Grad School Placements for Mudd Students

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvey Mudd College
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<p>Hey guys. I recently got accepted at Mudd(yay!!!). As of now, it seems to be my top choice. The only thing that is bothering me is that not many people seem to know of Mudd(especially in India) considering that it is such a small school. Anyway, I have lots of stuff to ask. Any help would be much appreciated! :)</p>

<p>1) Will it be a problem to go to a good grad school if Im from Mudd? I saw the Post grad survey(link given below) on their website and it says that 3 people are going to MIT. Is that a small number, considering that Harvey Mudd has so so many smart people(Their SAT II Math range is 760-800 this year!!) Also I ve heard that grade inflation at Mudd is really low. Is that a problem too?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.hmc.edu/files/careerservices/post-grad-survey.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.hmc.edu/files/careerservices/post-grad-survey.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>2) Is transferring out of Mudd difficult? Not that I am planning to( I love Mudd!!) but I'm just a little concerned about life in Claremont (It's a really small place). </p>

<p>3) How often do people go to LA? Considering that Claremont is relatively small, I would want to go to LA. What are the available means of transport and how many people actually go there?</p>

<p>4) I was interested in the financial engineering program at Claremont Graduate University. Will it be possible for me, as an undergrad, to minor or to take some classes there?</p>

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<p>I also wanted to know if it is possible for anyone to graduate before 4 years(I ve heard some people take CLEP and others attend summer school to do that). Since Harvey Mudd is really really expensive, a semester less could help save a lot of money. Thanks again :)</p>

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<p>The great grad schools know about and admit Mudd students. Think about the numbers. The class is less than 200, but 3 went to MIT, 1 to Cal Tech, 1 to Stanford, etc. Also, last year (and this year), the job market has been really great – particulary for the CS majors. Many of the CS majors turned down great grad schools to work, at least for a while, before grad school. Mudd may not have as much name recognition outside of its niche as other schools outside of the STEM community, but it is no impediment to grad schools. Except for med schools, the grading scale doesn’t seem to be a problem either. The grad schools know what the grades mean at Mudd.</p>

<p>I am sure it is possible to graduate in 3 years, but I don’t know anyone who has. The workload is really tough at Mudd and they do not give credit towards graduation for AP classes. Those who I know that took summer math, etc., did so to relieve the pressure on the workload the rest of the year. </p>

<p>Some go into LA, but it isn’t close enough to just pop over. You can take the train into LA, but then have to rely on LA’s rather pathetic public transportation system to get around. And you need to either spend the night in LA or pay close attention to the the train schedule to get back. There are folks with cars to drive in, but the LA highways are notoriously clogged. That said, I know there are classes that go into LA to go to museums, etc. I think they car pool. But for the most part, I think most of the social life is in Claremont. </p>

<p>I don’t know about transferring or the Claremont Grad school.</p>

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<p>Argh my original reply got eaten by my browser. I’ll try to be more brief this time.</p>

<p>Grad school: If you’re in the top half of your class, you can go anywhere. Grad schools do know about Mudd, so as long as you do well at Mudd and have some research experience you can get in at lots of really cool places. If you’re in the bottom half of your class or don’t have research experience (there’s few good reasons why you wouldn’t - there are summer opportunities both on and off-campus as soon as after your freshman year that are readily available to Mudders), then you might not get in anywhere. Grad schools make an exception for Mudd GPAs … but if it’s hovering around 3.0 and your application doesn’t otherwise show that you’re worth it (published research, good recs), they have no reason to admit you. [Personal anecdotes: I’m a senior, and nearly everyone I know who’s planning on grad school is choosing between 3 or more really prestigious programs. However, one of my friends is in the latter category (~3.0, one summer of research) and didn’t get in anywhere. Granted, this is PhD fellowships (Mudders usually skip right over Masters) - a friend of mine who was rejected from all his grad programs a few years ago spent a few semesters doing undergrad/masters classes at the school of his choice after graduation, and they admitted him the next year once he had proven himself by acing everything. So even if Mudd destroys your GPA and your immediate future plans, it can be reconciled pretty quickly].</p>

