<p>Does it matter which school you go to for undergrad when applying to grad school? If you went to an undergrad that was okay for your major, do you have a chance at a top grad school? I know top grades and test scores are needed, but what about this factor?</p>
<p>It usually only matters if your school was spectacularly good or spectacularly bad in that area. Also if a school is known for being very tough, your GPA will look better in the eyes of the adcom. But for most, what school they went to isn't the important part, but what you did with your time while there.</p>
<p>Some graduate programs, I am convinced, have very strong 'home-field advantage' for their undergrads such that the best way to get into those grad programs is to just go to that school for undergrad and just stay there. MIT immediately comes to mind as a prime example. </p>
<p>For example, of the MIT graduating class of 2005 (about 1000 students), 177 of them have reported that they are going to graduate school at MIT. This is more than 7 times the number that have reported will be going to the 2nd most popular graduate school, Harvard. </p>
<p>Now obviously there is some self-selection going on, in the sense that most people prefer to stay in a place that they are used to as opposed to having to move (but on the other hand, MIT and Harvard are located in the same city and public transportation abounds such that you don't really have to move at all if you don't want to), and Harvard is not as good of a grad-school match as MIT is for many MIT students (as the majority of MIT students are engineers, and Harvard does not have an elite graduate engineering program). So that accounts for some of the difference. But it's hard for me to imagine that it would account for a 7x difference. I have to imagine that a large part of it is the simple preference that MIT grad school has for its own undergrads. Which leads to something that the MIT handbook itself says - the easiest way to get into MIT for grad school is to go there for undergrad and just stay there.</p>
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I have to imagine that a large part of it is the simple preference that MIT grad school has for its own undergrads. Which leads to something that the MIT handbook itself says - the easiest way to get into MIT for grad school is to go there for undergrad and just stay there.
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<p>It depends on the program, still.</p>
<p>Surely this does not apply to the philosophy progam, which is very highly regarded.</p>
<p>I applied to a course at master's level at one at a university and realized while looking at the pupils that were currently in the course that out of about 15 only one or two had not atended the University for Undergraduate. Maybe it was just a coincidence or maybe thye gave preference to those who were there for undergraduate.</p>
<p>What does being highly regarded have to do with anything? The engineering programs are very highly regarded, and they happily take as many MIT undergrads as they can into the graduate programs.</p>
<p>There are very few programs at MIT that don't actively practice inbreeding.</p>
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What does being highly regarded have to do with anything? The engineering programs are very highly regarded, and they happily take as many MIT undergrads as they can into the graduate programs.
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<p>Sorry, I was trying to imply that MIT's graduate program does not merely comprise engineering and science departments. The philosophy department, which does give Ph.Ds, is also an integral part of the MIT graduate program, and I strongly doubt the preponderance of their Ph.D candidates came from MIT.</p>
<p>In fact, last Christmas I was perusing the resumes of Ph.D philosophy students at MIT, and I did not come across a single one who did their undergraduate work there.</p>
<p>Here we go:
*Bucknell/Tufts (MA)
*Reed College
*University of Western Ontario/Oxford
*Paris
*Bard College/Yale (MA in Slavic Languages)/Tufts (MA)
*Harvard</p>
<p>That is all I could find. Of course, it is improper to generalize these credentials to all philosophy gradaute students; however, I have yet to encounter a student who did his undergraduate work at MIT. I am not saying there is not, but it is surprising that I have not encountered on in the philosophy department, given the claims in this thread if we assume them as true.</p>
<p>Uh, wouldn't this be for the simple reason that there are very very few MIT undergrads who major in philosophy, and of those that do, many of them are doubling it with something else and are hence likely to attend graduate school in that 'something else'.</p>
<p>While I can't find the data sheet right now, I know that the published data demonstrates that MIT confers very few bachelor's degrees in philosophy, as the fact is, MIT is still mostly a technical institute and so most undergrads are going to be studying technical subjects. Obviously you're not going to see a lot of inbreeding if you just don't have a lot undergrads in the first place.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I can tell you that, far and away, the most common cohort of students who are pursuing graduate students at the Sloan School of Management came from MIT undergrad. I think we can all agree that management is not a 'science', nor is it engineering.</p>
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Uh, wouldn't this be for the simple reason that there are very very few MIT undergrads who major in philosophy, and of those that do, many of them are doubling it with something else and are hence likely to attend graduate school in that 'something else'.
