Importance of undergraduate big name?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I am a Junior at the moment and I am really beginning to seriously consider what colleges I may apply to. </p>

<p>Priority for me has always been to pursue the best education available to help aid in potential real world problems I may face. I have heard a lot of good things about the Harvey Mudd College undergraduate program. </p>

<p>I am curious how a school like this stacks up with big name schools in terms of getting accepted to a top-quality graduate school. I'm unsure how well known this school really is, and also whether or not major employers would recognize it if I went directly into the field with a B.S.</p>

2

<p>Harvey Mudd IS a “big name schools in terms of getting accepted to a top-quality graduate school”</p>

3

<p>Is it? Living in New York, I have never heard of it until recently. I can’t seem to find a record of anybody in my school ever applying to the place, and I go to a pretty competitive private school that puts a lot of students in Ivy’s and prestigious places.</p>

<p>The number of applicants is also so low. So you can see how the school is a bit deceiving at an initial view :P</p>

<p>I am looking for a school with small classes and accessible faculty, which has a top notch educational program and hopefully could get me connected with some people in the industry or at least give me an elevated chance of finding my way into a major tech company in Silicon Valley.</p>

4

<p>I assume you’re an aspiring engineer. The opinion of the guy on the street in NY isn’t all that critical; you’re more interested in the opinion of professionals in the know. People who may not know HM may be familiar with the Claremont Colleges, five linked small private schools in Claremont that share major facilities, of which HM is one. And as Ken said, for someone looking at tech fields in small classes with accessible faculty and top-notch connections, Harvey Mudd is big . . . really big . . . HUGE!</p>

5

<p>harvey mudd is a big name in the engineering department and will be known by those in the field</p>

6

<p>I have not yet determined if I want to go into engineering or if I want to do Computer Science. Disregarding class size, how would HMC compare with Stanford, Caltech, Cornell etc.</p>

7

<p>Fetou,</p>

<p>Comparing HMC to Stanford and Caltech is going to be a very individualistic thing. All are great schools. All have plusses and minuses in the eyes of individual students/applicants. The biggest question/issue will be getting into one or more of them. If you do manage to get into more than 1, your visits and financial aid package will be determinative.</p>

<p>Stanford is much bigger and has athletic stuff if you are into that; it also is actually part of Silicon Valley, but is far more than a STEM school. (Neither of my sons even really looked at it, so that’s all I know.) Caltech is perceived as more focused on pure science and although it has more undergraduates than Mudd, is as a practical matter, the smallest of the three for socializing. (As a parent, I liked Caltech, but my son didn’t.) </p>

<p>Mudd, because of the Claremont Consortium, gives a social life far greater than its 700 mudders would support. Although it is also highly selective, grueling, and top notch for undergraduate work, it is distinctive in its liberal arts emphasis, its clinical programs in which students work on projects for companies, and its lack of a graduate school (which its students see as a benefit, but which the Caltechers will often cite as a negative). Interestingly, Caltech and HMC lead the lists for phd productivity of their graduates, so HMC students have no problem getting into graduate schools. (Note, my eldest son is a frosh at HMC, so it is the school I’m most familiar with.)</p>

<p>ALSO, note that both Mudd and Caltech have extensive and rigorous cores. That is a negative for some potential applicants. (I think my son had one elective this year at Mudd–and the classes are the same regardless of what you think your major will be.)</p>

<p>Looking at cross-admit percentages, I don’t know how Stanford and Mudd stack up–my guess is that there aren’t a lot of cross applicants, but it is purely a guess. Mudd and Caltech have a lot of overlap; my GUESS is that Caltech continues to win the crossadmit battle–but anecdotally, the gap may be closing. My son reports a lot of his HMC classmates claim to have been admitted at tech. </p>

<p>When my son was looking last year, he saw Cornell as a safety (which it isn’t), and didn’t seriously consider it–particularly since he was admitted to Mudd and MIT prior to the invite from Cornell. Again, so much of this comes down to personal preference–after a certain point, the schools are all excellent. (Case in point–many would consider my son nuts for choosing Mudd over MIT, but he remains certain that for him it was the right decision.)</p>

<p>Bottom line, apply to the top engineering/comp. sci. schools (and to a number of safety/matches), and after you get your responses and financial aid packages, decide based upon what type of learning/living environment you would like for four years and what you can afford. With these type of schools, you will do well if you go to any of them.</p>

8

<p>If you want a major entrance into a tech company in Silicon Valley consider Carnegie Mellon. Intel, Microsoft and Google all have facilities directly on the campus and all it takes is a phone call from a professor to get a job at one of these companies. This mostly applies to CS or computer engineering degrees. However, in general, in any engineering job in the valley, many schools will work. Lots of San Jose State students get high paying jobs in valley companies. Truly go to the best school for you. Harvey Mudd is a great school and has a great reputation. It’s small so it doesn’t get the name recognition among the general populace that larger schools get, but you will have no trouble finding a job with a degree from HM.</p>

