<p>I am a student from the University of Central Florida, looking to pursue a masters in Electrical Engineering. Regionally University of Central Florida is known as a decent engineering school (ranked 57th in Electrical Engineering), but nationally the school is probably overshadowed by the more well known University of Florida. Would coming from a lesser ranked school be a huge detriment to my application if everything else is competitive (3.8 GPA, GRE 800Q 610V, and three years of research experience).?</p>
<p>In the first stage of admissions (the down-select) they are not usually looking too hard at school strength, just gpa, gre, and other resume bullet-points. You are fine there, although some schools may still cut you out based on some particular algorithm. If you were borderline (say 2.9-3.2 gpa, or 3.2-3.5 gpa for top schools) a strong school reputation might pull you over the bar, but you should not be concerned there.</p>
<p>In the second stage of admissions (the up-select) professors are looking at you as an individual. Doubtless they will more highly regard a 3.8 from Stanford or MIT, but at this point professors at good schools are looking much more at your LOR’s and SOP than anything else. Indeed, the rep of your LOR writers will matter more than your school - if a top guy in your speciality is extolling your virtues then you are golden. But at this point it is all a crap shoot anyway - you are competing blindly against other top students, and it is just a question of which qualified applicant they pick.</p>
<p>Mr Cosmicfish, just curious how you know this about school strength helping you into grad school…generally I think you advice and posts are good and in line with my understanding.</p>
<p>Just curious if you have examples from your educational experience about this subject. The difference school strength makes for getting into Grad school is an often discussed subject on this forum. People seem to have radically different opinions. I often wonder where they get their opinions.</p>
<p>My opinion is based on discussions with 4 of my coworkers and mentors who have served in recent years on admissions committees at 3 different universities (all ranked between 10-30 in electrical engineering), plus a few more current professors who have discussed with me their “second stage” preferences in selecting students.</p>
<p>This reminded me of one thing I forgot to mention - that first stage algorithm is often iterative, weeding down to a certain number of top students “by the numbers” to minimize the second stage search. That is, if a given school is looking for 30 serious candidates they will keep eliminating candidates until they get down to 30. Depending on the competition that year, a given person could fall on either side of the line.</p>
<p>Some examples I can give without naming names (yes I know some of the students they told me about) - a student admitted to a Big Ten school who had a gpa between 3.2 and 3.4, passed through in the first round over some higher gpas because of their undergrad institution (MIT). Another student who had a good gpa (3.7+) who they let through (elsewhere) even though the school was not so good (ranked well below 50th).</p>
<p>In the second stage you get all sorts of prejudices, so it is hard to say what helps. One prof told me he favored MIT because in his experience MIT grads were innovative, another at the same school disliked MIT grads because they were not very good in the lab. Another preferred to admit women and students from “lower tier universities” - one of his grad students had gotten his undergrad from a very very low ranked school. Another professor (by repute, I never knew him well) would not accept students who did not come from a “prestige” school like he had. </p>
<p>These were the exception: most were looking more for how well the student fit their expectations and needs - including academics. One prof doing plasma physics and engineering was looking expressly for high gpa, particularly in math and physics, and did not care that much about the particular school.</p>
<p>Cosmicfish’s breakdown illustrates the unique differences between graduate and undergraduate admissions. Although people who frequent CC are well-informed, a surprisingly large number of (non-CC) undergraduates applying to graduate school are naive about the process. </p>
<p>With PhD programs, professors and therefore departments are looking for students who will help advance their own research. A senior and well-funded professor can exert influence to accept a student who promises to be an excellent researcher and student for his project(s), even though there’s no guarantee that the student will work with him. However, admissions is often about compromise and projections: Will this student have the versatility to succeed at both core courses and research/dissertation? Does he exhibit signs of creativity that will lead him to solve certain questions in the field? Can he handle the rigor of the program? Are his interests narrow enough to show forethought, or are they too narrow to exclude working with more than one faculty member? Does he write well enough to produce publishable papers?</p>
<p>These questions have different answers for every department because of the individuals involved. The quality of the undergraduate program is only one part of the whole picture, although I would by lying if I said it didn’t make a difference. Yes, a student from MIT may be admitted before you are, but that’s only one spot. But suppose that same MIT student has lackluster LORs that, when the committee reads between the lines, indicates that he is average. Your application then gets an edge because your LORs state that you were one of the most ambitious students Professor 1 has ever taught and that Professor 2 found that your work ethic and contributions to his research project were admirable. </p>
<p>There are simply too many variables, including the specific applications from other students, to determine whether your UG school will make a difference. Get excellent LORs and write a compelling SOP, and I’ll bet you get good results.</p>
<p>Cosmicfish, Momwaitingfornew…thanks for your replies. My personal experience on this subject is limited. I’ve seen a list of alma maters of newly accepted engineering PhD students at a recruiting event I was invited to once. That is about the extent of my understanding of how grad schools consider undergrad reputation. I did notice that about 60% to 70% were from schools with top engineering programs, top national universities, top Liberal arts colleges, or top international schools. Not every admit was from a “prestigous…I use the term hesitantly” school though. </p>
<p>This group of newly admitted students was very diverse in terms of schools they had attended. Rarely, did one dept(ie electrical or mechanical engineering) have more than one student with an alma mater from the same school. For example, practically everybody in the mechanical engineering dept list of newly accepted students came from different undergrad schools.</p>