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<p>I was thinking about saying that, but I thought I would wait for someone more educated about this to make the response.</p>
<p>At any rate, I was just trying to demonstrate an exception to the general principle: there is a significant graduate program at MIT that does not recruit heavily from their undergraduate program. Simple.</p>
<p>Yeah, the philosophy department only conferred two bachelors degrees last year (data here</a>). I was going to say that earlier, but it sounded like a non sequitur.</p>
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At any rate, I was just trying to demonstrate an exception to the general principle: there is a significant graduate program at MIT that does not recruit heavily from their undergraduate program. Simple.
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<p>Like molliebatmit said, when your department confers only 2 bachelor's degrees a year, there ain't exactly a whole lot of people to choose from. I don't know how many bachelor's degree the Harvard philosophy department confers every year, but I have to imagine that it's more than 2. Just like not everybody who graduates from MIT engineering who goes to MIT for grad school, either because they would rather go somewhere else, or they didn't get in, or whatever it is. </p>
<p>Look, nspeds, when you're dealing with small numbers like this, I think it's quite difficult to draw any conclusions about anything. You said yourself in the link you presented that most of the MIT philosophy PhD students have not posted their CV's or resumes. If even just a few of them of them who have cloaked their identities came from MIT undergrad, then we would have to conclude that the MIT philosophy department does indeed recruit extremely heavily from its own undergrads. After all, when you only graduate 2 people a year, all you need is for just one of them to stay for grad school and you can say that 50% of your graduates got 'recruited'. </p>
<p>Hence, not simple at all.</p>
<p>I get it, I get it, I get it.</p>
<p>Oh well, I might just have a shot at MIT for my Ph.D, then;)</p>
<p>i went to an ivy for my masters and work on the campus/live by another ivy and therefore socialize with mostly grad students. at both schools, there has been a WIIIIIIIDE variety of undergrad backgrounds, ranging from the top ivies to 4th tier state schools.</p>
<p>Do you think, then, that going to a high-caliber undergraduate school is worth it?</p>
<p>Going to a high-caliber undergrad school may help you get opportunities and contacts that will make your application more attractive. For instance, last summer I applied for a highly competative internship and was one of the youngest of the 35 people who got it and one of two out-of-staters (it was a state government internship so people attending in-state got preference). My GPA was good, but it wasn't stellar, same goes for my essay, so I'm assuming they were impressed by the school. That internship gave me the contacts for another even more competative internship for this summer on the federal level. Not to mention that going to my high-caliber school is giving me great references and fairly easy opportunities to work in a lab. Also, consider the GREs. A high-caliber school is more likely to prepare you for them. My mother went to a lower-caliber undergrad school, did very well, and then bombed the Bio GRE because the school simply hadn't prepared her well enough. So, yeah, I think going to a high-caliber school is worth it. Though after a certain point, it probably matters less. Like, if a school can give you all those things, even if it isn't one of the top 5 or whatever, you're in a great position, even if you do have to work harder to keep up that GPA.</p>
<p>my opinion on this is that its not so much a big deal among tiers (like Harvard vs Tufts- both are obviously well respected among the top grad schools and will prepare you for whatever you field you go into); yet between tiers is a much bigger gap (i.e. Harvard vs. East Southwestern South Dakota State). it kills me when high school students on this board say that they would pick schools like princeton over schools like brown because of the name. there is such little difference among the individual rankings- for example#10 vs #20 are virtually the same- that it only makes a difference when there is a huge disperity between schools.</p>