<p>Hi
I'm deciding where to go between Penn (non-Wharton) and Dartmouth for undergrad to double major in Math & Econ.
I hope to get a PhD in economics after college at a top school (aiming for Stanford or Princeton)</p>
<p>I know Penn will be a harder route (I will have a lower GPA and will have to work much harder, simply because of how competitive the students are; realistically I see myself with a 3.6 at Penn and a 3.8 at Dartmouth.)
I was wondering if it will pay off? Penn's Econ & Math departments have famous scholars and they rank top 20 on most lists; meanwhile Dartmouth almost always ranks outside the top 40. </p>
<p>What's going to look better on my grad school app: graduating Penn and doing research with a slightly more famous scholar or having a slightly higher GPA at Dartmouth? </p>
<p>You are already predicting your UG GPA and have your grad schools picked out? You need to relax and enjoy your college experience and see where it takes you. That destination will probably be quite different than what your high school perspective has in mind. To answer your question, UG matters very little for grad applications. Best wishes.</p>
<p>thanks for the reply.
I’m trying to keep as many options open as possible, and definitely foresee myself going in this route so I would like to maximize my chances of success.</p>
<p>So do you mean UG grades don’t matter, or UG school doesn’t matter? It seems like they both matter–Grades are looked at in all grad school application processes, and the quality of department also matters (Penn is itself a top 5 grad school for Econ, so i feel it would have a “feeder”-type push that helps)</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice again</p>
<p>The university you attend as an undergraduate is not terribly important. Your academic accomplishments, your research experience and your letters of reference are more important.</p>
<p>Sorry to be unclear - xraymancs said it better above.</p>
<p>First of all, you can’t predict that your GPA will be higher at one place and lower at another. Even though Penn is competitive, you may find yourself swept up in the competitive spirit and do very well. On the other hand, a school that is not as competitive may be easier for you and less motivating. Your GPAs could be exactly the same or the opposite of what you expect. (And for reference, I’m good evidence of that - I went to a safety school I loved, and while I felt well-prepared to think and write critically the atmosphere was not competitive at all. Thus I did pretty well but I wasn’t really motivated to grade-grub the way I would’ve been elsewhere. Which is fine, because that’s what I wanted.)</p>
<p>I also have the feeling that you are basing your predictions upon stereotypes rather than actual knowledge - stereotypes of Penn students as driven and ambitious vs. stereotypes of Dartmouth students as fratty partiers. The only thing I can say to that is there’s a reason that Dartmouth has the reputation it has as one of the best undergrad institutions in the country. Rankings also have nothing to do with the difficulty of a program and I’m not even sure where you are finding Dartmouth’s rankings in economics, as they don’t have a graduate economics program. And it is graduate programs that are ranked, not undergrad programs.</p>
<p>Even with that said, though, it doesn’t matter where you go to undergrad - especially when your choice is between Penn and Dartmouth. You’ll have the opportunity to work with top-notch scholars, take challenging classes and get good recommendations regardless of which you choose. So I think you should make your choice on other factors besides the academics - the differences are negligible here. For example, Dartmouth is in a cold rural area while Penn is in a very large city. Dartmouth is also smaller and more undergrad-focused - with just 4,000 undergrads and only 2,000 grad students - while Penn is a large research university, with 10,000 undergraduates and 11,000 graduate students. The feel of the study body will be very different at Penn than at Dartmouth.</p>
<p>No offense, but predicting what your undergrad GPA will be before you start undergrad is absolutely absurd. College is different than high school and you have no way of knowing what will take place over the next four years or how well prepared for it you are. I wouldn’t assume you’ll have a certain GPA at any institution before you attend it for at least a year or two. </p>
<p>To answer your question, it doesn’t really matter what school you went to. The reputation of the professor you work with will matter more than a small difference in GPA (as long as it’s a competitive GPA for admission), but you can find well-regarded professors in many places (including both Penn and Dartmouth). Just because Penn has a higher ranked department, don’t assume that every Penn professor will have a better reputation than every Dartmouth professor. There’s almost no way that that’s the case. </p>