If I could easily get into practically any public school for undergraduate, could I reasonably have a chance at getting into an ivy league graduate school? Or should I try to get into an ivy league for undergrad to heighten my chances of getting into an ivy league grad school?
Apply to a wide range of reach, match, and safety schools and see what happens. Be sure that your options appear to be affordable.
All other things being equal, attending an Ivy League college probably does boost your changes of admission to an Ivy League graduate school. It’s hard to say whether any boost is big enough to justify a significant price premium on that basis alone. Furthermore, for many academic fields, you may discover that some schools other than the 8 Ivies have graduate programs that better meet your needs.
^^^ maybe true in some professional schools - I was in a Grad program at an Ivy and none of my fellow students had done their undergrad at an Ivy. Mostly LACs and state schools.
Thank you everyone, this has been useful advice! More specifically, I get automatic admission to UT Austin, or I could easily get into University of Colorado Boulder. I’m looking at Cornell and, less likely, Harvard.
There are no grad programs you will be shut out of from UT Austin, or even UC Boulder. My undergrad was similar to Boulder, and I attended a HYPSM for grad school.
You can easily go from UT Austin to an Ivy for graduate school. Same with Boulder. I went to a small liberal arts college for undergrad - in the top 100, but not in the top 25 or even 50 - and went to Columbia for graduate school.
Where you go to undergrad isn’t nearly as important as what you do there.