<p>Since grad schools (professional included) don't really care about the rigor of your coursework or which institution you graduated from, what stops a person from going to a college well below their level (and assume that this is a much lower ranked school) and outperforming everyone there? </p>
<p>Given that you can gain generally the same academic preparation at the "weaker" school, is it the opportunities you can get at the better college? More resources? Because it seems to me, you can do the same thing at most colleges and many have similar academic programs, even if you're not being taught by world-class professors.</p>
<p>to get into medical school (or any other program requiring a nose-bleed GPA), i would say u are FAR BETTER OFF going to a lower ranked school and getting an A, than going to a higher ranked school and getting a B.</p>
<p>don't know if this answers ur question or not.</p>
<p>IMHO, if you're interested in a vocational degree like Law or Medicine where GPA is a serious gating factor, you're better off tuning your undergrad major for the best possible GPA than dropping down to an unknown school on the theory that grading will be easier there.</p>
<p>But if your undergrad major is a direct tie-in to your grad school specialty...</p>
<p>Although a "name brand" undergrad is not an overriding consideration in grad admissions, it is also wrong to characterize it as a "don't really care" factor particularly in the case where the undergrad school has a particularly strong program. </p>
<p>There are at least a couple areas where you come out ahead:</p>
<p>LORs - one of the "out of one's control by really important" factors in admissions. If I'm interested in bronze age archaeology, a letter from Brian Rose here at Penn will carry far more weight than one from Joe Smith at East Whoville College who walked around Troy on a tour 20 years ago.</p>
<p>Research Opportunities - top programs will have more - it comes with the territory. And of course research ties into LORs, advising, publication and ultimately, admissions.</p>
<p>Nepotism - there is some evidence, particularly in the case of the Ivies, that top schools prefer each other's students. I've seen several studies that appear to show this bias in admits, particularly to law school. Probably a small factor, but potentially important for an otherwise "on the bubble" applicant.</p>
<p>Also, the LSDAS (Law School Data Assembly Service) factors in the degree of difficulty of your given undergrad college and creates a score / index based on that and your GPA. </p>
<p>So going to a cushy school with the thought that you'll inflate your GPA could come back to haunt you. Ultimately, getting above a 3.5 at a difficult and / or prestigious school is your ticket.</p>
<p>I'll add to William's post. At most top-tier colleges (including the many state flagships), you usually have more than enough resources/opportunities available to make yourself a serious candidate. So there is only so low one can go before limited resources and career placement opportunities become a serious liability. One's glorious 4.0 GPA at some unknown college won't make up for half-decent research/work experience.</p>
<p>If you want to work in the field you're studying, higher ranked schools prepare you better. That's where the "reputation score" of the rankings are useful, especially if they're from industry.</p>
<p>Look up the curriculum of your program at various schools. Chances are, more difficult schools will teach more or more in depth. Lower ranked schools might have more foundation / high school level courses in the beginning. These differences can make your life easier/harder in grad school.</p>
<p>The other factor is that in college, you learn more from each other than from the professor. Lectures are not very effective; learning from a prof occurs mostly in office hours, of which there are a couple a week to be shared among the entire class. So, if you're not a genius who studies best alone, you'll benefit greatly from a more competitive group of peers.</p>
<p>I think it all depends what you want to go into in grad school. If you want to get a masters in Public Policy or something, there is no point in going to Appalachian Chirstian Tech Central for your undergrad so you can break off a 4.0 GPA, simply because you won,t really need that high of a score come grad school anyways. However, as someone else pointed out, if you plan on applying somewhere that has very resritcitve admissions based mainly on grades, it might not be that bad of an idea.</p>
<p>In my experience, grad schools DO care where you did your undergraduate work. Just this year in admissions for the grad program I direct, a candidate from a third tier state school was rejected out of hand, even though she had a 4.0 cumulative. Another from a top LAC with a lower (3.35) GPA was heavily courted. A third from a middling flagship state U with a 3.6 GPA had taken advantage of EVERYTHING that came his way, distinguished himself in every way possible, and was also courted. </p>
<p>Anecdotal, granted, but absolutely indicative of the way things have worked for the last decade I've been in academia.</p>
<p>Just to avoid any confusion, I'd like to add to my last comment.</p>
<p>This does not mean that students from third-tier schools are <em>always</em> rejected immediately. </p>
<p>It is part of my job as DGS (and part of my colleagues' jobs as specialists in their areas) to know which undergraduate programs in our areas are rigorous, which are middling, and which are lousy. We use this knowledge in admission decision-making, but not to the consistent exclusion of stellar applicants from lousy programs. We know that Stellar Applicant A from University Z will not have adequate preparation for our program, but we look carefully at the student's entire application package for evidence of ability to overcome this lack of preparation (usually in method and theory, in my experience). We know when our colleagues in other programs have taken chances on Stellar Applicants B and C from lousy program Z, and we know whether or not those risks were worth taking. We talk to one another. A lot.</p>
<p>I hope this clarified things a bit. I do not want to be responsible for Stellar Applicants from ANY university losing confidence (or even hope) in terms of graduate admissions.
