One who wants to attend a Ivy League graduate school must attend as undergraduate?

[molliebatmit]

<p>

The two don’t necessarily go together because you can be a star in your department, or for one professor, without having to be at the top of the class. You can wow your professors in Italian, but not in poly sci. You’ll still get excellent recommendations. In fact, I’ll wager that professors of any university have no idea where their students stand in relation to their peers; all they know is who performed well in their classes.

That was absolutely true in my case – I was average in terms of GPA at MIT (and probably rather below average for my department), but, as I was told many times during the interview process, my letters were outstanding. </p>

<p>There’s no need to stand out among one’s school peers to get into a great graduate program, just to stand out among other applicants to the program. My program was perfectly happy to take 10 students from MIT my year in a 70-person cohort.</p>

<p>

Probably the most accurate thing we could say is that the undergraduate location that best enhances a student’s grad-school prospects is the one that best addresses that student’s own goals for growth and achievement. For some students, that may be an Ivy; for many, many more, it’s elsewhere.

I think this is exactly the point.</p>

<p>Getting into graduate school isn’t just about the student, it’s also about the resources available to the student and how the student has used them to excel. Different students will be happiest and most successful at different types of schools.</p>