<p>I know a couple threads have been dedicated to this, but I thought I'd ask again with more details.
I'm at a very small private liberal arts college, emphasis on very small. The school is great- i get so much out of small classes and its incredibly cheap. However. I plan on going to grad school in chemistry and my sights are set very high. I'm also looking at some of the faculty for these schools and noticing that most went to really top named schools and the few that had small school bachelor's degrees went to high ranked small schools.
I have a great GPA and I haven't taken the GRE yet but I don't think I'll do too badly.
Should I be worried?</p>
<p>This question gets asked here ALL the time.</p>
<p>The answer is frankly no. Your undergraduate college has little to no impact on whether or not you will be admitted to top Ph.D programs in your field. The reason why there are a high number of students from top schools in those programs is because they are a self-selecting group – they are motivated to do well and went to those top schools because they are ambitious, whereas students from smaller and lesser-known schools may be less so.</p>
<p>What matters far more than where you went to college is what you do there. If your GPA is good, your GRE scores are solid, you have excellent research experiences and you have excellent letters of recommendation, you can get in from Podunk State. Some may argue that your LoRs may be better from top schools because of more famous professors. It’s true that a letter from a big name can help you, but an excellent letter from a legitimate professor works well (and only a very few applicants get excellent, personal letters from famous professors anyway, and famous processors are not mutually exclusive with lesser-known schools).</p>
<p>I went to a small liberal arts college with a solid reputation and I currently attend a top 10 Ph.D program in my field. I didn’t know any famous professors in undergrad.</p>
<p>
Wow, that’s incredibly absolute. You have the data to back that up? </p>
<p>OP, what does your research background look like? Will you have recommendations from professors with whom you’ve done original research? These are the really important questions. Have you had a sit-down with a trusted professor about PhD programs to which you might want to apply? Your professors will usually have a good sense of how high you should aim.</p>
<p>I would agree with juillet’s general assessment. Of course research/presentations and good LORs are needed.</p>
<p>groover…I really like this thread in the “Ask the Dean” topics. It is below:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ask-dean-topics/509647-do-top-grad-schools-admit-applicants-less-selective-colleges.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/ask-dean-topics/509647-do-top-grad-schools-admit-applicants-less-selective-colleges.html</a></p>
<p>My short answer to your question(and also what I took away from this thread above) is “yes!” undergrad matters, but a top undergrad school is far from a silver bullet and as not as important is you may be lead to believe and it complicated as to whether it will help or not.</p>
<p>I really though the poster named “starbright” in the thread above who is on a PhD selection commitee had some valualbe things to say on the subject. Also, the “Dean” was generally right in that top PhD programs tend to want a diversity of schools they accept students from.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen in life, things like GRE scores, Letters of recommendation, Statment of Purpose, and research or relevant or work experience will make or break anybody. I truly mean anybody…Literally the #1 is his class at a top ranked liberal arts school will do worse at getting into grad school than asomebody from liberal arts school in the top 100 if things in the list I mention don’t fall into place.</p>
<p>Thanks so much,
I actually came to a similar conclusion about “self selecting”- I hear of few people going to graduate school from here and few students aside from those wanting to go to med school talk about graduate school.
I think that my GPA will be great, GRE’s decent, LoR’s good, and and I expect to have some good research experience (i’m a rising sophomore) My only concern was having all these overshadowed or downplayed.
I really like where I’m at and I’d hate to transfer- I was just afraid of getting to the spring of my senior year and realizing there was something else I could have done.</p>