My intention was to demystify the process, not to quash aspirations.</p>
<p>If that is how you do grad admissions, i find that highly suspect. Just because someone went to a third tier school doesn't mean they are a third tier student. There are any reasons a student could end up a third tier school, be it financial, proximity to home, whatever. =I know you threw on a disclaimer to your first post, but the fact that you readily admit that you rejected a student offhand who had a 4.0 while "heavily courting" a mediocre student from a Top LAC is pretty awful, in my humble opinion.</p>
<p>I realize he didn't say that, but he did imply state that a particular student from a "third tier" school, although obviously academically excellent, was rejected "offhand" while another, mediocre student from a well known LAC was heavily courted. Unless there were some serious kitigating factors that I am not aware of, the simple fact that one went to a lesser know insititution while the other blew thousands of dollars to go to a well known LAC seems like insufficient grounds to "court" on while rejecting the other.</p>
<p>Prof X should chime in pretty quickly with some answer that downplays what he said in hsi first post (which he actually already did, I suppose) but he did clearly imply in his first post that he rejected someone based on the quality of their undergrad insititution. if that wasn't the case, he should tell us what exactly this 4.0 student didn't have that the 3.35 studetn did have, beside the money to pay for a good undergrad degree.</p>
<p>Please understand that there's always more to the story.</p>
<p>The top LAC student was not at all mediocre. This student had a great GPA in the major, had published, had walk-on-water letters of rec, and had a couple of crappy grades in science courses, which impacted the cumulative GPA. This student also received major award packages from two other superb graduate programs.</p>
<p>The third tier school candidate's lack of preparation in theory and method in our discipline (due to a crappy undergrad program) sunk that student's candidacy, despite her 4.0. </p>
<p>I wanted to make a point about the necessity of attention to the rigor of ALL undergraduate programs in our field. Please don't make me regret trying to help out here.</p>
<p>No, he said that the 4.0 from this third tier school did not really mean that the student was stellar, because he knew the program. I'm guessing, beyond that, this student did not take part in any other intensive research or internship that proved that the 4.0 actually did mean something. The 3rd student professor x mentioned, who was from a 2nd tier? school, had only a 3.6, but did so much outside work he got in. </p>
<p>A 4.0 from a tier 1 school and a 4.0 from a tier 3 school are completely different things. Some students do go to weaker programs for financial reasons, but for the most part top students go to top schools, and you can't expect an average student from an average school to be the same as an average student from a top 10 - and you can't rate them the same. That's just not how meritocracy works.</p>
<p>I don't find anything Professor X (a female, by the way) said to be unreasonable. When you're a highly capable student, yet choose to attend a third tier school, you're taking quite a big risk. At such an institution, the best you can hope to be is the best among a group of mediocre students. That's not saying much, and one can't really can't say anything beyond that without speculation.</p>
<p>And merper68 is correct -- the student from the third tier school with the 4.0 did nothing -- nothing -- besides take a series of courses in my discipline. Since I know this program very well, I also know that these courses were merely overviews of broad subject matter. </p>
<p>And top LAC student is NOT from a privileged family background, and went to said top LAC on full scholarship. (I note this to address jmleadpipe's assumption that this student "blew thousands of dollars.") Top LAC student also chose a program other than mine, and chose well. This student will be advised by a former professor of mine!</p>
<p>Finally, 3.6 from tier 2 student has earned -- really earned -- all kinds of enthusiasm from us. He'll be joining us in the fall. With an assistantship, and a university-wide award for which he had to compete.</p>
<p>Professor X, I am glad you are taking the time and patience to demystify the process. What you described is quite consistent from what I know about grad school admission for engineering and CS. The adcom is usually very concerned if a candidate from a weak undergraduate program has the sufficient preparation to survive (much less do well) in a more rigorous graduate program. My impression has been those candidates don't often get the benefit of doubt given the presence of other safer (or less risky) candidates from better program. Will you like to comment on that? I think it will help those currently not in the most rigorous program to better prepare themselves. I hope it is obvious to readers now that higher standardize test score doesn't cut it.</p>
<p>I'll be glad to comment, although since I am in the humanities, I cannot really be very helpful in regard to programs in the hard sciences. What I am hoping, though, is that aspiring grad students in any discipline will realize that graduate admissions are not as terrifyingly inhumane and heartbreakingly random as some may suspect.</p>
<p>When a student is coming from a weak undergrad program, the responsibility falls upon the student to take advantage of every opportunity offered, and to <em>create</em> opportunities that are not. Almost any student can submit papers to an undergraduate journal, undertake an independent study with a professor, begin studying languages appropriate to his/her area of intended specialization, attend conferences in the discipline, study abroad (particularly if discipline-appropriate), etc.</p>
<p>In other words, it helps when the student works to remedy the known shortcomings of that program. In my discipline (as well as most humanities and social science disciplines), a rigorous program will endeavor to familiarize undergrads with both the history of, and current trends in, method and theory. If a program offers little in this respect, the student should propose to a professor an independent study in some aspect of method and theory. The student could then write about this experience in his/her statement of purpose, and/or submit the completed research for this project as a writing sample. Both of these things would help the adcom to see a student's real capabilities.</p>
<p>i'd like to thank u for ur input on these boards.</p>
<p>just a question here though. u mentioned that ur "heavily courted" applicant also received substantial offers from two other prestigious programs. u also mention that academicians talk, a lot. </p>
<p>do adcoms, or members of adcoms discuss their applicants with other university's adcoms/members while applicants are going through the admission process? i.e. do u know that your Applicant A is also applying to University Z, because an adcom member/friend/committee from Uni Z let u know this fact?</p>
<p>During one of my school visits, one of the professors I met with mentioned my name being brought up by a professor (his former advisee) at another school I had been admitted to.</p>