For engineering, other than chemical engineering, going to MIT as an undergrad is a very significant advantage in terms of MIT grad admissions. Chem E is the only engineering department that prefers not to inbreed, but others have fairly striking preferences – of my husband’s aerospace engineering class, all but two of the graduating seniors were accepted to the department for a master’s degree. About 20% of each graduating MIT class heads straight to MIT for grad school upon graduation, and more will return after working for a few years.</p>
<p>For my own PhD program, which is a top program in biomedical sciences, top universities are exceedingly overrepresented at the expense of state schools and lower-ranked private universities. Alums of MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Princeton (in that order) make up about 25% of the students entering the program over the past five entering classes. In those five years, there have been 20 MIT alums entering the program, and one BU alum.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the insight to my add-on questions. @Mollie - I guess the fact that my son is a Chem E major helps explain why what he’s telling me (almost impossible to go to grad school at MIT after undergrad) is different that what I’ve read on the forums in general (very likely to be able to)!</p>