<p>I think people have been discussing mostly professional schools (med, law, business) here. If you look at the other graduate (Ph.D.) programs, you will be amazed at the large percentage of international students, most of whom graduated from non-US institutions.</p>
<p>for an elite (top 5) Ph.D program in physics or math- would my chances of getting in be decreased if I chose to attend BC rather than JHU?</p>
<p>bump......</p>
<p>BC (Boston College) is a very good school overall. So as long as you maintain excellent GPA, score high in GREs, show great research potentials, and can secure good recommendation letters from the right professors, I don't think attending BC instead of JHU will reduce your chances of getting into strong Ph.D. programs in physics or math. The graduate adcoms will mostly try to assess a candidate's motivation and potentials for doing high-quality research. BC or JHU will not matter in my opinion.</p>
<p>Would University of Chicago be considered a "good" undergrad school for med?</p>
<p><"People who go to harvard medical school as opposed to lower ranked programs have much better chances at securing positions at top hospitals">
Don't beleive it! That is too sweeping a statement. I am a physician, graduated from very "non-ivy" college and med school, both respectable and within my fianacial and family-conditions reach. I work next to physicains from Yale med school, U Penn and also with others from a background like mine. If I asked you to pick who among us earned more/ is more respected as a physician and researcher, and you went by the undergrad/ med school rankings , you would be very wrong. Discipline, drive, curiosity, passion, ability to work hard over long periods of time....the stuff your parents told you about...these are more important in the long run.
So long as you don't screw up in a MAJOR way (get pregnant as a teenager, land in jail etc;), STAY FOCUSED and work hard, yes, you can do it. It will take more time for you to catch up with those who had a head start, but it will happen. But remember, you have to stay focused.</p>
<p>i think the conclusion here is Ivies will help you get into good grad schools but for the most part you have to do it. So is it a must? No it isn't. But it will certainly help you.</p>
<p>"Would University of Chicago be considered a "good" undergrad school for med?"</p>
<p>That's a good question. I recently ran across a relevant thread. You might want to check it out:</p>
<p>What about URochester? What's the acceptance rate?</p>
<p>damn, my eyes are burning from reading that link</p>
<p>FALSE.</p>
<p>Some girl on The Apprentice went to U Florida for undergrad and the Harvard Business School or w/e it's called.</p>
<p>Um... Harvard Business is good, right?</p>
<p>Oh yeah, considered second only to Wharton.</p>
<p>Actually Wharton isn't the end-be-all of business schools when it comes to MBAs. For finance, sure. For management, Harvard leaves it (and everyone else) in the dust. To put in terms a CCer can better understand, Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, and Kellogg can be considered the HYPS of MBA programs - which one is truly "the best" depends on an individual student's needs.</p>
<p>OK, I stand corrected. But I'll say that Wharton is one of the top 5 business schools in the country.</p>
<p>Actually Wharton is better than a "Top 5" b-school.</p>
<p>If Wharton is not THE best, it, at a minimum, shares that title with HBS.</p>
<p>This doesn't contradict anything that banana wrote, she correctly states that certain b-schools have strengths in certain areas:</p>
<p>Finance: Wharton
Management: HBS
Marketing: Kellogg
Entrepreneur / Technology: Stanford</p>
<p>And generally speaking, those four schools are considered the "HYPS" of b-school.</p>
<p>i.e. to quote banana, "which one is truly "the best" depends on an individual student's needs"</p>
<p>But for OVERALL general business education? Wharton can claim to be the one of the absolute best.</p>
<p>I wouldn't say that HBS (or any other b-school) is BETTER than Wharton - equal perhaps - but not better.</p>
<p>The only addendum I'd add to Ivy's post is that "the best of the b-school best" shuffles a bit when talking about doctoral programs. At the very least, one would subtract Kellogg and add Michigan. Not that it matters to 99% of the people on this board, but I thought it worth mentioning just in case there's anyone else like me reading this. :)</p>
<p>Ivy_Grad, did you forget Michigan intentionally? It was tied with BYU with 24! hehe</p>
<p>Wharton's entering MBA class last year had the most students completing their undergraduate studies at the following institutions:</p>
<h1>1 Penn 49</h1>
<h1>2 Harvard 30</h1>
<h1>3 Princeton 27</h1>
<h1>4 Stanford 26</h1>
<h1>5 Cornell 22</h1>
<h1>6 Duke 18</h1>
<h1>7 University of California-Berkeley 15</h1>
<h1>7 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 15</h1>
<h1>7 University of Virginia 15</h1>
<h1>10 Yale 14</h1>
<p>Wharton's first year lcass has 800 students, so 30% of Wharton's class attended one of those 10 very highly rated undergraduate programs above. That's pretty mamazing when considering that the remaining 70% of Wharton's class attended over 200 undergraduate institutions. </p>
<p>To answer the OP, medical school is not much different from other graduate programs. Going to a top university helps. For example, Michigan's medical program last year had the most students completing their undergraduate studies at the following institutions:</p>
<h1>1 Michigan 51</h1>
<h1>2 Harvard 8</h1>
<h1>3 UCLA 6</h1>
<h1>4 Duke University 4</h1>
<h1>4 Johns Hopkins 4</h1>
<h1>4 MIT 4</h1>
<h1>4 Northwestern 4</h1>
<h1>4 Princeton 4</h1>
<h1>4 University of Notre Dame 4</h1>
<h1>4 University of Pennsylvania 4</h1>
<h1>4 Yale 4</h1>
<p>100 our of 177 (56%) of Michigan medical school's entering students last year attended the 10 excellent universities listed above. The remaining 77( 45%) came from dozens of other universities.</p>
<p>In short, yes it matters where you go for your undergraduate studies, but it is not a "must" to attend a top university.</p>
<p>So do B-schools and Med-schools accept a larger number of students form their own undergraduate schools than anywhere else? That seems to be the case with Wharton and Michigan's Med-school, as well as Harvard Law.</p>
<p>I'd say that the case with all professional schools. Harvard law has over 200 Harvard students. The second largest contigent are Yale students, and they number under 100. Michigan Law school also has roughly 200 Michigan students. As a rule, professional schools will get many applicants from their own undergraduate population and as such, a greater number will be admitted...and enroll.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ivy_Grad, did you forget Michigan intentionally? It was tied with BYU with 24!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Intentionally? Never my friend!</p>
<p>Basically what I did was a copy (from HLS website) and paste (into MS Excel) and then I just sorted by largest number - and took the top 15 that popped out - I didnt realize that Mich was also tied with BYU (with 24) but since the sorting is by default alphabetical Mich must have appeared right below BYU - I didn't check to see if BYU was tied with anyone - it was a very quick and dirty job... my bad!</p>