<p>Hi, I will be going to Duquesne University in the fall, and it was not my top choice by far, but I really couldn't turn down the scholarship, and I decided that the other schools I was deciding among were just too far away from home. I am just wondering what are people's opinions on how much prestige matters for undergrad? When I visited Duquesne, I liked it much more than I thought it would, but I still wasn't in love with it. I will be double majoring in International Relations and Sociology with concentrations in Humanitarian Aid and Social Justice. Obviously to make a living for myself in this area, I will want to obtain a Ph.D. Duquesne does have a 5 year program where I can get a masters in Social and Public Policy which I think I will do, If I stay at the university, however ultimately the plan is to enter into a joint JD/Ph.d in Political Science. Also eventually I would like to pursue an MBA in Business and Public Policy. Will going to Duquesne lessen my chances into getting into graduate schools like Stanford, NYU, Penn, Northwestern, Georgetown, Columbia, University of Chicago, Harvard.</p>
<p>Should I look into transferring immediately? I just feel like I'm not going to get into a good grad school because of where I went for undergrad, and in the field that I want to go into I really need the prestige of grad school. I can't seem to get this thought out of my head, and it really bothers me. </p>
<p>You just accepted the offer of admission, and you’re already thinking of transferring? </p>
<p>Although I don’t know how those programs view Duquesne, you would probably be surprised at how many students from “lesser” schools get into top programs. But you have to be smart about it. Find out what those programs look for, and do it. You’ll probably want to fill your summers with public policy internships. You should plan on writing an honors thesis and take, if available, an independent study that requires research. Get to know your professors. Work hard, and get top grades. </p>
<p>The thing is, you haven’t yet started college, so all those plans may be moot by the time you finish your first year.</p>
<p>FWIW, I always thought that transfer students got a raw deal. They didn’t know many people and were behind in the curriculum (obviously this is only relevant in fields where classes build upon themselves). Frankly, in my cohort, the undergrad universities represented are not terribly impressive yet I think many of the individuals are- so I think have a great time at college and don’t let this worry you. But I am not in your field so what do I know.</p>
<p>Repeat after me: Prestige does not matter. Prestige does not matter. Prestige does not matter.</p>
<p>How do I know? Uh, well, I went to a community college, and then a mid-tier UC, and then an ivy institution ranked number 1 in my field for my PhD. I would say greater than 60% of my cohort also did not attend classically prestigious institutions.</p>
<p>Differentiate yourself from your peers, wherever you go.</p>
<p>Shine at Duquesne and it won’t matter. Also, what MWFN says: you may not believe it from your present vantage, but the college experience changes people and hence their plans. The number of first year students “certain” of their future goals who then graduate headed in a different direction is legion and probably a majority of those holding such certainty.</p>
<p>Actually, I would argue that this ironically seems to prove the opposite. If 60% of your cohort did not attend classically prestigious institutions, then that means that 40% did, which is a remarkable figure when you figure that such prestigious institutions probably represent only 1-2% of all schools in the country. </p>
<p>Certain elite schools are absolutely notorious for ‘incestual’ relationships with their own undergraduates. For example, far and away the most heavily represented undergrad program at most Harvard graduate programs is…Harvard, to the point that in some cohorts, there are probably more former Harvard undergrads than students from all other undergrad programs combined. Similarly, far and away the most heavily represented undergrad program at the MIT grad programs is…MIT. {And the second most heavily represented undergrad program at Harvard/MIT is often times…MIT/Harvard.}</p>
<p>" Certain elite schools are absolutely notorious for ‘incestual’ relationships with their own undergraduates. For example, far and away the most heavily represented undergrad program at most Harvard graduate programs is…Harvard, to the point that in some cohorts, there are probably more former Harvard undergrads than students from all other undergrad programs combined. Similarly, far and away the most heavily represented undergrad program at the MIT grad programs is…MIT. {And the second most heavily represented undergrad program at Harvard/MIT is often times…MIT/Harvard.}"</p>
<p>Funny, you see, I attend Harvard. No one in my cohort, or the year above mine was a Harvard undergrad. In fact, I’ve only met two people in my year across all disciplines (and I know a TON of people here) who attended Harvard as an undergrad, and one is in a master’s program. </p>
<p>How did you come up with this useless conjecture?</p>
<p>In my cohort there are: 1 student from Columbia, 3 students from Stanford, 1 student from Yale, 3 students from Berkeley, 3 students from Caltech. This constitutes about 30 percent of my cohort. The rest of us are from lesser-known schools such as Montana State, smaller UCs, other state colleges, random LACs, and then about twenty percent are from foreign universities. </p>
<p>Granted that the programs at the prestigious schools I mentioned are known for matriculating the best talent in the country in my field, one can realize that some selection bias exists. </p>