<p>Also, MIT is not the best place for grad school in every discipline. I’ve actually talked to quite a few people over the past few years who have rejected MIT or the Ivies because they found better* departments, advisors, or research topics elsewhere. (*where “better” could mean “more interesting”, “friendlier”, “more breadth/people in the department/my specific research area”, etc depending on the person). </p>

<p>Transferring: If your GPA is dragged through the mud(d) by some of the tricky core classes, then you might not be able to get into another really good school right away. Transferring to a state school is usually not a problem (the dean of academic affairs will write letters and generally be helpful in trying to help you transfer) and your grades there will be good enough (based on talking to current Mudders who had to take an academic leave of absence) that you could probably transfer on to another excellent school after a semester or two at the state school. Also, there is the “Program of Transfer Studies” ([Regulations](<a href=“http://www.hmc.edu/academicsclinicresearch/catalogue1/catalogue-10111/regulations.html#transfer]Regulations[/url]”>http://www.hmc.edu/academicsclinicresearch/catalogue1/catalogue-10111/regulations.html#transfer)</a>) which helps you improve your GPA in your last semester at Mudd by taking fewer or less rigorous classes than are normally required.</p>

<p>LA: ~1 hour by train, 30-40 minutes by car. Best way to go is to plan ahead and get other people (preferably people with a car) excited about it. Then you can get subsidized by the school ([Committee</a> for Activities Planning](<a href=“http://sites.google.com/site/capactivities/]Committee”>http://sites.google.com/site/capactivities/)). However, azalia is right: social life is centered on the 5Cs and very few people make frequent trips to LA. Claremont the town is pretty boring, but there’s actually a lot going on at the 5Cs on the weekends. In my original post I listed a bunch of stuff but I really don’t feel like doing that again so if you’re looking for something specific let me know.</p>

<p>Graduating early: I know one person who is graduating after 3 years this spring. I think she did it by passing out of a bunch of Core classes, but I don’t actually know (she used to be a regular on these boards, so maybe she could answer herself…fiona_, where are you?). </p>

<p>My understanding of CLEP exams is that they’re community college caliber, so I can’t imagine Mudd would accept them. But maybe I’m wrong. What you can pass out of and how varies by department, so I would suggest talking to them individually. Physics and Chemistry offer their own exams for lower level classes, while passing out of Math generally just involves showing them your transcript and perhaps a quick conversation to make sure you actually know what you’re doing.</p>

<p>Summer Math can get a little bit of Core Math out of the way, and you can take some humanities/social sciences/arts courses over the summer at Pitzer (but not anywhere off the 5Cs - the hum dept. is very strict about accepting off-campus credit). However, research and internships are much more valuable than summer school (at least in my opinion), and Mudd sets you up pretty well for both (except maybe just after your freshman year when you have little experience).</p>

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<p>At the admitted students weekend, there was a panel of five students: two students were on their way to Harvard for their PhDs, the three others had been offered outstanding jobs in their areas of study. I was really impressed with how well known Mudd is with companies and grad schools and how much the school works with the students to prepare them for life after u/g.</p>

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<p>Miru (or anyone else who can answer, for that matter):</p>

<p>I’m a prospective prefrosh (probably majoring in CS) comparing my college options. [This</a> guide](<a href=“http://www.cs.hmc.edu/gradschool.pdf]This”>http://www.cs.hmc.edu/gradschool.pdf) on the HMC website says that “we have had very few students with GPA’s under 3.7 get accepted to these most competitive schools” for Ph.D programs in CS like CMU, UC Berkeley, Stanford, etc. However, from what I’ve heard, getting a 3.7 GPA at Mudd is just about impossible.</p>

<p>I’m not sure I want to go to grad school (and obviously the grad programs I listed aren’t necessarily the best ones - it depends on what I’m interested in after 4 years) but I want to keep my options open. Is a 3.7 GPA really as hard as people make it out to be? Or is it not so much of a requirement as the aforementioned guide makes it out to be? Thanks for the help.</p>

