<p>Congratulations, psych_, and hope to see you in the conference rounds in the coming years 
I’m a current (funded) psychology grad student at an Ivy with a story very similar to yours - turned down a top tier acceptance with no money to attend a second-tier LAC with a full ride, attended, thrived, and got into my current program. Now I have about $21K in total debt (affordable on any post-doc salary! - so I don’t have to worry about that when juggling career-changing options after I finish here), and I was just awarded an NSF GRF You’re absolutely right, and I’m glad you shared your story; makes those of us advising kids not take on six-figure debt when they have a perfectly good scholarship at a perfectly good school look not so crazy anymore.</p>
<p>NEpop, I don’t think it’s not supportable. First of all, research has been done that shows that students who got into prestigious schools, but chose not to do go, do just as well on average as students who did end up there. Second of all, your circumstances weren’t luck. You did good work and your professor liked you because of that work. Professors don’t recommend people to others simply because they like their personality; their reputations are staked upon the success of the people they endorse. It’s also not coincidence or “luck” that your professor had a “friend” that happened to be a judge. Professionals make professional contacts in their fields; it’s part of working within the field. Law professors will probably know more than a few judges.</p>
<p>But your latter statement is not true. Top 20 law schools have students coming from all types of undergraduate backgrounds. They may have more students coming from top 20 schools, but that’s because more of those students are familiar with the top 20 law schools and have the desire and drive to go there. Most kids who go to regional public U probably have ambitions to get a degree and work in their local economy; few have grad school ambitions (or at least fewer than those at Harvard). That doesn’t mean that regional public U doesn’t have the potential for catapulting students as successfully into top tier law and medical schools. In fact, law schools don’t really care where you went to undergrad so much as they care about your LSAT scores and GPA.</p>
<p>Also, you are misinterpreting. No one is suggesting that where one goes to school does not have an impact upon one’s opportunities. In fact, psych_ noted the outstanding effect that the great preparation her 3rd tier school gave her was what helped propel her into her current success. I think her point, and the point of others who have echoed her, is that quantitative rankings like U.S. News are more or less arbitrary and that quantifying the “best” schools (an implicitly subjective term) is more or less useless. In addition to that, her point is that you can certain go to a 3rd tier school and do well - just like you did. The point is that what you do during your undergraduate years is far more important than where you go, necessarily. If you capture the attention of people who can help you you will get the support that you need to get there.</p>
<p>And check your school’s professor PhDs and JD origination sometimes. Because there are far fewer faculty positions than there are PhDs, you often see PhDs from great graduate programs teaching at schools that are considered “lesser.” Being a graduate student myself, I know that the only thing that drives a recent PhD’s selection of workplace is not prestige; there are other factors involved. (In fact, I know most of the people I talk to in my program do NOT want jobs like my Ivy League professors’ jobs.)</p>
<p>(And of course top law schools feed more people into top jobs, but no one is arguing that graduate school name doesn’t matter in the job market. It matters exponentially more than undergraduate school.)</p>
), but it prepared me well for my next steps and really helped me further grow as a scholar and person. For what it’s worth, I feel that my undergrad experiences and education were equal to–if not better then, at least in some areas–that of my peers, and that’s saying something.</p>