<p>are most if any of you planning on going on to grad school? From what I've heard it really doesn't matter where you go for undergrad school as long as you have a good chance of getting into a grad school. For example, I live in ny and I plan on attending SUNY Geneseo for undergrade. While this isn't exactly the most regarded school, it'll hopefully give me a good chance of getting into say MIT or Columbia grad school for instance. So whats the deal over where to go for undergrad??</p>
<p>Four years of your life is a big investment and you should go somewhere you'll be happy - this means not only a feasible cost, but for many people an intellectual, stimulating environment with other people like you.</p>
<p>Call me crazy, but there's the fact that you might actually learn more at a better school...</p>
<p>undergrad does matter for a lot of types of grad schools. This has been done over and over, read the archieves. especially posts by Alexander showing who gets into top law and business schools.</p>
<p>Even for top law and business schools, what you actually do in undergrad is far more important than where you go. Yes, if you get a 4.0 at an Ivy, then you are better off than a 4.0 at a state school, but there are far more factors that go into any grad school admission than just that.</p>
<p>Big, you're simply wrong. There is a tremendous skew towards top undergrad school grads at top law and B schools.</p>
<p>suze, you're jumping to hasty conclusions. for one thing, it is much more difficult to get admitted to elite undergrad schools, and if the kids are stronger students it isn't surprising that 4 years later they predominate at top law and B schools. Second you seem to be implying that the admissions decision at the top schools consists of just looking at the name of the college the student attends and pays no attention to what they actually did in college. Again, if you have strongly motivated students enrolled in elite colleges then they will participate in more activities, make more of an effort to get to know profs which leads to stronger recs, and so on. It would not be surprising that students doing these sort of things have higher admit rates to top grad schools, but it is due to what they did and not where they went. A motivated student could do the same thing at a less prestigious school.</p>
<p>Simply looking at lists of the undergrad schools attended by students at top law and B schools is a shallow and incomplete analysis of the <em>reasons</em> they have higher admit rates.</p>
<p>Can you prove that there aren't other factors like LSAT scores going into that skewing?</p>
<p>I'm willing to bet that much of that skew is due to a confluence of issues and motivations that come from the individual rather than the school. If you are motivated enough and intelligent enough to get accepted and enroll at one of these top undergrad institutions, wouldn't it also follow that you are more likely to score well on the LSAT? Wouldn't it follow that you are more likely to be motivated to apply to the top law and B schools? </p>
<p>For all the obsession with the Ivies and Stanford that goes on all over this message board, it seems to me that the school itself likely has only a small amount of impact on where one ends up in life. These schools are not representative samples and it is extremely difficult to compare these schools to state schools where the student population isn't so selectively screened - the "poor" Harvard student, I think we can agree, is probably a better student the "average" StateU student, simply due to Harvard's intense selectivity. Even if you have two equally intelligent people, I'd believe that the initial motivation it took to get into Harvard also means that they are more likely to have motivation to apply to those top schools, whereas student at StateU, while they may apply to one or two top schools are more likely to have lower tier schools on their list. Just for comparison, I and BlueDevilMike (we do a lot on the pre-med forum) are both in medical school - he obviously went to Duke and his list of schools he applied to was not only longer, but included far more private institutions with much greater name recognition than my (a stateU student) list of schools did. I simply wasn't interested in going to Hopkins or WashU or Harvard for medical school. </p>
<p>Further the idea of comparing schools on an issue where the individual is judged only compounds the problem. Admission to any graduate program is dependent on the applicant's record.</p>
<p>If you can provide evidence to the contrary, controlling for motivation as much as possible, then I'm willing to concede the point.</p>
<p>From a cursory list of admits at schoola like Harvard law and B, what amazes me is the low numbers from schools like cal, UCLA, UNC etc. as compared to Brown, Duke, Dartmouth. The latter schools have way high numbers of admits while the former schools have undergrad classes many, many times their size. Yes, who got into the undergrad schools in the first place is a large part of the equasion but the skew seems to large for that to be the only factor. Go down a tier to say UC Davis and Bryn Mawr and it's again surprising to see tiny BM have 3 admits as compared to huge uC Davis' one.</p>
<p>I think alot of ppl here have ignored the fact that state schools skew toward the financially disadvantaged. Many students at state schools have to WORK. Not work 10-15 hours a week at a work-study job that overlaps with their major, but work 20-30 hours a week (sometimes even more) at a menial job just to get by. Alot of them have family commitments, debt, health problems, etc. This is not to say that financially disadvantaged individuals do not exist at private unis and colleges; however, they are generally met with more resources in terms of aid, relevant work-study, grants and stipends for internships and research, etc. </p>
<p>If you are helping your parents pay their mortgage, working at their business, caring for your siblings, and trying to pay your way through school; how on earth can you be expected to take on an unpaid internship or research assistantship like your counterparts at private colleges and unis do? </p>