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<p>There are Mudd students in many of the strong graduate programs in mathematics, but they were probably very, very strong students, probably with those 3.7+ GPAs. </p>

<p>I think OP, CS seems a bit more forgiving about GPA, although programs like Stanford and MIT can probably ask for high GPAs along with all the other stuff. I feel like a 3.5 or 3.6 from Mudd with very, very persistent effort at getting a strong research background and fantastic letters should get you into a terrific graduate program.</p>

<p>The one issue I can see with CS admissions is that it seems a lot like “Hey, I want this person in my research group, and they were recommended by someone I know well, let’s hire him…”, and that sort of thing may favor undergraduates who come from very CS-heavy schools for undergraduate, and make it less likely that you can get in from Mudd. I’m sure Mudd academics is well reputed, but I think that means it <em>might</em> be true that you should be in the camp of the absolute most successful students in school to get into the most competitive graduate programs. I just feel someone who struggled a lot less to get a good GPA at Stanford’s undergrad in CS, for example, would have the connections and right background to have an “in” at a terrific program.</p>

<p>This is a point that others can discuss. Miru seems to know how to get you to a good school from Mudd, so I’m just throwing out an outsider’s perspective.</p>

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<p>As encouragement, if your GPA <em>in the field of study of concern</em> is very high, I think this will matter a ton less. That is, if you got a C in biology but your physics GPA is super high, I don’t think you’ll have a problem getting into graduate school in physics.</p>

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<p>So I’m wagering, to be clear, as an outsider who’s thought about graduate admissions in general, that the answer is closer to “yes it is a requirement” than that it isn’t, if you want to get into MIT for CS, for instance. Why? There is one thing other than just plain academic excellence that gets you into schools, and that is having professors who are the most well known in the field of CS recommend you, after you worked as a researcher for them. This may all put more pressure on a Mudd student to be at the top to actually stand out enough to get into MIT over all the international students (remember, graduate admissions is an extremely international game) and undergraduates from UCB, MIT, CMU, Stanford with a combo of very good GPA and research experience and letters from stars.</p>

<p>Remember, when I say ___ GPA, I mean in your field of interest…</p>

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<p>tl;dr : If you’re planning on going to grad school from the start, you probably won’t have too much difficulty going where you want. </p>

<p>I didn’t apply to grad school and I have no official stats so, uhh … take this with a grain of salt. </p>

<p>That grad school document is written by the current department chair and he has access to actual statistics and knows basically everyone in the department, so I’d say it’s fairly accurate. You’ll need that 3.7 GPA unless you have fantastic research experience.</p>

<p>As for whether getting a 3.7 GPA is difficult … it all depends on how you look at it. I was your typical Mudd admit,academically - 3.98 GPA/top 1% of class, 9 AP classes + Multi-V calculus going in. At Mudd, both my overall and CS major GPA hover around 3.0. So from the perspective of random people who knew me from home, getting a 3.7 at Mudd looks pretty dang impossible. HOWEVER, there’s more to this story: My grades are really not that important to me, and I’ve never seriously considered going to grad school. I’m ridiculously distractable and am frequently up until 3am for no particularly good reason (“working on homework” but actually talking with friends, reading random articles and playing flash games). From this perspective, wellllll…it’s pretty clear why my GPA isn’t so great : it’s not a priority. Also, the required CS classes have the typical painful Mudd lack-of-grade-inflation thing going on, but in my experience this is not the case for the upper division CS electives. So if you know you’re going to be a CS major as a freshman, you’ll have more time to take electives which has a double benefit : (a) they look more interesting on a transcript/resume and (b) it’s actually easier to get an A.</p>

<p>To expand the scope a little bit beyond myself: I know 3 people who were admitted to CMU this year. Each of them had at least 2 summers of research experience (and some during the year too, I think) and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had 3.7+ GPAs because they’re all pretty bright and seem to usually pride themselves in taking the time to turn in quality assignments (I’ve graded for classes they were in). That said, it’s not like they don’t have lives. I don’t want to out them by listing specifics, but they all work and are each involved in at least one high-commitment club. </p>