<p>Although this is far from quantitative, one can assume that, accounting for this selection bias, admissions to my program are merit-based and have no bias toward or against individuals based on what university they attend. </p>
<p>That sort of proves sakky’s first point: those five schools represent 30% of your cohort. Not counting the foreign universities, that leaves 50% of your cohort to represent every other school out there. Since applications are self-selecting, let’s estimate the number of other schools represented in the applications at about 100. So that’s 30% representing about 10-20 “prestigious” universities vs. 50% representing 100 other schools, or about 3:1 odds.</p>
<p>What prestige does, in my opinion, is to increase the number of opportunities you will have and raise the ceiling on performance. How many top 5% applicants from HYPSM were rejected vs. how many top 5% from less prestigious universities? If you’re truly stellar, less prestigious places will put an artificial ceiling on your performance and it’ll be on you to make your own opportunities.</p>
<p>Then, frankly, you need to get around more. In particular, I’d recommend that you hang around, say, some of the social science PhD programs, where it’s hard not to find a former Harvard undergrad. </p>
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<p>Ouroborous313 has already stolen my thunder, but once again, you’re only ironically proving my point even further: a whopping 50% of the domestic students that you mentioned went to an elite undergrad program, when such programs represent only 1-2% of all undergrad programs. {Keep in mind that there about 2500 4-year undergrad programs in the US, of which at very most only 50, or 2%, could be considered ‘elite’}. In other words, elite programs are over-represented by a ratio of 25-50 to 1, relative to the average program. {You could also use Ourobourous313’s calculation to come up with the more conservative ratio of 3:1, which is still a highly skewed ratio.} </p>
<p>The upshot is that, no matter how you slice the data, you only seem to be driving home my point even further. 30% of your cohort went to schools that are clearly within the top 10. Does another 30% of your cohort come from schools that are clearly within the bottom 10? Keep in mind, to be in the bottom 10 would be a ranking of ~#2500.</p>
<p>There is of course the fact that elite schools do a better job of pushing their students, have more research opportunities, and provide Big Names to write LORs for students. But I think the “name” matters very little. </p>
<p>Who is likely to get into Harvard, etc, as an undergrad? Someone who is extremely smart, driven, and ambitious. Is this to say that people who don’t go to elite schools aren’t? NO! But it is very likely that people who went to elite schools JUST HAPPEN to be extremely competitive applicants. Chances are, if you actually beat the odds to get into Harvard, you are the type who will work out and stand out… but because of your personal drive and work ethic, not because Harvard is on your resume. I think it is not at all surprising then that students at these schools are over-represented in the pool of applicants at high ranked programs.</p>
<p>I am not on any admissions board, but from my experience during interviews at top 10 biology PhD programs, NO ONE really cares what undergrad institution you went to as long as you stand out in general. Of course, this actually makes things harder because you have to make sure that YOU stand out and not lean on the prestige of your UG institution!</p>
<p>ya’lls don’t get it. Selection bias exists due to the superior quality of the undergraduate talent at some of these institutions. If you don’t get my point, read my post again… one can see that confounding factors result in disproportionate numbers from the top-tier undergraduate programs - correlation is not causation.</p>
<p>The fact that 30% of the 35 graduate students admitted to my top-ranked program came from prestigious universities is not evidence that the universities weigh prestige when it comes to graduate admissions; rather, a disproportionate number of highly performing candidates apply from these schools, due to the disproportionate number of highly performing undergraduates who matriculate to these schools. </p>
<p>Continue to grasp onto these tenuous straws to rationalize why one was or was not accepted into a certain program, by all means - I do not care. </p>
<p>What I am trying to do, as a non-traditional community college student who transferred to a mid-tier UC, is illustrate to those posing questions here that the prestige of one’s undergraduate university does not dictate the quality of the graduate program to which one will be admitted. </p>
<p>Graduate admissions are merit-based, and nowhere near as questionable as undergraduate admissions. If one differentiates oneself from the pack, with superior qualifications, one is not limited in choices where to pursue graduate studies.</p>
<p>I totally agree with ixington on the selection bias happening at the undergraduate level instead of the graduate. I certainly know students here at Caltech that, upon graduating, are some of the smartest people in the country. However, upon starting Caltech they were also some of the smartest people in the country. What’s to say that they got the best value for their time where here at Caltech? Especially if they’re, say, in the bottom 25%? Don’t you think it’s possible they would have been better off going to a slightly less selective school and feeling they weren’t drowning the entire time?</p>
<p>Yet those reasons alone are excellent reasons to prefer elite undergraduate programs, because prestige is correlated with those other factors you mentioned. Let’s face it, if you attend a school ranked #2000, you’re probably not going to find strong research opportunities. Your school is probably not going to be able to provide the best advice for you. You probably won’t have big-name recommenders to write LOR’s for you. </p>
