<p>I've seen this topic pop up here and there, and i'm curious myself.</p>
<p>Does getting into a top grad school (IVY, etc.) require you to come from a top undergrad school?</p>
<p>false (10 char)</p>
<p>false but it helps bigtime. I'd say 75% of the slots at top grad schools are filled with undergrads from the top 25 universities and LACs.</p>
<p>even med scools?</p>
<p>I think med schools are the most competitive of all.</p>
<p>Anyone has the list of top 25 universities and LACs?</p>
<p>Medical schools are extremely competitive to get into at the top levels. Acceptance rates at top schools such as harvard, johns hopkins, and upenn are around 5-6% with ucsf being even more brutal I think.</p>
<p>Less spots = huge competition between many students with comparable gpas and mcat scores.</p>
<p>In this case, a large number of applicants will probably have 3.6 or higher gpas so the quality of your undergrad college is very important here.</p>
<p>Of course, you still won't get into anything good if you get a 2.5 at harvard</p>
<p>Exactly. That is true, at the top 10 med schools you are talking about students with 3.7s+, so its harder for a 4.0 at X-state to differentiate themselves given similar MCATs. </p>
<p>At the top level going to a good undergrad schools helps alot. This is purely anecdotal but I was out with some Cornell Med students last night. The undergraduate schools of the people (I know them all - friends of mine) were: Yale, Yale, Dartmouth, Williams, Brown, Penn, Stanford. The two non-top 25 were Texas and LSU.</p>
<p>I have noticed the same at Columbia (where I got my MBA), and NYU law. Literally it seems like everyone in these circles went to a top school.</p>
<p>false...
I know several SUNY grads who got into top law schools (Duke), med schools (U Rochester), and PhD programs (Caltech, Wisconsin).</p>
<p>I also know students graduating from Cornell in May who did not get into their top three med schools or PhD schools (but they did get in somewhere).</p>
<p>Its more for the top grad schools. For example, I have a friend who had a 3.1 at Dartmouth who got a decent job and did well on the GMAT. Next thing you know you he was at Chicago MBA. A 3.5 from Ohio State will not have the same advantage.</p>
<p>it's not an absolute MUST - but it certainly helps a lot.</p>
<p>the competition to get into an elite (Top 5) big three (law, business, med) grad school is ferociously competitive.</p>
<p>so if you are NOT coming from an elite undergrad - you'd better have been a bonafide academic rock star at your school.</p>
<p>to echo slipper's point - your "leeway" for error will be higher if you have the benefit of going to an elite undergrad </p>
<p>that said, the cream rises to the top in any environment - i.e. there will be "bottom feeders" at every Ivy, so just because you graduate from an Ivy doesn't guarantee you a spot at an elite grad school. </p>
<p>this is not dissimilar to the argument of whether its worth it to go to an elite prep school (Andover, Exeter, St. Paul's, etc.) For those who do a good job and make it into a top school (Ivy or otherwise) then clearly the costs were worth it and its another feather in your cap. but not everyone from prep school goes to an Ivy - and their perspective may be very different, perhaps that individual would have graduated near the top of his local high school and would have gone to an Ivy, but because that person was a small fish in a bigger, more competitive pond - perhaps he made a bad choice.</p>
<p>So if you can go to an elite undergrad - it certainly doesn't hurt but it's not a lock for grad school by any means.</p>
<p>no free lunch.</p>
<p>FALSE (in capitals)</p>
<p>Look at the undergraduate institutions that Harvard Law students come from...although HYP has a disproportionate more, other nonelite places place people there too.</p>
<p>Just to back up what others have said, no, you don't NEED to go to a top ug school to get into to grad, but it certainly makes things easier. I go to Berkeley and have had numerous GSIs in my years, and out of curiosity I always ask them where they went to ug. Harvard, Yale, Brown, Uchicago, and a few top LACs seem to dominate.</p>
