How do graduate school admissions work?

Applying to College
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<p>My teacher went into a long rant today about how prestige of a school for an undergraduate degree means nothing, blah, blah, blah and went on to cite Harvard as an example saying stuff like many of them are teaching assistants and not great professors and saying stuff like they only come there because companies give the school large grants to do research and that they are usually horrible teachers who would much rather be spending time researching than teaching undergrads... he was referring for sciences only i think... but anyways he then kept going on and saying that where you attend college for your undergrad degree doesn't matter because they all teach the same stuff, etc., etc. </p>

<p>He then said that where you go for graduate school is what really matters... this teacher always seems to know what he is really talking about so i'll take his word for it... my question how do graduate school admissions work? don't you have to have gone to a prestigious college to get into a good graduate school? or do they let kids from no name colleges in as well?</p>

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<p>bump 10 char</p>

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<p>Actually, that's up for debate. Some incoming grad students like UCLAri and molliebatmit say that top schools are well-represented in their graduate programs, which isn't surprising. At the same time, it's quite possible for a lesser-known school to send students on to good graduate schools. If you look at where faculty did their undergrad, that tells a lot. </p>

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<p>Keep in mind that grad school is the time to specialize, and you'll most often be working with one or two faculty members who closely share your interests- more than likely you'll choose a faculty member/department rather than the prestige of the school.</p>

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<p>totally dependent on what field you are going into.</p>

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<p>huskem55: just in general... if it's impossible to say for just in general let's say a science field like chemistry or physics... would someone who went to a no-name college and did really well in his science major and did all the things a kid at a big name institution did would he be able to get in to a good graduate school?</p>

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<p>Do they look at extracurriculars and what not pursued in your undergrad school?</p>

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<p>Oh, god, I would definitely never say it's impossible for anybody to get into grad school. It's just easier for people at schools which are really great in their fields, because they have a lot of resources at their disposal.</p>

<p>Research experience is basically the most important component of an application to graduate school in the sciences, so if you go to a school with a strong tradition of undergraduate research, this will help you tremendously. It's possible to get research positions at schools without strong undergraduate research programs, but it's a lot harder, and you have to fight more. </p>

<p>As a corollary, at top schools you can work in the labs of bigshots in the field. Again, you don't have to work with a bigshot to get into graduate school, but if you have a strong recommendation letter from Prof. Bigshot... you're going to get in. (I worked for three years in the lab of a Prof. Bigshot. It worked out well for me.)</p>

<p>GPA is also an important consideration of an application package, and students from top schools have considerably more leeway with their grades compared to students from other schools. I had a 3.4 from MIT when I applied, and I got into the top programs in biology over a lot of people with 3.8s and 3.9s. Particularly for top graduate programs, GRE scores are unimportant as long as you do well enough -- I mean, everybody who applies has a strong GRE score, so it's not useful for discriminating between applicants.</p>

<p>The basic gist of the problem is that everybody who applies has good grades, good GRE scores, and some research experience. To make it into the "interview" or "accept" pile, you want to stand out from the rest of the pack. There are tons of applicants from state schools with great GPAs but weak research experience; there are a lot fewer applicants from top schools, and their research experience tends to be more outstanding, so they get into the programs in disproportionate numbers. (My first year class at Harvard next year has 60 kids. 9 of them are from MIT.)</p>

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Sure, but the odds are that the kid from the no-name college didn't have access to all of the opportunities that the kid from the big name institution did. Unfortunately, in the graduate admissions process, it's not always about you and how amazing you are -- you get judged based on the people with whom you've worked and the contributions you've made to your field.</p>

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<p>Mollie-
In regards to GPA, are GPA's from top schools given more leeway just because they are from top schools? What about grade inflation? I could understand MIT/Caltech-ish GPA's being giving more weight, but what about Harvard/Stanford-ish places where the GPA's are known to be pretty inflated? Would someone from these schools still get an advantage?</p>

<p>I'm worried because I'm going to be going to Berkeley next year, and I believe it's well-known that Berkeley curves are pretty killer. Massive grade deflation abounds. However, I don't know if Berkeley is considered a 'top' school for grad school purposes, so I'm worried about how my deflated GPA would be viewed compared to 'higher' GPA's from grade inflated top schools. I ask because I remember another post of yours (or maybe it was on the MIT blogs?) where you mentioned a friend of yours from Case Western who had a 3.9, while you had a 3.4. I suppose Case isn't top 20 or anything, but I thought it was still a decent school? Yet if you (obviously generalizing) need a 3.9 from there to get an interview, it must be even harder from people from 'lesser' schools to do so?</p>

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<p>^^^ Well Case Western isn't really a "lesser" school and I guess you know that judging from the quotes you put around it. When I meant no-name colleges I meant universities kind of far down on the prestige meter. Maybe like a Radford University?</p>

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<p>I'm really only familiar with the situation for MIT GPAs (since that is, of course, the situation that's interested me the most over the past year!). I suspect it's a phenomenon unrelated to perceptions of grade inflation and more related to professors (ie the people doing the selecting) being notorious snobs.</p>

<p>Most of the people interviewing with me were from top 20 schools, and particularly from schools with strong biology programs. But of course that's only one year of biology PhD admissions at the very top schools.</p>

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<p>bump 10 char</p>

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<p>My impression is of the entire situation, at least for the sciences, is that as long as your GPA is above 3.0 and you have a decent GRE then you're ok academically. What really matters are your letters of recommendation and your research experience.</p>

<p>And as a Case Western girl, I am kind of offended at the thought that my GPA is easier to maintain than one at one of the "top 20" schools because that just ain't so... average engineering GPA hereabouts is 2.7.</p>

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<p>Your teacher is correct about the prestige of your grad school generally being more important to your success than the prestige of your undergrad school. However, he is wrong about Harvard. My daughter is a sophomore at Harvard, and so far ALL of her classes except one writing class have been taught by professors, not assisitants. Now, like many other Ivies and other top schools, some classes are augmented by small study sections which are led by assistants, but the classes themselves are taught by profs. In fact the collge <em>requires</em> that all classes be taught by profs except, as I said, certain wiriting classes that are taught by published authors and some foreign language classes which are required to be taught by native speakers.</p>