<p>I saw this posting on The Grad Cafe and got in an argument with my girlfriend about it. </p>
<p>She says it doesn't matter where you go to grad school (for an MD or a PhD) as long as it's good for what you do. </p>
<p>I say you're in deep creek if your graduate degrees are from a lower-ranked school than your undergrad. I wouldn't hire anybody who didn't move up the ladder. BA at East Podunk State and MA at Harvard? Great. BS at Stanford and PhD at East Podunk State? No way. </p>
<p>Here's the post: </p>
<p>"I attended a top Ivy for my undergraduate, straight out of crappy public school in Appalachia -- I worked hard in high school, sure, but got in mainly by virtue of being one of only a handful from my state to even apply. I busted tail in an interdisciplinary humanities major and graduated with middling Latin honors, but nowhere near impressive enough to get into a similar school for a PhD. I've always wanted to be an academic, and having tasted an East Coast elite university, I want nothing more than to end up in a place like that again. </p>
<p>The problem? My field is very small in number of admits but crowded with applicants, and all the top grad schools only seemed to take *summas *and Marshall scholars and kids with astounding publication records. I'd love to be an academic star, and I'm darned good at research, but I just can't compete with my very classmates to get into top programs. Not to mention the stellar grads of little liberal arts colleges and underlooked state schools who deserve to get into top PhD programs. They all had better CV's than mine and should have gotten in. </p>
<p>So, after being at my dream grad schools, I took a funded PhD offer from a much-lower ranked state school. Paying for a masters wasn't an aoption at any of them. I'm happy with the program, I'm going to do my best to make a name for myself in the field -- but I can't shake the fear that when I head out into the job market my CV will be trashed the moment they see my graduate school is ranked far below my undergrad school. ("Ah, ha! A slacker!") I'm not an elitist -- I'll probably be more comfotable in this new school, I know many grads from its PhD program get good, tenure track jobs, but all of them have come from the same institution or lower-ranked undergrad schools. </p>
<p>I'm worried that I won't be able to find a job or be taken seriously on the job hunt not because of where I got my PhD but because I didn't show progression up the prestige food chain or lateral shift to a "peer" institution from my undergrad to grad. I've heard it's common to choose grad schools for particular specializations, but in my case it's because I didn't get in anywhere else. </p>
<p>Any thoughts? Am I being paranoid? I want to show my new program they made the right choice when others turned me down."</p>