<p>If those 3 were the only ones admitted to CMU-level programs, then that would be 3/~30 people in the class, so top 10% of the class. If you only include those who applied to grad school, then more like 3/15, so top 20%ish. That sounds pretty scary, considering that this is Mudd. However, you need to consider that a lot of the rest of the class just isn’t interested in going to grad school (like myself), or even producing work above the level needed to graduate (errr…like myself during this semester…so sad…). I guess what I’m trying to say is that if you’re admitted to Mudd and you already have your heart set on grad school, then you probably won’t have much trouble getting into the grad school of your choice.</p>

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<p>On the question of graduating early:</p>

<p>If you’re worried about graduating early, you’re probably stuck in the middle of the awkward financial donut the financial aid system has created. The children of the rich enjoy 4 years and graduate without debt. Those whose parents haven’t the faintest hope of paying $60k/year get generous financial aid and also manage to graduate with little debt. Those in the middle are stuck with either depleting their parents nest egg or graduating with crushing debt.</p>

<p>If you’re in the middle, I would recommend against going to Mudd or any super high priced college, unless you’re trying to sell your soul and be an iBanker. The debt load you’ll graduate will close down many low paying careers that you might ultimately find more fulfilling. </p>

<p>The pressure to graduate early could lead you to taking absurd overloads and enjoying college very little. Plus, your grades will suffer as a result of the overloads. Why not go to a state school where you could enjoy yourself more and be the star pupil of your class? Just because a campus doesn’t have a worldwide brand doesn’t mean that it won’t have intellectually challenging programs.</p>

<p>To graduate a year early at Mudd, you’re going to likely have to pass out of 4 Core courses (12 credits) minimum. This is rather difficult because Mudd doesn’t accept AP/IB scores for automatic credit. My year, 3 or so passed out of a semester of Frosh chem, 5 passed out of Freshman Mechanics, and 10-15 passed out of a semester of physics. Even passing out of 4 courses, you’ll need 18.5 academic credits a semester, which is quite heavy, assuming you get 5 extra credits from seminar and PE.</p>

<p>On your plans:</p>

<p>I’d like to echo that Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Caltech aren’t the end-all be-all of grad schools, depending on your intellectual interests. Really obscure places can have really well-regarded programs within niches of some research fields.</p>

<p>If you’re interested in “financial engineering” to become an iBanker, stick to Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Princeton blah blah blah. There are banks (Credit Suisse for instance) that hire interns exclusively from a small group of 10 schools. If this is your aspiration, you shouldn’t be setting your sights on Mudd.</p>

<p>There are Mudders who go into quantitative finance and do very well, however. Mudd Investment Fund has pretty good alumni contacts who will help out. Most years, a few people will head off to solid jobs in these fields. If you want to take numerous economics courses, do math or physics. These majors have lots of class space for electives.</p>

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<p>Right, so Miru makes a good point implicitly, which is that a 3.7 GPA is not only the result of being strong, but also actually wanting to put the effort into getting a high GPA. There are plenty of cases where someone is talented and would just rather spend time in other ways.</p>

<p>That said, I think getting into the single graduate school of one’s choice is almost always tough, unless it’s not extremely popular. The odds of getting in somewhere that one will do very well at if the requisite effort is put in though (and if care is taken, and if what is necessary is very much considered) are likely high.</p>

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<p>I guess it’s a little hard predicting the future of any student.</p>

<p>I would think that a student who comes into Mudd with a 4.0 gpa, many college classes including upper division courses, and having never been challenged before but is looking for a challenge, might be able to work hard and come out of Mudd with an above 3.7 GPA.</p>

<p>It seems that Mudd wants to come alongside its students and help them succeed. Would you say this is true, Miru? At least that is the impression they gave. Ultimately, though, it is up to the student him/herself to be motivated enough to do what it takes if one has a goal of getting a PhD.</p>

<p>It seems that schools like MIT, Caltech, Ivies, definitely have a bigger name recognition and thus, might open more doors. OTOH, for those in the know at grad schools with programs in STEM fields, they are most definitely aware of the caliber of student at Mudd and the programs it offers.</p>

