<p>I am currently a senior in engineering at UIUC and will be applying for grad school here in the spring. I am wondering whether you typically have a better chance getting into grad school coming as an undergraduate from the same university? Or, if i should consider also applying to other schools?</p>
<p>I know a ton of folks from my masters program in civ at UIUC came directly from undergrad there. Talk to your profs and see whether or not they think you've got a good chance of getting in, or whether they would recommend that you apply to a few other programs as well. It also kind of depends upon what you want to study and who you want to study with, because grad degrees are more about matching well with your advisor and what research they're doing.</p>
<p>im gonna be a freshman next year, the school in going to has a combined program which lets me get BS and MS in EE in 5 years, if i want to get a PhD is it good to do this program or is it better to go to another school and get a masters and PhD together?</p>
<p>You'll likely have to repeat your coursework at another school if you go to get a PhD after getting a MS at your undergrad school. You might be able to place out of a class or two, but I wouldn't count on it. I think the combined BS/MS degree is only really worthwhile if you want to go into industry or if you can finish it in 4 years.</p>
<p>brad97z, it depends on each school and program. I know one of my friends in CS at CMU was a top student, but he didn't get admitted to the PhD program because the program he wanted to go into did accept CMU undergrads. On the other hand, I know a number of people here at Caltech that did their undergrad and have stayed on to do their graduate studies. I also had a standing offer at my undergrad school to attend there if I wasn't satisfied with any of my alternatives.</p>
<p>That's true about repeating coursework if you go on to PhD, but graduate grades don't really matter unless you're going into academia. If you come in prepped, take your quals and pass them, I don't think your adviser is going to bug you much about what courses you're going to take and whether you get A's rather than B's.</p>