of hand or even that that MIT kid will get in over you. He just has a slight advantage. You might both get admitted. Heck, maybe his statement of purpose is abysmal or he has low GRE scores or the professor you’re both competing to work with needs someone who can do XYZ skill and you can do it but MIT Kid can’t. Or maybe he talked to you on the phone and liked you better, or worked with you during an REU. You see what I’m saying? There’s a whole matrix of factors and possibilities; MIT Kid will be more advantaged than you on some but you’ll be more advantaged than him on others, if you work hard.</p>

<p>Engineering isn’t my field, so I can’t comment on the professors’ reputations. But you don’t have to work with someone famous or well-known in the field. That can give you an edge, but it’s like a cherry on top.</p>

<p>I can’t speak to whether professors at Cooper Union do or don’t do research. I’m skeptical, because most professors at teaching institutions do some kind of research (indeed, they are expected to do so for tenure) - you can get research experience at small LACs, for example. But CU is a very different kind of place.</p>

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<p>@julliet Believe me, I never claimed that getting an A at MIT is harder than getting an A at a less prestigious school. </p>

<p>My point is that, in terms of perception, whether it be in the minds of grad school admissions officers or hiring managers, the prestige level of the school may be a potential advantage.</p>