<p>Hi -
My son is assessing various offers of admission, all to fairly comparable schools in terms of academic rankings (US News, Princeton Review, admissions stats, etc). In general, they are in the top 10-20 in their various regions. He plans on studying International Relations and already knows he wants to go to grad school and ultimately work for the State Dept. </p>
<p>I am wondering if there's a way to figure out how these schools are perceived by top grad school programs. Should he contact contact prospective grad schools and try to find someone to ask there? Is there a ranking anywhere? If he contacted the schools he's been admitted to, do they maintain reliable statistics about where their graduates do post-graduate study?</p>
<p>Of course, this isn't the only factor we're considering. He's been offered a range of scholarships, and the schools are varying distance from home, and range in size from about 2000 students to about 8000 students. He'll probably attended the Admitted Students days at a few of them. Nonetheless, I'd love to be able to factor in grad school reputation so we know which schools carry weight in that area. I'd appreciate any advice you have. Thanks!</p>
<p>(I also tried to post this question in Ask the Dean, but got a strange note saying I didn't have permission to post there. Any guess on that?)</p>
<p>Why grad school and not into the work force right away? If he wants to work in DC, go to school in DC. That is where he will make the connections he needs, hopefully intern at the State Department and make a name for himself that way. I think it would be more relevant to find out where they State department likes to hire from and work backwards from there.</p>
<p>Yes, he might want to try out some DC/IR internships and take a look at the various kinds of jobs out there in that field before basing his undergrad college decision on a future plan that may or may not appeal to him once he has been working. You can get a job at State without a grad degree, too. And then figure out what kinds of jobs appeal to him once he has some experience there, and go back to grad school at that point if it makes sense.</p>
<p>Also, you do NOT have to go to school in DC to intern there. My D spent a semester interning at the State Dept. through her school’s Washington, DC semester program. She also spent a summer there interning for a senator (she liked State a lot better!).</p>
<p>You should be able to find the data on where grads of each particular college go to grad school on the internet and if not, I think it’s an excellent question to ask admissions. Often colleges post the information on their website - especially if they are colleges that are very good at getting kids into grad school. IPEDS I believe has some data.</p>
<p>For instance as an example, Kalamazoo College (and others like Beloit, Earlham, Lawrence) consistently and for decades send a higher percentage of graduates onto graduate schools than even places like Brown. Although Kalamazoo is a small LAC, there is a graduate school adviser and Kalamazoo is consistently ranked in the top 20 colleges sending graduates off to grad schools. So if grad school or a Phd in anticipation of teaching at the college level is a MUST, the criteria for choosing an undergrad might be very different than for a student whose BA is terminal (or at least terminal for a few years in the workforce.)</p>
<p>Interesting article Gourmetmom. I’m astonished at the numbers for Utah State and UMaryland-Baltimore County. How can state schools with 23000 and 11000 students, respectively , and 6-year graduation rates in the range of 50-60% possibly have 65% or more graduates going to graduate school within 1 year? Those statistics just seem incongruous. Anyone with a plausible explanation?</p>
<p>Anyone graduating and starting a job as an elementary school teacher will enroll immediately in a Master’s program (since most states require the Master’s within a few years in order to get certified and then tenured.) Anyone who studied accounting and plans to get a CPA will immediately enroll in a Master’s.</p>
<p>So maybe that takes care of a chunk. The rest is a mystery…</p>
<p>It’s often said that getting into graduate school has more to do with how well you do in undergraduate school and the entrance exams. Also it’s entirely possible that people who anticipate going immediately into grad school are more conscientious about not spending huge sums of money for the BA/BS…it doesn’t seem incongruous to me that the top 10% of colleges sending higher percentages off to graduate school would not align perfectly with the supposed top 10% of colleges based on the ranking criteria used in USNWR and might account for why students heading to grad school might choose an in-state public. There is some postulation that the “pretty good schools” have gotten significantly better in the last decade or so while the ‘great schools’ have remained essentially the same.</p>
<p>Huh, that list posted in #5 just seems wacky to me… and as there is no way to judge the quality of the grad school admissions, it seems useless. None of the highly ranked schools I think of as “grad school factories” (relative to their peers) are on the list.</p>
<p>Interesting note at the beginning about Macalester! I had not heard about this “data glitch” in their reporting… D2 and I were just looking at their website today where they had posted where recent graduates are in grad school in her area of interest</p>
<p>All the those that I know now working in DC, did a term with Peace Corps &/or worked abroad, before grad school, & actually the highest ranking policy wonk that I know, who was asst secretary of labor, just has a BA from a state college.
