<p>I apologize in advance if this is a really ignorant question, because I'm still a high school senior trying to decide where to go for undergrad and haven't really researched much about grad school yet. </p>
<p>I've seen a lot of people talk about "waiting" until grad school to attend their dream school for various reasons, and I'm facing a pretty tough choice at the moment between a liberal arts college (great personality "fit", kind of rural) and an excellent university (obviously more research opportunities, vibrant city, etc.). I'd really like to go to the university; it's basically my dream school on paper, but after visiting both I feel like the LAC would make me a lot happier. </p>
<p>Does this happen often, where someone wait and go to somewhere for grad school? Would going to the LAC hurt my chances at grad school at all? And does the "personality" of a school carry over into its grad schools at all? (I still really like the personality of the university, at least for undergrad) Thank you!</p>
<p>Meh, have fun and choose the school you will be most happy with. Large numbers of people begin undergrad intending to go onto graduate or professional school but few do. Wouldn’t it suck if you went to a place you didn’t care for only to discover that you didn’t really want to go to grad school.</p>
I would say this depends upon the field of study you are planning on entering. Generally, though, attending an LAC will not hurt your chances. You mention that the University you are considering does offer excellent research opportunities. If you are considering going into a scientific research field, this is indeed an important consideration. If there will NOT be ample opportunity to be involved in research at the LAC, this might indeed be a deal breaker. Contact someone at that school in your field of interest and find out…</p>
<p>Are financial considerations involved at all? Because, unless you attend a graduate program that is fully funded, graduate school will be costly. So factor that in if you will incur a lot of debt at one of your two undergrad choices.</p>
It’s a bad way to go about things. Graduate admissions, particularly in the humanities, is very, very competitive. Odds are you won’t be admitted, even with a sterling application. There are no guarantees here.</p>
<p>
I think that depends on the school. At my undergrad university, yes, it did somewhat. At my current university, not so much. It’s been my experience that the differences in personality between departments are often greater than the differences in personality between schools, though.</p>
<p>I turned down Chicago a few years ago due to horrible financial aid. It was by far my #1 choice at the time, and I made plans to apply for grad school. Over the four years I was in college, I quickly forgot about Chicago, and though I still applied for grad school (it’s excellent in my field), I chose another university instead. One’s tastes can change a lot over time.</p>
<p>Check the grad school admit rate for the LAC. Often LAC’s do better at getting you in. And many LAc’S do have research programs and no grad students to assist so you are highly desired by your profs. You need to do your homework.</p>
<p>And you don’t pick the grad school the same way as you pick the undergrad. When you are realy to apply, you will likely have a particular area of interest within your field. So you will research the departments and professors who are strong in that area and a good fit with you. If you don’t choose that way, they won’t see why you should be admitted.</p>
<p>Okay, I took a peek in your post threads. You can’t go wrong with either schools. The more intense school will prep you quite well for graduate level because Graduate School is quite intense.</p>
<p>When I applied, my dream school was Stanford. Didn’t get in EA. But I got into a LAC in a small town and a small research university in a big city. I chose the LAC because of its small community feel and I felt that I could grow more under direct attention of professors.</p>
<p>Fast forward to 4-5 years later. I visited Stanford again for graduate school to meet with a prospective advisor. Wow, I had a terrible feeling in my stomach about the place. Stanford has a beautiful campus and everything but I realized that the department wasn’t the right place for me. My interests had changed quite a bit. So bye-bye dream school. But I ended up going to another highly competitive university for my MA (Michigan). I never thought I’d be here but I love it.</p>
<p>Then my advisor gave me a list of PhD programs to apply to. Oy. None of the schools were my dream schools, or even made on any of my own lists.</p>
<p>Case in point: Go somewhere where you can kick butt and truly make the most of the experience (that includes track! I’m a serious runner myself so I know how important it is to keep running AND have fun!) and realize that your interests will change over the years and your lists of schools will change to reflect that. So you may not be able to go to Chicago in the future but you can still go to an university that’s highly selective for graduate school, some place that you would have to fight tooth and nail for for undergraduate admissions.</p>
<p>I find it funny you mention Stanford, as I had the exact same experience. During graduate visitation weekend, all my student guide would talk about was the party scene. He referred to people with letter-hyphenated names like V-Hop or J-Hill or whatever and was an all around total ******. I looked around the department and saw signs of this personality trait in almost EVERY student.</p>
<p>The laboratory I was interested in was much more professional, but I just couldn’t imagine myself working in such a non-professional extension of undergraduate partying. Grad school is about networking - not hooking up.</p>
<p>Thanks so much everyone for all the advice. I thought about it a LOT last night and today, and talked to some adults who know me really well and I’m going to go to the LAC. I guess I realize my interests will most likely change before grad school, so I’m a little sad to be missing out on the amazing undergrad experience at the research university since I might not end up there, but I feel like I will be happier at the LAC and probably go to a great grad school regardless.</p>
<p>Go where you’ll be happy and excel. The only people who care about having attended their “dream school” twenty or thirty years down the line are morons anyways. Go where you’ll be happy and where you’ll succeed.</p>
<p>you can also apply for summer research internships at many leading universities. Look for application due dates in late winter. </p>
<p>Also, do not underestimate the research experiences at LACs. Often you will get more attention and experience doing research at a LAC than at a large university.</p>
<p>If you think the LAC will make you happier, go to the LAC. Going to a liberal arts college won’t hurt your chances and might help them, if you are happier and that means you get more involved in the kinds of things you should be doing for grad school acceptance (research experience and getting good grades, among other things). More research opportunities don’t necessarily mean better. I went to a small LAC with a very small research program - faculty focus was on teaching, mostly, and nobody was published in Nature or Science or had big grants. But I got hooked up with an excellent research advisor who gave me time and personal attention to help develop me into an excellent research student. She helped me get into Columbia and helped me get an NSF.</p>
<p>FWIW, Columbia was my ‘dream school’ for undergrad. I didn’t have a “save it for graduate school” attitude because I didn’t know yet what I was doing. I would have never paid for grad school here if I were going into, say, high school counseling or social work (two fields I considered). Pedigree doesn’t really matter there. But in my field, academia, it does, and besides PhDs are funded here, and so I took it. I didn’t come here because I had always wanted to go here; I came here because given my field and the unique nature of this program, it was the ideal school for me to grow as a researcher.</p>
<p>The personality of the school does indeed carry over into grad school; it’s still the same university, you just experience it differently than the undergrads…and in some ways, more fully, as you are more exposed to the inner workings of some aspects of the school. But graduate school tends to be departmentalized. I know a lot about my two departments (sociomedical sciences and psychology) but very little about any other departments on campus.</p>