<p>This has been suggested by several of my professors (I am in my last year at CC): get your Bachelor's somewhere less challenging, and probably less respected, if you want to go to grad school. It will be easier to earn a high undergrad gpa at that less-competitive school which will make you more competitive for grad school e.g. Instead of going to Berkeley for EECS and getting a 3.2, go to Sacramento State and get a 3.8, and you will more easily be able to get your Master's at a prestigious institution. Any opinions on this advice? I was hoping to transfer to Berkeley for EECS in fall '11, but I am now wondering if that would be the best way to set myself up for success in the future.</p>
<p>Your professor is right. The kid with the 3.8 GPA from Sacramento State would be picked over the person with 3.2 GPA at Berkeley. </p>
<p>However, there may be more research opportunities at Berkeley and you would be working with more respected individuals than if you were at Sacramento State. Grad schools are really concerned with this stuff. In this respect, Berkeley has an edge.</p>
<p>Overall, the school that will take you further really depends on the individual.</p>
<p>Grad school admissions is way different than undergraduate. Professors make admissions decision for graduate school. Being a professor is an incredibly hard job and to be successful they have to be ruthless with their time. They want to invest that limited time into those students who they think will be able to write the best ground breaking research papers which they co-author. Professors have careers at stake in this process unlike undergraduate admissions committees. They also have to constantly replenish their supply of graduate students because the good ones tend to graduate :-)</p>
<p>I don’t agree with your strategy. I think that impressing a professor by doing good undergraduate research at Berkeley and getting A’s in the subjects most relevant to your research is the way to get into graduate school.</p>
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<p>I can guarantee that is absolutely ** not true **.</p>
<p>By your logic a 4.0 from the University of Phoenix online would be superior to a 3.2 from Berkeley; I find this difficult to believe.</p>
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<p>That doesn’t sound right…</p>
<p>Your understanding of GPA is relevant to undergrad admissions and admissions in medical and law school, but it doesn’t extend to graduate school. As long as you get some minimal threshold GPA graduate programs couldn’t care less what your GPA from college was. I found when I interviewed for Phd programs, that faculty on the admission committees hadn’t even bothered looking at the GPA. They were interested in my research experience and goals for graduate school. They want to know that you will fit in with the research capabilities of the department and be able to find an advisor whose work you will be able to contribute to. Sacramento State will not provide the high quality research opportunities nor the high caliber connections that Berkeley would. If the choice is between UCB and Sacramento State, take Berkeley in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>Take a look at who gets into top law schools, predominately kids from top colleges.</p>
<p>This is bad advice. Go here you’ll have the smartest peers and learn the most. Even in engineering where school doesn’t matter as much, the top jobs go to grads of top schools. You may decide you don’t need a masters or want a PhD, and you may not be of interest to top programs if you have not worked with top profs.</p>
<p>^The kids from “top colleges” such as Harvard have insane grade inflation. Publics, such as Berkeley, are quite deflated. Berkeley is not a “top school” in the aspect that it’ll hand out free A’s.</p>
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I can absolutely guarantee to you it is true. Given the students are exactly the same in every other way, graduates schools don’t play the silly rankings game nor are they fascinated by <em>gasp</em> prestige. I’d like to add .6 GPA points is a huge difference! The Berkeley student may not have even made the cutoff Belevitt is talking about. For many individuals, going to a more competitive undergraduate university does not pay off.</p>
<p>Some students who want to have an easier time earning a high GPA while maintaining some research opportunities choose the mid-tier UCs as a compromise.</p>
<p>EDIT: I’d like to add that Berkeley does have an advantage in particular industries such as Finance and Investment Banking that would be impossible at Sacramento State but for grad school, in terms of the exact same determined student attending the two different universities, its advantages are less evident.</p>
<p>Certainly in the sciences, and often in engineering the admission decisions for graduate schools that are highly regarded place a great deal of weight on professor recommendations, and your technical achievements (beyond grades). The reputation of the recommending professor matters. And the admissions committee, unlike that for undergraduates, is made up of department heads and senior professors in the field. So the recommendations that count are specific, technical and brutally honest – good and bad.</p>
<p>It is very difficult to obtain the experience, the opportunity, and the mentoring that is necessary to be successful in graduate school in colleges/universities who’s main focus is primarily to prepare students for the workplace immediately on graduation. If your intention is graduate school pick undergraduate colleges that can effectively prepare you for graduate school.</p>
<p>wacker1990 –</p>
<p>“several of [your] professors” might be right, but for a reason different from what has been discussed thus far.</p>
<p>Let’s use an example more realistic than the Berkeley - Sac. State… let’s use Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara.</p>
<p>IF the SAME STUDENT at Berkeley is in the 50% of his/her engineering class, while at UCSB would be 15%, it is likely that AT UCSB this student will get encouragement, mentoring, and proactive invitations to participate in research projects that the SAME STUDENT would not get at Berkeley due to being 50%. What Professor is going to reach out to a 50% student at Berkeley? </p>
<p>Let’s use a sports analogy – a youth soccer team. What if a kid could start and play on an average rec league team, but would ride the bench and play 10% of the time on a Travel Club team? Further, on the Club team non-starter kids won’t get may reps in practice and just play a support role. Most sports parents would say – get on the best team WHERE YOUR KID WILL START. Starting games is the equivalent of faculty access in college. The same argument could probably be made for a sophomore who could ride the bench on Varsity, or be a team leader on JV. Just as it is hard to make significant improvement without being on the field most of the time, it is hard to make significant progress academically (access to a quality grad school) in the absence of faculty mentoring.</p>
<p>Mentoring is GOLD. A student should attend the school where their % standing among peers will facilitate access to faculty, internships, research, and faculty letters of rec. At an LAC, that is just about anyone in the top 50%, while at a public research University, it would normally require top 20% or even top 10%.</p>
<p>^^That’s absolutely the truth of our hard lives! research and good profs are more or less available everywhere, maybe not in Alaska, but distribution is a LOT more homogeneous than most people think! what makes the prestigious ones, prestigious is NOT the school itself but the students there, why 3.8 at Sac = 3.2 at Cal? simply because of the competition which for great majority is not a PRO.</p>
<p>Just imagine for a sec: what if Cal and Sac exchange their students, completely, do you really think Cal’s going to be the same Cal!</p>