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<p>I’m afraid I have to disagree from a purely informational standpoint, and for the very reasons that you had cited previously. I agree that you must be a stand-out, but the problem is how does the adcom know who truly is a stand-out? It might be relatively easy for somebody to obtain a 4.0 from the #2000 ranked school - the adcom wouldn’t know because they simply aren’t familiar with that school. In contrast, as you said above, somebody who got into Harvard - if nothing else - at least demonstrated the capability of being admitted to Harvard. </p>
<p>Now, I would agree with you that if there was some way to derive perfect information on exactly how capable every applicant is, then university brand names would truly mean nothing. But no such method exists today, and perhaps not ever. Brand names therefore serve as a method of reducing information uncertainties.</p>
<p>No, I’m confident that we get it completely. See below.</p>
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<p>Nobody is disputing that selection bias plays a role. On the other hand, are you truly asserting that the aforementioned attributes that prestigious universities bring to the table - such as superior research opportunities, LOR’s, and advising, truly carry no value whatsoever? If so, then I would argue that that’s an extreme position to take. </p>
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<p>I’m afraid that, once again, I must tell you that that’s an ironic position to take. You say that you transferred to a mid-tier UC? That means that you transferred to one of the very best schools among the ~2500 in the entire country. You might have had a strong argument if you had transferred to the last-ranked school in the entire nation, but you did not. </p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. If you truly do not believe that undergraduate prestige/quality truly does not matter, then why did you even choose to transfer to a UC at all? Why not transfer to a ~#2000 ranked school that would have probably offered you a full-ride merit scholarship? The fact that you chose to attend a campus at what is probably the very best public university system in the country clearly indicates that you place some value on the prestige (or the quality correlates) of the school. </p>
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<p>The question is not whether graduate admissions are more meritocratic than are undergraduate admissions. The question is whether the prestige and quality (which is highly correlated with prestige) of the undergraduate program matters in terms of graduate admissions. I think it’s a very difficult argument to make that they truly carry no value whatsoever. </p>
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<p>This is actually an entirely different question, and one that I had discussed at length within the Caltech forum. For the record, I have always stated that I believe that Caltech should simply never admitted those students who are going to perform poorly anyway. {But for the record, I will also state that, frankly, the same problem exists within graduate programs. I don’t see the point of being admitted to a prestigious PhD program only to perform poorly and being forced to leave without the PhD, or in some cases, without even the consolation master’s.} </p>
<p>But to this particular point, how much of a loss of prestige are we really talking about here? The bottom 25% of Caltech could surely have been admitted to another highly prestigious (that is, within the top 25-50) yet far easier school, and I agree, should have probably gone there. Hence, whatever “loss” in prestige such a student would have sustained by attending the lower-ranked school is miniscule. Either way, he would have attended a school ranked in the top 1-2% in the entire country. So some Caltech student should have instead gone to UCLA or Cornell. So what? He’s still at one of the most prestigious schools in the country. That’s like trying to argue about whether LeBron James or Dwyane Wade is a better basketball player. The differences are small enough to be negligible.</p>
<p>But I think there is no dispute that LeBron James and Dwyane Wade are both far better basketball players than, say, Dexter Pittman.</p>
<p>Can someone simply the argument? I’m confused…is the argument by ixington that the reason why it seems that there is a bias to accept graduate school applicants from prestigious schools is because students from the prestigious schools are the ones most likely to apply?</p>
<p>Ixington is saying that there is a bias toward prestigious schools in graduate school applications because the type of people who got into and attend prestigious schools tend to be very smart. They go to prestigious schools because they’re very smart, and they get into good graduate schools because they’re very smart. They don’t get into graduate schools because they went to prestigious schools. Graduate schools don’t care about the name of the school at all–they only care that these people are very smart.</p>
<p>I agree with that. What I’m arguing is that prestigious schools also tend to help develop these talented people better than other schools. The ceiling is higher at these places, and there are more opportunities to distinguish yourself. Grad schools want smart, hard working people, but the only way they can learn how smart and how hard working you are is to look at your accomplishments and your recommendations. At prestigious schools, they have more money and thus more opportunities for you to accomplish big things; they also have more renowned faculty whose recommendations tend to carry more weight. A Nobel Prize winner calling you the smartest student he’s taught in the last decade means more than an unknown professor saying the same thing.</p>
