Should the reputation of grad department in the subject you plan to major in matter when picking a school for undergrad studies? I am confused about this.
Sometimes, I feel it should be important. At other times I feel that department strength may not matter that much for undergraduate as long as the undergrad fit and experience will be good.
Without more detail it is hard to respond as it really depends upon the school, the program & the student’s needs, expectations & goals.
Also, when considering LACs, grad schools are almost always irrelevant.
Graduate dept reputation would be about research.
Undergraduate would need to more about teaching, courses offered, how students do after graduation, research opportunities
Let’s say I want to major in Computer Science. I should look at the undergraduate to make sure there is enough of a department that I can get a variety of courses and professors. But it doesn’t have to be the top research Grad dept.
I would make sure the school has a reasonable dept and make sure the "fit"of the college is right for you.
Like i have a friend who son has anxiety. He is trying to find the best college for the major he wants, chemistry.
But if he cannot succeed at this school because of the anxiety, it won’t matter how good the dept is.
If you were to use graduate department rankings for the purpose of evaluating undergraduate programs, you’d be using them off-label. That is, you’d be using them outside the purpose for which they were designed. As an opinion, this would counterproductively limit your college selection process.
The case that might make sense is where attending the undergrad program gained you a real advantage in admission to the graduate program. But most of the time undergrads won’t be hanging out with the researchers much at all, and graduate school selection is better if you start from a clean slate with the criteria (and experience) of a 21 year old college senior rather than a 17 year old high school student.
It could benefit an undergraduate who wanted to participate in research conducted by the grad school.
Depending on major, some schools offer a +1 year masters option so that could be a consideration depending on what a student wants to study.
If you’d like to pursue mentored research as an undergraduate, then a source such as U.S. News could help you identify some top choices: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/undergrad-research-programs.
Department rankings are more useless for prospective graduate students than for undergrads, IMO. It doesn’t matter that a history department is ranked #76 if they’re the #1 department for your subfield of Latin American history or that the biology department is ranked #82 but has the best ornithology offerings in the world. Undergrads usually look for departments that are strong overall since they’re not worried about specializing to that degree.
That said, there are a number of issues with using graduate rankings.
[ul][li]The various rankings (NRC, AWRU, THE, USNWR, FSPI, etc.) often disagree due to different methodologies and rarely have a consensus outside of the half dozen or so schools clustered at the top of each ranking. [/li]
[li]Many departments are not ranked. English is the only humanities program ranked by USNWR, for example; art history, classics, philosophy, religion, and so on are not ranked. [/li]
[li]Colleges without a PhD program in a subject do not appear in rankings. Liberal arts colleges and master’s universities in particular are usually excluded. [/li]
[li]Some universities with superb graduate programs have segregated undergraduate programs (e.g. art history and IFA at NYU) or no undergraduate programs in that subject (e.g. public health at Harvard). [/li]
[li]Unless one is aiming for a PhD, most undergraduates don’t need to take classes in an exceptionally strong department. Plenty of colleges offer a good variety of courses in English, biology, psychology, history, etc. [/li]
[li]A significant percentage of undergraduates end up changing their majors at least once. For example, the Department of Education reported that 52% of math majors switch to another major. Focusing too much on your planned major in the college selection process can backfire later if you decide that’s not what you want to study.[/ul][/li]Rankings are one source of information about a college, and they’re probably a great deal more reliable than random clickbait articles written by people barely out of college (“Ten amazing colleges for marine biology! #1 will blow your mind!”), but they should be only one piece of the puzzle.
@merc81: That piece refers to “self directed” research. Or do I misunderstand /
@Publisher: Fair question, but note that the source further states that
I disagree with this, for two reasons. One, overall departmental rankings can still be important for graduate students when it comes to post-graduation employment - particularly with non-academic employers, but potentially with academic employers too. (Also, the gaps tend not to be that wide - departments in the 70s-80s typically don’t have the #1 department in specific subfields.) Secondly, graduate program rankings rely on inputs that aren’t really that important to undergraduates, and they don’t consider many things that undergrads would consider important.
That said, I agree with the rest of that - I think graduate department rankings are of mostly limited usefulness for prospective undergraduate students.
I did not consider the quality of the graduate program when I chose my undergrad school. It wasn’t even on my radar since graduate school wasn’t a prominent plan in my mind. I also switched majors 3 times.
That being said, I did go to a school with a very good graduate program in my major. And once I figured out that I loved the subject enough to want to go to graduate school, I was very glad that I was already at a university with a quality research/graduate program. As it pertains to my PhD applications, It meant that I:
a) had professors with connections/international reputations writing my rec letters
b) had easy access to participating in cutting-edge research (my BS thesis required a research project, and I could choose between >30 possible projects)
c) could hang out with serious grad students and get useful advice from them about the application process and “making it” in a competitive grad school
d) was able to take a lot of grad-level courses in my field that both strengthened my applications and also prepared me to succeed in my first few years of grad school (I was seeing the grad course material for the 2nd time)
Undergrad is a different experience than grad school for sure. You should pick a place for broader reasons than just the ranking of the grad program/research faculty. And as for research opportunities, you don’t have to stay at your own university for them. There are great REU and other summer research programs. If you know what you want, you’ll be able to find the opportunities.
If you attend a LAC, you may get more research opportunities on campus. Professors are still researching & publishing, and they don’t have grad students to help out. So undergrads often get some excellent opportunities. My kid was pretty much running her prof’s lab while he was off campus for some extended periods by her senior year. She applied for REUs one summer, and it was kind of a hassle compared to researching with profs at her college. REUs can be a great experience, but they aren’t easy for every student to land.
generally not. there could be rare exceptions like there’s one professor in the world doing what you want to do as a grad student but otherwise undergrad is irrelevant to grad.
It’s easier to get into the grad program at your school if you are an undergraduate there.
You don’t have to take the GRE.
This is not always true. In some subjects, there is a strong preference that students attend different schools for undergraduate and graduate study. Chemical engineering appears to be one. https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/grad/cbe/faq says:
Graduate program strength (or existence) may be relevant for the most advanced students who may want to do one of the following:
For example, a math major who has taken math beyond single variable calculus while in high school may want to attend a college with graduate level math opportunities available, just as s/he found college math beyond the high school (AP/IB/etc.) level to be desirable while in high school.