9

<p>Mudd is very well known in academia in engineering. Being from NY myself, I didn’t even hear of the place until I got to college, but HMC is a very well-respected school.</p>

10

<p>I may have many misconceptions. I keep hearing of HMC as one of the most selective school, but I can’t help but notice the fact that they accept 45% of people that apply. They don’t seem to get many applications at all. Does this skew the numbers? I mean if they are in fact an extremely selective school, it must be only top notch people even applying there. </p>

<p>I can’t see myself getting into Stanford, that question was just as a reference. </p>

<p>Would somebody please compare the difficulty of being accepted to Carnegie as opposed to HMC?</p>

11

<p>Fetou, I think sharing your stats with us would help us a great deal. For example:</p>

<p>1) Unweighed and weighed GPA
2) AP courses and exam results
3) Class rank
4) ECs
5) SAT/SAT II</p>

<p>HMC is very selective. Percent accepted means nothing at a school like HMC because all those who apply are brilliant.</p>

12

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<p>Self-selection. They are not well-known by the “man on the street”, but people who know about engineering (including big-name universities with top engineering schools) consider them top-notch.</p>

13

<p>Well, I’m a Junior so I don’t really have a lot of these things yet. I don’t even really know how to calculate on a 5 Scale GPA, my school has number grades.</p>

<p>1) Unweighed and weighed GPA: I had all mid-high 90’s in cake classes (pre-AP), ~ 85 in AP classes (school stacks 4 points when calculating avg with these)</p>

<p>2) AP courses and exam results
Junior Year:
AP Calculus AB: (Expected 5)
AP Physics B: (Expected 3-4, teacher dragging whole class down)
AP United States History (Expected 4-5)
AP Computer Science A (Expected 4-5)</p>

<p>Senior Year:
AP Calculus BC (almost all get 5’s at our school, teacher is a professional)
AP Micro Economics
AP Macro Economics
AP Statistics
AP Psychology</p>

<p>3) Class rank: School doesn’t do, this private school is far too competitive and they think it skews in comparison to other schools.</p>

<p>4) ECs:
Haven’t really listed yet, Computer Club which does Community service, diagnosing and fixing broken/run down computers to donate to the needy, also won a hardware competition at a local college</p>

<p>Opinion writer for the school newspaper
Political Advocates club
Working over the summer to set up all technology needs for next school year (full time)
Hobbies: Computer building, minor programming, competitive PC gaming</p>

<p>5) SAT/SAT II:</p>

<p>PSAT and progress indicate this should be ~1350-1400 combined/1600
Haven’t taken SAT II’s yet.</p>

14

<p>Keep in mind that the stat of 45% may be slightly off. Each year the competition is increasing to get into all colleges-and should keep increasing for the next year or two. This has a trickle down affect, so that those not getting into the Ivies, pursue other BIG names like Harvey Mudd. I agree with Stevedad in that you need to see where you get in- out of the schools you are applying, before ruling something out or in.</p>

15

<p>everyone who needs to know about harvey mudd knows about it.</p>

16

<p>For personal attention, I don’t think you can beat Harvey Mudd. On our tour of the campus, a couple of the professors stopped to chat including a physics prof who sat down with us to talk about why HE loves working at HM and why he thinks its a great place to learn. And the dean of admissions popped out his office to say hello-that didn’t happen at any of the other schools we visited. (The counterpoint of course, is the the two student guides were both sweet, but very nerdy-not nearly as slick as the guides elsewhere.)</p>

<p>Does this one data point really mean anything important? Maybe not, but it sure made an impression. (Great weather too!)</p>

17

<p>Further, talking of stats:
According to USNWR, Mudd’s '06 acceptance rate was 30% (not 45%) - and it would definitely have become even tougher this year.<br>
I also think this raw stat is misleading - like U of Chicago (whose admit rate is also higher than you’d expect), this is likely to be a self-selecting group.</p>

<p>And in terms of SATs, the 25th-75th percentile for Mudd was 1420-1550 in '06. In fact, the 25th percentile is higher than Harvard or MIT (and lower only than Caltech) - no slackers here. I also recall reading that at Mudd (as at Caltech) it’s not uncommon for the entire entering class to have 800s on their Math SAT2s.</p>

18

<p>Possible that I may have to strike Mudd off my list as well then, if they are a truly top-level selection school, my GPA will keep me out of there as well. I should have went to a normal school and been a valedictorian. :-/</p>

19

<p>If I were you, I’d still go for Mudd. It might be a bit of a reach, but with a rigorous program, decent if not outstanding grades, sci/eng-related ECs, and good test scores, you may be more competitive than you think.</p>

20

<p>Kind of off topic, but how important can the interview be? I’ve never done a college interview, but I have a good feeling I can really do well in one. I am pretty good at that kind of thing, and should be very outgoing for a computer/engineering hopeful.</p>