<p>I don’t think that anyone can advise you where to finally go. Certainly not based on the information given here. You will have to figure that one out yourself. Both are good schools. And very different schools. In the end, you have to go with your gut on where you think you are most likely to thrive and meet your goals (personally, financially and professionally). Good luck!</p>
<p>I think I ll just stick to Harvey Mudd… I ve always wanted to go there…and it definitely seems to be the right place for me…thanks everyone for all the help :D</p>
<p>Good luck!! It is a wonderful school, and having watched my son over the last 4 years, can’t imagine that he could have gotten a better education anywhere else.</p>
<p>if you are looking at PhD level programs for Graduate school the top schools for placement are:</p>
<p>Caltech - 35%
Harvey Mudd - 24%
Swarthmore - 21%
Reed Colllege - 20%</p>
<p>so 24% of Mudd graduates go on to a PhD program.</p>
<p>the top Ivy school Yale was ranked 10th…Berkeley was the top public…</p>
<p>this data is a few years old, but recent comments don’t make me feel its different now. Any decent PhD program will highly value a Mudd graduate.</p>
<p>So I am a Mudd alumnus who is currently getting a Ph.D. at UC Berkeley (actually, I’m on this site in an attempt to put off taking a final by going to websites from my past…), and I can say that it is not that hard to get into grad school from Mudd. I was in the middle of my class, had no published papers, and I got into about half of the Ph.D. programs that I applied to (which is pretty good by most standards). I’ve got a couple of points worth making.</p>
<p>-Grad school admissions (at least for Ph.D.'s) are not at all like undergrad admissions. In undergrad, someone looks at your application, and makes a decision based on how well you stack up to everyone else. Grad school is more like a job application. Professors often look through applications in an attempt to fill in a niche in their lab.</p>
<p>-Admissions are also different for the students applying. You are looking for a lab you like at a school that offers you a good package (good money, not much TAing, freedom of research, etc.). Because of all this, you will see a lot of people going to non-“top tier” schools. There are real advantages to being at a lesser-known university. To give you an example, in engineering, many students don’t even apply to MIT or Stanford because their funding is much worse than it is in other schools.</p>
<p>-That said, Mudd is well known in grad schools. Every domestic student and pretty much every professor I have met at Berkeley knows Mudd. I know and work with a bunch of Mudders at Berkeley, and I think that the school ends up being treated with a lot of respect because the graduates are all really good at what they do.</p>
<p>-Your chances may be marginally better to get into a grad school at a particular school if you go there for undergrad, work for a professor and become best friends. That said, there are huge risks involved. For instance, the professor may not have room for you or you may change your mind about what you want to do.</p>
<p>-Especially if you go to Mudd, there is a high probability that you will change your mind about your major or grad school. Many people do change their mind about one or the other. Case in point, I only gave grad school a second glance at the start of my senior year.</p>
<p>-If your finances allow for it, go to Mudd for four years. If they do not, don’t go to Mudd. College is a transformative experience, and you should milk it for what it is worth. If you try to do Mudd in three years, you will likely be very unhappy, work all the time, and not enjoy the social aspect that is really the most important part of college.</p>
<p>Keep an open mind and have fun.</p>
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<p>Yes, for the most part, but much less so in some areas. Admission to mathematics programs is an example of where there is no lab, so the decision is made by a general committee, often without serious consideration towards who the student will work with, and more towards the student’s overall level and academic interests, somewhat more broadly speaking. I imagine the situation is similar in pen and paper fields.</p>
<p>It winds up being somewhat more like undergraduate admissions, though non-academic factors seem to play a much less decisive role.</p>