<p>The point here is that you still have to work hard and be smart to get into graduate school, no matter where you go. A well renowned just place lets these qualities shine through better.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what point you are all trying to make here. Anyone who attends a “research university” and differentiates himself from the masses will have a competitive chance at admissions at a top tier program. Everything else is cutting at straws. Certainly, there are many, many universities in this country… but I am not arguing that a student at Sacramento State university is going to have the same chance at admission at a top school as a student at UC Irvine. </p>
<p>I am arguing that any student at a research university will have similar odds of admission against one’s similarly qualified peers at any other research institution. This isn’t that big a point of debate. One needs to succeed academically, institutionally, and creatively to gain admittance to the top programs. The supposed prestige of one’s undergraduate educational institution has no bearing on this. </p>
<p>Letters of reference, research experience, and academic competitiveness are the metrics by which one is admitted to programs. </p>
<p>Obviously, if one attends a teaching university, rather than a research university, one will have diminished chances of admission… solely due to the fact that the student won’t have access to high level research laboratories. That said, any research university in the country will provide opportunities to participate as an undergraduate in research activities that lend themselves to development as a proper scientist. </p>
<p>There exist far fewer than 2000 research universities in the USA. This number is a non-sequiter. </p>
<p>What I am saying, in a self-empowering way to the original poster, is this: the prestige of your own university will not limit you, so long as you do not let it limit you. Do as well as you can, differentiate yourself from your peers, and prove that you are the best among the best. You will gain access to the best graduate programs in the country if you do so (don’t listen to the haters).</p>
<p>Undergraduate prestige is nothing. It means absolutely zero when it comes to graduate admissions. Take this from me, someone who went to a non-prestigious institution, differentiated himself, and then went on to an awesome program. It wasn’t luck that got me in, it was merely self-determined success.</p>
<p>I went to the University of Idaho for undergrad - a decidedly non-“prestigious” state flagship. I have been offered (and will likely accept) a fully funded master’s program at Indiana University, one of the top schools in my field and an overall top public university. Nobody cared that I had a just-OK GPA from an unremarkable state school. They cared that I had stellar recs, relevant experience and a compelling research proposal.</p>
<p>I think there’s just an underlying lack of clarity as to what’s considered a “prestigious” university.</p>
<p>I think some people are thinking about only the “elite” schools (i.e., the Ivys and a handful of the other USNEWS top schools) vs. “R1 universities”.</p>
<p>If you look at any research program, the undergraduate universities always over-represent schools that are R1; and in THAT subsection (if we can assume for a second that R1 = 100 schools), “elite schools” are overrepresented (that is if we assume “elite schools” to be the Top 15 or 25 or whatever).</p>
<p>As a student of economics, these subject factors cannot be parsed out using descriptive data, so there’s no point in arguing the magnitude of the effect of the school’s prestige. Elite schools do tend to be feeder schools, but at the same time, a lot of students applying from these same elite institutions don’t get in anywhere they applied to. As mentioned by other posters, there are implicit ceilings placed on students the lower their school’s rank is, but this is overcome with superior research experience, either done at their school or at an REU.</p>
<p>I think ixington mentioned LOR being a key factor in admissions–this is related to the school’s prestige, though, so it’s a bit of a counter to your argument. In general, top schools attract top professors, and top professors usually produce the most impactful research, thus have the most money to support undergraduates (this model is highly simplified). I’d assume a program with a top-ranked Biology program to be able to support hundreds (sometimes thousands) of undergraduate research assistants vs. another school that is also considered an R1, but doesn’t receive the same level of funding from NSF/NIH, etc. Prestige seems to be related to how much money the school commands. Furthermore, a LOR from a well-known professor is much more valuable than a lesser-known one (if the valence and magnitude of the letters are held equal to each other), so one’s time/effort invested in a lab at a Top 10 is probably more valuable than the same time/effort spent in a lab at a lower-ranked R1 because of that factor.</p>
<p>Anyway, enough rambling! I personally think that you can do well no matter where you go as long as you have the research support. I took advantage of REU programs and those supplemented my CV when applying to programs and I got into 2 of the top 5 doctoral programs in my field. I graduated from UCSD, which is arguably “prestigious” at the undergraduate level, but it never placed any cap on the quality and quantity of research I took part in as an undergraduate–and I think that’s the point.</p>