<p>It seems it’s split as to whether Mudd grads go onto grad school or straight into the work force.</p>

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<p>Also, isn’t getting a gpa of 3.7 a challenge at any top school such as Princeton, Yale, Harvard, MIT, or Caltech?</p>

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<p>1) Will it be a problem to go to a good grad school if Im from Mudd?
The popular ‘premier’ school seems to be Stanford, not MIT, among Mudders going to grad school.</p>

<p>2) Is transferring out of Mudd difficult? Not that I am planning to( I love Mudd!!) but I’m just a little concerned about life in Claremont (It’s a really small place).
I don’t like Claremont either, but I don’t spend much time off campus. That Claremont is boring doesn’t really affect my life.</p>

<p>3) How often do people go to LA? Considering that Claremont is relatively small, I would want to go to LA. What are the available means of transport and how many people actually go there?
Not very often. What kinds of activities are you interested in? There’s decent food around here.</p>

<p>4) I was interested in the financial engineering program at Claremont Graduate University. Will it be possible for me, as an undergrad, to minor or to take some classes there?
Yes you can take some CGU courses.</p>

<p>Graduating early? Miru mentioned me earlier - I am the Mudder graduating early. Do not come into Mudd seriously thinking about graduating early! It’s stressful, even if you transfer in as many units as I did. It’s easiest if you are a CS major, but Math is also possible. Forget about it if you are a Engineering major. If you are serious about this, you can contact me off this board. Use the ‘send an email’ function.</p>

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<p>So again, it depends on overall GPA vs major-specific. I would think schools like Caltech and Mudd (with a large core that is math/science intensive in fields that one isn’t as comfortable with) might result in a lower overall GPA, but little change in major GPA if one concentrates on those classes. </p>

<p>I think a school like Mudd is reputed to be harder to earn a good GPA at than many top schools. That said, doing very well against bright people at Harvard in math or physics isn’t going to be any cakewalk! I’ve heard some disciplines at Mudd might be more crushing than others for GPA. </p>

<p>I think your son will be fine at Mudd and I’d guess he could graduate with one of those 3.7+ GPAs (but I’m not a student, I only know a few students) - he has the academic maturity, and that combined with tons of effort will help a lot. The only potential problem would be if he minds working on difficult classes in a variety of areas, and prefers to concentrate all his efforts in a single few things.</p>

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<p>I think the bottom line is if you’re one of the strongest at Mudd, you’ll have no trouble anywhere. This whole discussion is really for those who cannot call themselves some of the strongest Mudd students, and how they’d fare if they went to a different school.</p>

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<p>My comment on this part is that Mudd is probably well enough known in a lot of the high tech and math/science community. The thing though is that I feel there is a slight edge in grad admissions if you come from a school that is explicitly home to one of the best graduate programs in that field, because your recommendation letter writers will have that extra pull. As far as whether you can do the work at a high level, a good record in Mudd both research-wise and in school should more than suffice.</p>

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<p>Take a look at the number of students who graduate with honors (3.3) or highest honors 3.7). Might only be 10-15/class with the latter. And this is graduating GPA which is typically higher than junior GPA, the one used in grad school apps. Sometimes those apps ask for GPA in your major courses, which can help. Mudd’s core courses have diminished many an overall GPA. You have to be able to work exceedingly hard on STEM areas that hold no interest to you to have a >3.7 GPA. I would say that you would have to be a star in your major to get into the tippy top PhD program. Even then, if Mudd doesn’t routinely feed to those in your major, you might be rejected in a competitive year–those programs have plenty of applicants with 4.0’s from other elite colleges. However, even with a 3.3, if you have great research/great recs/great GREs, and have made a contribution on campus, you will likely get several offers from top 5 to top 20 programs. Remember it is not so much where you go as what you do in grad school that will lead to career success.</p>

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<p>Considering that I have also gotten into CMU, where would you suggest I should go?</p>

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<p>Also, which is the best business program at the 5 Cs ? Will it compare to the business program at CMU( Tepper seems to be really good) …</p>