<p>Hi MOWC! You are stick on my kid, how I can stop it? is there anything I can do to please you so that you use your kid’s story and leave mine alone? I cannot accomplish this task no matter how hard I asked in a past. BTW, it is not even permitted here to use others as you own refernces. If you are so mad at certain UG, state your own personal reasons. You have nothing to do with my kid, your free speech rights are not spread that far.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP,
your child is not the only student to go to UMO and may not be representative of the average student there, just as my DS was not the typical USC student. Big U’s may not be the best place for some students.
Can you please give it a rest?</p>
<p>menloparkmom: Congrats on having a son with a Caltech PhD! I apologize for not knowing about USC or about science - even though I birthed a scientist. But I wonder if USC has a top dept in your son’s area of interest? Were his professors there instrumental in his acceptance to graduate school? Did he do research at USC? Maybe had an REU? A Goldwater? Author of a paper?</p>
<p>If Miami’s child is not the typical student at UMO and yours isn’t the typical student at USC, it seems useful to discuss what they did that prepared them for professional or graduate school. We have already heard from Miami 
but I would be interested to read your take on this. Especially when grad school admissions are very difficult and parents here are being advised the undergraduate institution doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Do you find your son’s path typical? Does it compare with that of other students who were in his PhD program?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>edit: Maybe he doesn’t even do science! I just assumed :(</p>
<p>alh- I’ll comment from the perspective of a pre-med (which my son in law was and Miami’s D was). I think if the student is VERY sure (and so many change their minds…) that they are heading to med school, it does make sense to follow the money for undergrad. A very determined and focused student can do fine, take the requisite courses and save the money for med school. My son in law had a full ride music scholarship to Loyola-New Orleans and chose it over Duke and some other $$$$ schools. He took what he needed for med school admissions, chose his state med school (again, for the money and since he very much believes that med school prestige doesn’t matter) and got into a prestigious residency program. However, if he had bailed on the med school plan, I’m not sure how he would have done with his Loyola music degree. :)</p>
<p>“parents here are being advised the undergraduate institution doesn’t matter”</p>
<p>That depends on the field. In some fields, the recommendation of a certain caliber of professor may be necessary for a top PhD program. Those professors may not be found everywhere – though the overall rank of the school is not a good predictor of where they are. A lot of state flagships have well-connected professors in many fields.</p>
<p>This is the kind of thing that’s utterly specific to the program. It doesn’t just differ between aerospace engineering and French literature; it might differ just as much between linguistic anthropology and cultural anthropology.</p>
<p>You must have a lot of history together. If this is any help, I have a friend. Her D got accepted to H and P, went to H. She had good enough 4 years at H. Now at a not very known medical school. For her going to H doesn’t seem to open doors So far anyway.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Research</a> > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences](<a href=“http://dornsife.usc.edu/research/]Research”>http://dornsife.usc.edu/research/)</p>
<p>well now I feel stupid. obviously no lack of research opportunities. why would he have considered another school again? :)</p>
<p>alh - I am close to a USC grad from 2010 who is in med school (had a joint admit at Keck but chose to go to a state U for not financial reasons). One of his premed classmates went to med school at Wash U (number 4 last time I checked) on a full scholarship.</p>
<p>I would say USC produces some highly sought after graduates in all areas?</p>
<p>i guess we cross posted.</p>
<p>I had known H. trained lawyer…who never practiced. She was stay at home mom, and not very good one at that. However, she was always introduced with H. name following her own. Some people are very happy with that. I would say why not? Certainly was never our family goal, we as the most have limited resources. But some want to pay, I am happy for them and for the fact that they support economy as well!!</p>
<p>Igloo–Your friend’s daughter has already succeeded by entering medical school. A “not very known” med school will still educate her to be a successful physician despite not carrying a designer name which may impress her mother’s friends. </p>
<p>Harvard is very competitive and many students opt to use their energy for ECs, a social life, or volunteer work, instead of churning out perfect grades for Ivy med schools. The student in question may have a much bigger impact in the long run on public health than a robotic grade-grubber.</p>
<p>Quantmech:</p>
<p>still reading? another example </p>
<p>fauve: recently some posters couldn’t believe a phrase like “robotic grade-grubber” was used on this board, or maybe that it was used by parents. I can’t remember the exact conversation. …it is kind of interesting how often it appears once you start watching for it</p>
<p>
If the argument is that a student doesn’t need a prestigious university, why should they need a prestigious med school? That’s like saying they do need a prestigious school; they can just go for it now or later.</p>
<p>@fauve She doesn’t have to impress me. I am beyond that(?) I didn’t think H was the right place for this kid. She could have done better somewhere else.</p>
<p>I think most people tend to form a stronger bond with people from the same UG school than G school. It is that strong association (or feeling good) with a school which will make them have a “soft spot” for graduates from a particular school. When colleges define what is a legacy, it is usually someone whose relative went to UG not G school.</p>
<p>I have a good feeling for my alma mater and my kid´s college, so when I see a resume from those schools I would generally take another look. As we all know, that extra few few minutes could mean at least an interview. D1´s firm actively recruit at her school because they have a lot of alumni working at her firm. Senior people often take the time to mentor the new graduates from their alma mater.</p>
<p>I would imagine someone wouldn´t necessary pick a particular doctor just because they went to the same college.</p>
<p>Iglooo- Medical school is different. It’s not like law school. It really doesn’t matter where you go in terms of prestige. The residency program is what is important. In fact, it is better to go to a medical school in a major city with good trauma cases coming through. The state medical schools send doctors to residency specialties that only accept one or two doctors a year. I had to shift my thinking on the whole “name” thing when it came to medical school. It’s a different deal.</p>
<p>Miami- your resources can’t be TOO limited if you are paying for medical school!</p>
<p>Oldfort, I agree with you in general. The legal field is an exception – when lawyers hire other lawyers, the law school tie comes first, though a shared undergrad never hurts.</p>
<p>Hanna - I agree with your assessment. My brother will always say he went to Cornell, but not where he got his MBA, even thought it is a top tier MBA schools. My sister will mention her law school before her Ivy UG. She continues to go back to her law school reunions.</p>
<p>I’ll use a choice I was just given…</p>
<p>My dd has a chronic illness. I chose a specific hospital for having a great pediatric department of this specific condition. When looking at the website for the particular doctors one attended very prestigious schools and had what seemed to me prestigious internships. I chose that doctor over the ones who went to no name schools. </p>
<p>Maybe if it was for me I wouldn’t have minded as much, but when given the choice for my child, I went for the doc with what I perceived as the best credentials from undergrad all the way through residency. I can’t imagine I’m the only “regular joe” who chooses based on this.</p>
<p>MOWC - It probably is also the case for sciences and tech, that prestige comes less useful. Anyway this kid’s medical school is not in a city major or minor, not a place she would have gone if she had a choice. </p>
<p>I said this before. I am dragged along on fancy alum events. Sometimes, it looks as if the most some of these alums accomplished is going to name-brand college. It gets a bit pathetic. You would hope that if you went admirable institutions, use that as spring board and fly to somewhere, somewhere high. You should accomplish more not stuck there.</p>
<p>eyemamom, I did that myself once and it backfired on me! When I needed a basic outpatient surgery, I could have had any surgeon in my plan do it for free. But I wanted to minimize the scar, so I paid out of pocket to have a senior member of the Harvard Med plastic surgery faculty, who also had a PhD from MIT, do it. You can guess the rest. He missed a simple postoperative infection, and in the end the untreated infection led to a big wide scar.</p>
<p>I don’t know what I’d do in the same situation again, though. It really is tempting to go for those degrees…</p>