Now he is the CIO of California public employees retirement system.
He’s pretty smart, he figured why pay out for grad school if you dont need to?
Of course some may get more confidence with a grad degree.</p>
<p>Look at quality of internship and fellowship offices at schools where you have been accepted. I know our state univ has a great office and specifically has some DC semester opportunities. Know of students that high level (needed security clearance) internships in government. If you go back to accepted days see if you can talk to someone in that school’s office. What you do with opportunities you make will go a long way to determining grad school admittance.</p>
<p>So many things change for most young people while they are in college. Rather than worrying about grad school, I would concentrate on finding the best match for undergraduate school and gaining relevant summer experience. </p>
<p>Having said that, if you want to look at grad programs, go to the college website. Often, there is a lot of information there about graduates…where they are going and where they have been.</p>
<p>I think the article I posted raises a lot of questions about the data - what type of grad school, majors, etc., and I don’t care to subscribe to get the info. I don’t really agree that immediate entry into grad school is the best thing for most students - with the caveat that a teaching certification or other certifications are the exception. That may be very well what we are seeing with the schools posted.</p>
<p>Very anecdotal, but I know many recent Brown graduates who plan to work for a few years before grad school. I think this is fairly typical, and I know that the top business schools (HBS, certainly) prefers to see a few years real world experience after graduation. I am advising my college junior D to get out and do something interesting before grad school.</p>
<p>Once upon a time the CIA recruited at Yale’s senior societies and Harvard’s final clubs, but those days are long past. I don’t think there’s an inside track on getting into government positions from anywhere . . . except the U.S. military, since veterans’ preferences have a huge effect on civil service hiring.</p>
<p>Entering the Foreign Service is very, very competitive, and people work hard to build their resumes to get a job there. I don’t know anyone who waltzed in straight out of college.</p>
<p>You would probably find more graduates of the DC-area colleges in Washington jobs – and that includes the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins, too – but that more likely reflects the fact that those colleges probably attract more people who want careers in Washington, proportionally, than other colleges, rather than some kind of strong preference on the part of Washington employers for local grads.</p>
<p>Actually, JHS, I have the distinct impression that hiring in the Foreign Service is completely a matter of how well you do on the exam and subsequent testing in DC. The resume seems to have nothing to do with it. </p>
<p>My H had a long term dream of being in the FS. He took the FS exam twice, and passed it both times. (Which is an accomplishment in itself.) But the first time he was not selected after the process in DC, which could best be described as a series of role-playing exercises. A few years ago, he went through the whole process again. He had indicated that he was interested in the economic officer track. This time he passed the DC process also, but the list was ordered strictly by test results: experience and resume had nothing to do with it. H’s 25+ years of significant experience in the investment world–including some household name firms-- meant nothing. People with little or no experience were ranked ahead of him on the list, and his chances of being “called up” as an economics officer were slim to none. If he had selected the consular track, he would have been placed in a training class shortly thereafter because they hire more of them. Unfortunately, they won’t let you switch tracks, even though the exams and selection process are exactly the same: you have to start all over again with the FS exam.</p>
<p>S did an internship at State in DC, which mostly convinced him that he didn’t want to work for them, at least not at this stage of his life. </p>
<p>FWIW, although S came from an Ivy, most of the other student interns he met came from state schools scattered across the nation, and not flagships on the level of Cal, U Mich, or U VA either.</p>
<p>Edit: of the people I know who have actually been career FS officers, one was a U Penn grad who entered straight out of school back in the early 70s, and the other was a Peace Corps compatriot of H’s, who entered in the late 70s/early 80s. I don’t know what kind of school he went to.</p>
<p>Consolation, a friend’s husband who had repeated failures with the FS eventually pinned down a slot in the Dept. of Commerce that sent him overseas. I don’t recall any of the details. He was somehow attached to the US consulate, but hiring and promotion weren’t governed by the dept. of State.</p>
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