<p>OSU, the “double-standard” for close-mindedness is because close-mindedness is generally seen as a negative quality, particularly when one plans a career in graduate school and/or as an academic.</p>
<p>And, OSU trust me - I’m realistic. I didn’t come to graduate school just because it seemed fun to live in poverty for 6 years while navel-gazing and engaging in intellectual masturbation. I want a job! but honestly, in order to do well in graduate school you HAVE to have at least a little intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation has nothing to do with getting A - trust me, I graduated with a 3.4 GPA in undergrad, I could care less about As. It’s about learning the material, mastering it, doing your best, loving research and studying for the pleasure it gives you and not what it can get you. I mean, there can be a mixture, but any Ph.D student will tell you that if you don’t live research for research’s sake, you will be relatively miserable in graduate school.</p>
<p>Biopsychosocial is right. It’s hard to decide that you want to go to graduate school before you even begin college proper - you have no idea if you’ll even like it. You may just want to get out of college as fast as you can and run to the nearest job.</p>
<p>And yes, there would be a huge difference between the #30 school and the #1 school. But it’s not about rank, it’s about fit. If you’re a political scientist who focuses on comparative politics in Southeast Asia, and the top scholar in that field is at school ranked #20, it would be better for you to go there and work with him than it would for you to go to school #1 if no one at school #1 does comparative politics in Southeast Asia. The fit is what’s most important; you need to go somewhere that people are doing research in which you are interested and will thus help you make the right contacts to get that post-doc or job. Graduate school is probably at least 30% about networking.</p>