<p>I was talking to a couple of my friends today about undergraduate work and I was wondering if coming from a less well-known school is a disadvantage in applying to a well-known graduate school? For example, someone mentioned how it might be a disadvantage to be a major in political science at a cal state and then trying to apply to law schools such as Harvard, UC Hastings, and etc. How true is this if at all?</p>
<p>Ask yourself this. If your an admissions officer at a top grad school, what is going to look more impressive to you: A 4.0 at an Ivy or Ivy-caliber school, or a 4.0 from Cal State? I'm not saying it's impossible to get in; I know some people who went to average colleges and ended up as grad students in Ivies, but it's much more difficult.</p>
<p>It's less of a challenge to go from a lesser-known undergrad to a well-known professional school than it is to go from a lesser-known undergrad to a top research graduate program.</p>
<p>It's doable, however.</p>
<p>Hey, a lot of schools only care about test scores. If you score high on the GRE/GMAT/LSAT and your GPA is high, no problem. It's like going from high school to college.</p>
<p>Take a minute to check out where the faculty at top grad schools and professional schools did their undergrad. Many (a majority, probably) of them did their undergrad at "lesser-known" state schools. Their graduate/professional degrees came from the top schools. So, no, I don't think it's particularly difficult. </p>
<p>However, many professional (especially med) schools, unlike grad schools, tend to draw heavily from their own undergraduates. So, yes, it might make a difference in that sense.</p>
<p>I disagree, warblesrule86. The majority are from the top schools, be it public, or private, be it university or LAC. Sure, lesser-schools can send their students to top programs (usually the top students), but usually the top students from the top schools are going to the top grad and professional programs.</p>
<p>You can be much more average at a top school in your class and go to a top grad school, at a lesser school you really need to be the cream of the crop.</p>
<p>Yes, but it's often easier (and cheaper) to be a top student at a lesser school (big fish in small pond, so to speak), which is a fact many people on CC ignore. Besides, many of these school provide good undergraduate educations anyway. </p>
<p>Look at the undergrad profiles of Yale's bio faculty as an example:
MIT
University of Washington-Seattle
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Harvard
University of Virginia
University of Rhode Island
Iowa State University
Colby College
Cornell
Millsaps College
Wesleyan University
University of California-San Diego
Dalhousie University
Syracuse University
SUNY Albany
University of Cape Town
University of Rochester
University of Vermont
...etc. </p>
<p>Clearly, you don't have to go to a top 20 school to get into a good grad school, which is the point I was trying to make. Top 20 schools may well send more students to top schools, but I was merely trying to show that lesser schools have decent placement too-for grad school. Professional school is completely different, however.</p>
<p>Here's an interesting response I got directly from a Michigan graduate department:
[quote]
Beyond these [grades] I can tell you that what most graduate admissions committees (at Michigan, and elsewhere) look for are:</p>
<ul>
<li> high GPAs, high GRE scores (the best grad f'ships rely
heavily on these numbers)</li>
<li> strong letters of recommendation from professors in fields related to
your desired course of study</li>
<li> a clear statement of purpose - what within [your program] do you wish
to focus on theoretically, geographically, and chronologically,
and why is Michigan/Penn/Berkeley etc. the place you feel
best fits your needs?</li>
</ul>
<p>This last has become increasingly important - in ecology, for instance, my colleagues and I would want to see that you know what our research foci are, and have a real reason to want to work with one or more of us and/or a desire to combine working with us with tapping other strengths in the biology department (such as oceanography or forestry).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
high GPAs, high GRE scores (the best grad f'ships rely
heavily on these numbers)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is basically the professor saying, "Good grades equals affordability. Otherwise, expect to be in debt for the rest of your life."</p>
<p>Hooray! ;-)</p>
<p>Okay then, we agree that it can be easier, and sometimes cheaper, to be a top student at a "lesser" school with easier competition, allowing you to perform successfully more easily, increasing your chances of getting into a top program.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and that many of these provide good educations.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks a lot for everyone's opinions. I'll relay the message. :P</p>
<p>Where do LACs like Oberlin and Grinnell fit into all of this? Are they "well-known" and capable of sending students to top grad programs, or no?</p>
<p>Sure, they send top students to good programs in professional and graduate school. You can probably check their websites for information as to where they send their students. The trend is, though, that the weaker the undergrad school is, the fewer students they send to better programs.</p>
<p>I've posted this a couple of times on the forum but it should be repeated.</p>
<p>In my Ph.D. program (which they award all students full fellowships), we have students from Stanford, Harvard, Yale, students from schools like NYU, Tufts, UCLA, and students from places like Cal-State Northridge. The biggest representation is from the Oberlin Conservatory.</p>
<p>One of the students (and in my opinion the brightest in my entering class) went to Houston Baptist University, ranked by US News and World Report as a third tier regional southern university.</p>
<p>Not everyone from Houston Baptist University is capable of grad work at a major research institution. But this guy was, and he was accepted to a school. Grad schools don't accept undergrad schools, they accept students from those schools.</p>
<p>Jonw222,</p>
<p>That's a great way of putting it, thank you.</p>
<p>Look, if you can kick major tail at your undergrad program, then you're set. That's all there is to it.</p>
<p>The only thing that's nice about a bigger name program is that they often have better resources for you to explore.</p>
<p>Well, I explained it to my friend and now she's considering some other schools that fall into her family's income a bit more. </p>
<p>Would anyone happen to know which Cal state has the best political science or sociology department?</p>
<p>Undergad has very little impact of grad school placement...</p>
<p>many international students do their undergrad in their country and grad in the US...US has the best grad schools w/out a doubt...</p>
<p>Admissions are not stupid, you're not just sending them the name of your undergrad institution but also GPA, test scores and other factor like work experience, experience abroad, multilingual (especially for business schools)</p>
<p>People who havn't been to grad school yet imagine that admissions is much like undergrad but thats not true, for one its much less competitive</p>
<p>None of the Cal States particularly stand out for graduate work in poli sci. </p>
<p>Your friend ought to really be thinking bigger, because a fellowship can make a PhD all the more affordable.</p>
<p>Here's an article in Perspectives, the main publication for the American Historical Assocation talking about the the undergraduate institutions PhD students in history attended: <a href="http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/Issues/2005/0509/0509new1.cfm%5B/url%5D">http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/Issues/2005/0509/0509new1.cfm</a>. Basically the article says that most students are coming from either the top 25 phD programs or a few elite liberal arts feeder schools.</p>
<p>Although I don't think it's the most important thing, I think the undergrad school you're coming from does affect the graduate schools you're able to get into.</p>
<p>When you're coming from a top school, you're given a little more leeway in your GPA. I'm applying to biology PhD programs this fall, and I expressed concern to my advisor that my GPA was lower than the published averages for many of the programs to which I'm applying. He responded that, because I'm coming from MIT, it wouldn't matter. I think that's a pretty serious advantage to be given in the grad school game.</p>
<p>Moreover, research experience is highly valued in graduate school admissions (at least in the sciences) -- students in some schools have to fight for research opportunities, while students in other schools are handed research on a silver platter.</p>
<p>I can have a lower GPA than students from other schools while having more research experience? Doesn't seem like a level playing field to me.</p>