<p>False, but yes it does help.</p>
<p>false. nothing is a MUST. </p>
<p>i know someone from cal state fullerton who's at harvard medical school. </p>
<p>if you're leaning towards law, you can clearly see that harvard law accepts students from a wide spectrum of colleges:
<a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php</a></p>
<p>of course, if two candidates are equal, the one who went to a better college probably gets the tip in.</p>
<p>Harvard Law School you say?</p>
<p>Let's take a look at the '05-'06 matriculated class and their respective undergraduate school representation:</p>
<p>Top 15 schools by largest representation:</p>
<p>Harvard University 232
Yale University 126
Stanford University 91
Princeton University 65
Duke University 55
University of Pennsylvania 53
Brown University 51
Columbia University 44
University of California - Berkeley 43
University of California - Los Angeles 41
Cornell University 40
Georgetown University 33
Dartmouth College 31
University of Texas - Austin 31
Brigham Young University 24</p>
<p>NOTE: </p>
<ul>
<li>All Ivies are in the Top 15</li>
<li>6 out of 8 Ivies occupy the Top 10 (HYP, Penn, Brown, Columbia)</li>
<li>Consider how impressive this is given the SIZE of the average Ivy vs. the average size of the large state U. - i.e. basically Ivies are WAY punching above their weight if you look at sheer ratio numbers</li>
<li>Take a quick scan of that above list - ALL THE USUAL SUSPECTS (save BYU perhaps)</li>
</ul>
<p>Harvard Law can claim that its entering 1L (1st year) class has graduates from over 200 colleges - but let's keep it real and take a look at the sheer DOMINANCE by the Ivies + other elites (Stanford, Duke, etc.)</p>
<p>So, yeah, one can claim that Utah State University has representation at HLS this year - but if you went there what are the odds that you are that one lucky lottery winner?</p>
<p>(p.s. Ivies are overrated right? Winner, winner, chicken dinner)</p>
<p>Top 25 colleges</p>
<p>National:
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
Stanford
CalTech
MIT
UPENN
Columbia
Dartmouth
Northwestern
WUStL
Cornell
JHU
Brown
Univ of Chicago
Rice
Notre Dame
Emory
Vanderbilt
UC Berkeley
CMU
Georgetown
UCLA
UVA
UMich-Ann Arbor</p>
<p>LAC:
Williams
Amherst
Swarthmore
Wellesley
Carleton
Bowdoin
Pomona
Haverford
Middlebury
Claremont McKenna
Davidson
Wesleyan
Vassar
Washington and Lee
Colgate
Grinnell
Hamilton
Harvey Mudd
Smith
Colby
Bates
Bryn Mawr
Mt. Holyoke
Oberlin
Macalester
Trinity</p>
<p>are colleges such as emory, boston college, wake forest, or indiana considered an "elite" college?</p>
<p>By "bad" colleges are we talking state U's?</p>
<p>Most colleges in the top 50 are basically "elite."</p>
<p>No, I mean colleges that don't have much to offer, like weird places in the middle of nowhere that I get mail from (such as Southwestern University.)</p>
<p>Well at least that how I look at it.</p>
<p>how about Havard Med School?</p>
<p>ivy_grad,</p>
<p>the point is not how many students ivies and other top colleges send to top graduate and professional programs. it is obvious that these top colleges have better STUDENT BODIES and more students from these colleges will make it to the top grad programs.</p>
<p>what the OP is asking about is whether one MUST go to a good/top undergrad college in order to get into a good grad program, and the answer is simply NO. it's not about the 1 Utah State, but rather the 1 albertson college + 1 andrews university + 1 austin college + 1 ball state + 1 berry + 1 bridgewater + 1 calvin college + 1 cedarville college etc. you get the point. </p>
<p>besides, it's the PERSON who's successful. a really good student will get into a top grad program regardless of which undergrad college he/she went to. the only ones who won't agree with this statement are those who haven't finished college or aren't even in college yet.</p>