<p>Those counterparts become your competition for graduate school. While grad schools take this into consideration; there is only so much leeway that can be granted. As a consequence of their own life circumstances and outside commitments, students from state universities are shut out of the admissions process because they can't afford to spend their summers and their free time pursuing the interests and activities that would otherwise make them compelling graduate school candidates.</p>
<p>That grad school admissions take certain universities more seriously simply on the virtue of their prestige is a fallacy. What is evaluated is the strength of an applicant's curriculum (did they take the most challenging range of courses available at their institution?), their test scores, their essays, any honors theses completed, any awards received, and any relevant extracurricular pursuits. In the case of state school students, many simply lack the time and resources to fulfill these criterium to satisfaction.</p>
<p>Wouldn't going to a good UG school lead to a better job leading to a better Graduate school? I would think that the admission people just don't care about the school but moreso on other factors that are influenced by the school. The students not only are smarter in the first place, or know how to get grades and do well on SATs, but learn more and then do better on graduate level tests like the LSATs and Gmats. They might be overally obsessive and try to get ECs that will look good. There are a lot of things but I don't think that the graduate schools care about the school a student went to but moreso all the other stuff but that other stuff is influenced greatly by the UG school.</p>
<p>Precisely. Although I'd like to point out that for many recent college graduates, a better job does not equal better pay. (Not in an "I don't care about the money" way, but in a "noone makes more than $25,000 to start no matter where they got their BA from" kind of way.) You are expected to take a hit on your finances to get ahead. But what happens when your finances are already pretty limited?</p>
<p>
[quote]
From a cursory list of admits at schoola like Harvard law and B, what amazes me is the low numbers from schools like cal, UCLA, UNC etc. as compared to Brown, Duke, Dartmouth.
[/quote]
Just out of curiosity, where did you find the list for Harvard Business school? I have never seen such list available to the public, although the Law one is pretty well-known.</p>
<p>You can find it here in the arcjieves posted by moderator Alexander. Pip, threre is a tremendous range of salaries coming out of undergrad. On Wall Street, a top school graduate can make six figures first year out, close in consulting kobs only available to few. Those salaries go up fast. An engineer however can make pretty much the same from any good program. High to start but all of them top out fast.</p>
<p>I think you won't get a very objective opinion on if your undergrad school matters (on this forum).
Those who really think that aren't going to join an undergrad admissions forum and have 200+ posts.</p>
<p>I think so long as you're not going to a really obscure "1 step up from community college" school, you can go pretty much anywere for grad school. I've heard of people getting into Darden (UVA) from Devry U, so there really are no limits; the undergrad experience is largely what you make of it.</p>
<p>Also, grad school admissions are very different to undergrad (different focus). They're going to be looking at things you published, work experience, research experience, etc... in addition to grades. The importance of each of those factors depends on what kind of grad school program you're applying to.</p>
<p>The average salary of a Mt. Holyoke graduate is $27,000. One of my good friends graduated in the top of her class at Yale, she now makes about $30,000. She had to work her way up there, too. Her first job paid $23,000 a year. </p>
<p>If you don't want to go into banking or engineering, your beginning salary is bleak. Check the BLS for more info.</p>
<p>That's sad if they haven't chosen non profit by choice. What do thesae people do?</p>
<p>Just examples with people I work with at my high school internship. </p>
<p>Texas A&M UG--> MBA from Wharton
GWU UG---> G-town MBA</p>
<p>The AVERAGE salary of a MoHo grad--I assume they go into all kinds of fields, since it's a comprehensive liberal arts college--is $27,000.</p>
<p>My friend from Yale works in marketing in the entertainment field. She's in the Boston market. And it's not what she wants to do. In reality, she'd rather be working at a nonprofit, but can't afford it with her student loans. She'd rather be building her credentials for law school. But selling skyboxes pays the bills. Another friend (graduate of another top New England prep school and an Ivy League university) was just downsized by the same company that recruited her very aggressively less than a year ago.</p>
<p>suze, you seem very bright, ambitious, and savvy for someone who is still in high school. But I'd caution you away from thinking that doing your UG at a good school guarantees you anything. I felt that way in HS, too. I know many of my friends who excelled in high school and college certainly felt the same way. They just got a very rude awakening.</p>
<p>Also, OP, I hate to be the spelling nazi but this is driving me effing crazy: it's underGRAD!</p>
<p>The BW rankings show that for business the average salary ranges from 40,000-55,000 for their top 50 UG schools with The average salary from Wharton being 55,000 and the highest. That is not including their number 49 school, Denver at 35,000. Like said there isn't going to be a huge variation in pay and just because everyone wants to be an investment banker doesn't mean nearly anyone will be. </p>
<p>I am going to UMD and the average salary for my double majors are 56,250 and 53,277. I think hard work will pay off in the end and I am getting 10,000 in scholarships and grants from UMD + work study making my total cost about 5000 + living expenses and that includes loans I can pay off later so i am not too worried about anything but getting good grades and work experience. Hopefully my internship work experience will help me get a paid internship over the summer somewhere and maybe I can knock off most of the cost I have to spend at college, either that or its the TGIF around the corner, which is not too bad. :D</p>