going into undergrad, need advice for future grad prospects

Graduate School
1

<p>I'm trying to choose between UC Santa Cruz and UCLA for undergrad, I like UCSC a lot more but UCLA has a lot more presitige.</p>

<p>Will I annhilate my chances of getting into Stanford/MIT/CalTech ( as a computer science major) for graduate school if I decide to go to UC Santa Cruz? Should I just go to UCLA because it will significantly help me?</p>

2

<p>No. Prestige does not matter. What matters is connections and experience. My CC engineering instructor got his masters from Stanford, and he met someone in his graduate classes who went to Fresno State for his undergrad.</p>

3

<p>To determine what you’ll need for graduate school, read this thread:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/graduate-school/348756-graduate-school-admissions-101-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/graduate-school/348756-graduate-school-admissions-101-a.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Also read this thread:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/graduate-school/1131892-how-much-does-prestige-matter-your-opinion-undergrad.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/graduate-school/1131892-how-much-does-prestige-matter-your-opinion-undergrad.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>I went to UCSC. I’m now in a top 10/15 microbio PhD program. </p>

<p>Go where you think you think you will learn the most and give you the most opportunities for undergrad research/experience in compsci. That may be UCSC as they have a small graduate division and more opportunities for undergrad experience, or it may be UCLA if they have a prof that you really want to work with.</p>

<p>On a personal note, go where you think you’ll enjoy the most. Being miserable for ‘prestige’ won’t help you in the long run.</p>

5

<p>Undergrad prestige does not matter.</p>

<p>I went to Tier 2 undergrad and got accepted to multiple top 10/15 graduate accounting programs.</p>

6

<p>Prestige matters because it’s highly correlated with the resources available to you, which is highly correlated with vvv</p>

<p>

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<p>To give you something concrete: I was applying to graduate school in math this year. All but three of the twenty-something admitted (American) students to the doctoral program at MIT had their undergraduate degree from a university ranked in the top 10 in mathematics (ranked for their graduate math program, not the undergraduate program or the university as a whole, though I believe that all of them are also top 30 universities by US News). I got a similar impression at the other top programs I visited, though I don’t have hard data to back that up. The top 5 programs in particular seemed to care quite a bit about “prestige.” The top 5-10 programs had a much more diverse student body already.</p>

<p>But my experience doesn’t necessarily mean anything to you. Maybe the top undergraduate math majors are in fact concentrated at 10 universities. Maybe math is an anomaly among graduate disciplines.</p>

<p>I don’t know how UCSC and UCLA stack up in computer science, so I won’t make a recommendation for one over the other. I will say this much: if one appears to be significantly stronger in computer science than the other, you should take that into account.</p>

7

<p>Since UCLA is so very strong in computer science I would think hard about passing that up if that is your interest. For the very top schools, I think it does help to come from a strong undergraduate program. Not that you will be shut out if you are a good candidate. UCSC’s likely has connections to sillicon valley (and internship ops) but I don’t know too much about the program at SC.</p>

<p>I’d try to explore the department culture at the two schools and find out how accessible undergraduate research is. Since UCSC is much smaller, you may find professors more accessible. UCLA may be more competitive. But there likely is more research going on.</p>

8

<p>Prestige does not matter. What matters is connections and experience.</p>

<p>Prestige is correlated with connections and experience, though.</p>

<p>My take is that prestige does matter, but only in that prestige can give you a leg up into doing the things you need to do. Prestigious schools often have more and better research opportunities, better or more well-known professors who can write good letters, better classes in the field of study, and better resources to develop your outside-of-class knowledge of the field (such as multiple clubs, internships in the field and library resources). I don’t think it helps in terms of professors being impressed that you went to UCLA - they meet people who work and learn at top universities all the time, and I think name-dropping ceases to impress them (unless you are the #1 scholar in your field’s right hand RA, which is unlikely).</p>

<p>You can do all of the necessary things from a lesser-known school - I did - you just may have to work a little bit harder to do them there, since the opportunities may not fall into your lap or be as easily advertised. You’ll have to seek them out yourself. Since you already know grad school is in your future, that won’t be difficult for you.</p>

<p>Also remember that a big factor in prestige is comparisons. We’re not comparing a CA community college to UCLA; we are comparing another UC, and a well-recognized research university at that, to UCLA. I think that in getting into grad school the difference will be negligible.</p>