<p>How much of your life is dictated by how "prestigious" the undergraduate college you went to? (overall happiness, money, success, lifestyle). If you go to grad school, law, med, or business school, do future employers care more about where you went to those grad or professional schools or where you went for undergrad?</p>
<p>Graduate school is when everything matters. Your name school in your life would be which ever graduate school you go to.</p>
<p>and going to a prestigious undergrad school helps you get into the prestigious grad school.</p>
<p>^Not true.</p>
<p>really? A 3.8 at Harvard is equal to a 3.8 at the University of Oregon for Grad school? How can it not help?</p>
<p>Yes, I should say it helps, but it's solely based on GPA.</p>
<p>^It completely depends on what department you're talking about.</p>
<p>It depends. For law school, undergrad reputation means next to nothing. For PhD programs, it is considered but still isn't that important (however, going to a prestigious school can help one get the sort of research experience necessary for a a top program). The only area where a prestigious undergrad is a big advantage is business, because coming from a top undergrad lets one get the sort of work experience necessary for a top MBA. Once you have an advanced degree, undergrad means very very little.</p>
<p>
and going to a prestigious undergrad school helps you get into the prestigious grad school.
So getting a 3.0 at a prestigious undergrad school will help me get into a better grad school than a 4.0 at a state school?</p>
<p>depends on what graduate school you want to go to...professional schools normally look at gpa more than graduate school fields...but it is different for each case.</p>
<p>Great point bobmallet1, the conclusion here is, it utterly depends.
Hell, everything depends.</p>
<p>It depends on what you want to do. If you want a business job, and plan on getting an MBA, work experience matters more, and a good undergrad school sets you up for that.</p>
<p>If you want grad school (like PhD), Law School, or Med School, it doesn't matter as much, but your GPA can suffer a little. Like, a 3.4 from Harvard and a 4.0 from random-state-school might be comparable for admissions.</p>
<p>You're definitely kidding yourself if admission is solely based on GPA. The whole process is (ironically, in some sense) the same as undergrad admissions; ie its holistic.</p>
<p>Holistic? What exactly do you mean Myrmidon73?</p>
<p>bobmallet1......1 point of GPA is a big difference, I never said it was that much of a difference, go look at my second post.</p>
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and going to a prestigious undergrad school helps you get into the prestigious grad school.
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<p>okay,not necessarily true. you definitely must maintian a high GPA wherever you go to. I admit the grad school would presumably give more preference to a student w/ 4.0 GPA at Harvard...than a 4.0 GPA at a big State School....HOWEVER, they really don't give A LOT of preference...they look for mature students overall. </p>
<p>So, there's no correct way. A 3.0 at ivies may not necessarily equate to a 4.0 at a state school.....again, as others said, a lot depends on what career/grad school you are looking forward to. </p>
<p>You'd actually face the question, if u can make it to both IVy and State and then, if everything goes on your side (tuition, major, settings, social life, etc. etc.) you must make your decision based on that. GPA matters, yes, it does a lot, but it wouldn't matter if you think going to an easy school (on ur scale) and getting a high GPA from there would be a better deal..since grad school would be really difficult at that time then! </p>
<p>so, bottomline, take your decision, based on everything, not just on whether to choose an easy school or hard school for the sake of GPA!</p>
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Holistic? What exactly do you mean Myrmidon73?
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<p>Holistic is a slightly inadequate word. What he/she means to say is that grad school admissions, like undergrad admissions, take into account much more than just GPA when deciding whether or not to admit an applicant.</p>
<p>Undergrad prestige matters some if you are talking about money and career. Undergrad prestige matters a lot if you are talking about a good and distinct education. I am willing to argue this :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
okay,not necessarily true. you definitely must maintian a high GPA wherever you go to. I admit the grad school would presumably give more preference to a student w/ 4.0 GPA at Harvard...than a 4.0 GPA at a big State School....HOWEVER, they really don't give A LOT of preference...they look for mature students overall.
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</p>
<p>There are some exceptions. I've read the Caltech forums for 3 years, and I know people who speak of people with GPAs of below 3.0 there who still get into top graduate schools. Hell, most of Caltech's students are VERY strong and yet only ~58% of them manage to get GPAs above 3.0. </p>
<p>While many researchers of renown do come from state schools, a poor GPA from a state school will hurt A LOT more than a poor GPA from, say, Caltech (known for grade deflation). It's not particularly difficult for some Techers (who still manage to survive at Caltech) to get low GPAs at state universities - considering the number of Techers who play hours and hours of computer games. Less pressure at state U's => increased possibility of SOME types of Caltech-calibre people getting poor GPAs at state U's.</p>
<p>Sakky said it too - for SOME types of people, it's actually EASIER to fail out of a state school than out of a school like HYPSM, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the engineering majors (in which case schools like Berkeley can be extremely unforgiving compared to the Ivies). As a result, it's oftentimes SAFER for people to choose HYPSM over state, in case they get into both. Caltech is different as 10% of people don't graduate (and the school is very high pressure) but the additional factor of pressure may otherwise help discipline people who would have played video games incessantly at state U's.</p>
<p>Also, if you fail a class by getting a 0.0 GPA, it will hurt A LOT more at a state than at a school like Caltech (I think a substantial minority of students at Caltech have failed at least one course). Again, this could easily happen to some of the Techers who are hardcore computer games.</p>
<p>^haha..exception to an exception...chool!</p>