<p>Or professional school for that matter.</p>
<p>yes. 10char</p>
<p>Not that much, but it does matter to a certain degree.</p>
<p>It’s important, but it’s not overly important. What’s more important is that you do well at whatever school you attend and (if you’re going to grad school) get involved in research and get good recommendations.</p>
<p>It depends on the field. In some of the more competitive fields, as in the humanities, where you attend for undergraduate studies can be vitally important. Virtually all of the graduate students in my field attended a select number of elite universities (Penn, Chicago, UCLA, Hopkins, Brown, Yale, and a couple others) or European universities, as the vast majority of colleges simply don’t have the resources to adequately prepare students for those grad programs. </p>
<p>For other programs, like biology or English, it’s quite common for students even from relatively unknown schools to get into top-flight graduate programs.</p>
<p>There are multiple benefits to attending a good undergrad college even if you’re aiming for graduate school:
[ul][<em>]Better advising
[</em>]Better faculty, which results in more effective recommendations assuming they know you well
[<em>]More money available for undergraduate research
[</em>]Better lab and library facilities[/ul]
…and so on.</p>
<p>Columbia B School as a for instance has half its entering class hail from the Ivy League, Georgetown, Duke, Tufts, Cal and Michigan. with one third coming from abroad, this means that about 5/7ths of the entering classe went to about a dozen high prestige colleges.</p>
<p>Yes, of course, unless you’re willing to throw away 3-4 years of your life feeling blah. Even if it ain’t important for your career, it’s important for the time you spend in it, which numbers in the years.</p>
<p>no it doesn’t.</p>
<p>undergrad institution does not matter whatsoever.
graduate school does.</p>
<p>
Only if you are sure you can get into a top tier graduate school in your field. But how can you be sure?</p>
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<p>my uncle went to serve in the military.
when he got back, he went to get is degree from an online reputable school (university of x but not arizona, phoenix, strayer, devry, etc.) while working on base.
got his grad degree from a top 10 school (with applying with his online BA background) now he works in d.c. for the government.
it really does not matter where you got your degree, as long as you got it. </p>
<p>even if you got your degree from a top tier undergraduate school and applied to a top tier graduate school, you’re put in the same boat as someone who went to a smaller, unknown undergraduate school.</p>
<p>I have to somewhat disagree, 10. I went to a top 15 university and had about a 3.0 and because of the recommendations and internships I was able to obtain there (because it was such a good school), I am now attending Hopkins for grad school in public health (#1 consistently). So honestly, doing worse at a good institution trumps doing awesome at a meh one.</p>
<p>
I disagree, and I’m not sure you understand how graduate admissions works. It can, though not always, matter quite a lot.</p>
<p>Someone applying with an online degree is much less likely to get into a reputable graduate program, to use your example. For one, such students have little or no research experience. For another, they usually have not developed the rapport with professors necessary for strong letters of recommendation. </p>
<p>Fortunately, you don’t have to take my word for it. Take a look at these:
</p>
<p>With the tanking of the economy, everyone and his grandmother is applying to graduate (and professional, such as medicine and law) school. It’s not unusual for even mediocre programs accept a mere 3 or 4 students out of 150+ qualified applicants. When the odds are that bad, especially when you factor in competing against people with MAs, you’d have to be delusional to think that coming from a strong program doesn’t help.</p>
<p>As I noted earlier, this is less true for many fields. Admit rates in engineering, for instance, approach 50% at many schools, and those programs are composed of students who attended a wide variety of undergraduate schools. Law school and other professional schools are also often an exception, as they are primarily concerned with LSAT scores (or other scores) and GPAs. Still, it must be noted that graduate/professional admissions is very, very competitive these days - why wouldn’t you give yourself every possible leg up?</p>
<p>That is quite aside from the obvious point that many students end up not applying to graduate/professional school at all. At my college, ~45% came in pre-med, but only ~25% actually applied senior year. If you decide further education is not for you, at least you still have a reputable undergraduate degree. Granted, one could certainly make the argument that people can be successful from any university, which is true, but realistically most people would prefer a diploma from Harvard than Podunk State A&M.</p>
<p>Thanks A LOT warblers, that’s an excellent. So would you say that to increase your chances of getting into a good program, would getting an MS first help (I’m looking at biochemistry or biology)? Also, say you get rejected from the program of your choice the first time you apply. Are you allowed to apply second time after some time off to work/intern/getting an MS?</p>
<p>
I won’t presume to know the ins and outs of science admissions, as that’s not really my field. Usually a MS cuts both ways; you’re showing that you’re capable of handling graduate coursework and are getting more deeply involved in research, but applicants with a MS are sometimes held to higher standards. The typical approach is to apply to both PhD and MS programs. For more detailed info, ask around on the grad forum where posters like molliebatmit are more knowledgeable about biology admissions.</p>
<p>
Yes, certainly. As I noted before, it’s very competitive, so striking out completely happens even to some top applicants, and it’s not uncommon for applicants to apply twice or even three times. Yale is the only school I know of that caps the number of times one may apply (three times).</p>
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<p>You undercut your own point when you stated that your uncle went to a reputable online program, which implicitly concedes that reputation does indeed matter. What if he had gone to a disreputable program?</p>
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<p>I can offer the most obvious example where that is false. Many schools run ‘concurrent’ graduate programs that are reserved specifically to its own undergraduates. If you’re a student at another school, you can’t even apply to these programs. </p>
<p>As a case in point, the MEng EECS program at MIT, one of the most popular graduate programs at MIT, is specifically reserved only for its own undergraduates. 75% of all MIT EECS undergraduates are eligible for the program, and most of the eligible students choose to do so. Students from other schools are not permitted to apply to the program, nor are students at MIT who don’t major in EECS. Furthermore, the MEng program is the only terminal master’s program that the EECS department offers.</p>