<p>I am just wondering about it. To what extent will the rank or reputation of my current school matter? Is a 3.7 at Vanderbilt worthier than a 3.9 in University of Tennessee? Thanks.</p>
<p>Grad school or employment? What are your career goals?</p>
<p>transfer admission</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s as cut-and-dried as that, but it certainly helps coming from as high-ranking a school as possible. I’m not really clear on how much weight is placed on your school’s rank, but it is clearly subordinate to the quality and quantity of work you do while at that school.</p>
<p>I actually have wondered about this. The only firsthand information I have heard about this was from an Assistant Dean at USC when I was in the process of transferring. He told me that, if you’re applying to say top-25 private schools (as I was), it helps to come from one (or even one close to it) that shares an applicant pool. Prestige and perceived difficulty probably play a subjective, intangible part as well (IMO), but it’s more an issue of familiarity: the committees will be much more familiar with the general level of your coursework and thus be in a better position to interpret your transcript, as they will likely have have seen many transcripts/common data sets from your school before.</p>
<p>It would help if you your question was more direct.</p>
<p>OK this is the case: I am now in Vanderbilt University and I always feel that it is much more difficult to get a high GPA(3.75+) at Vandy. So I post on this site to ask about it.
Will AOs take the rank and the reputation of my school into consideration? Since it is harder to get high GPA at tier 1 schools, I think they will.</p>
<p>bump bump~</p>
<p>From what I have been told by many people and actual college staff is that yes it “can help” but doesn’t necessarily mean it will help. Admissions takes a lot of consideration. Reputation is one of their “sub” categories that they look at. So in theory the reputation of your school should help to an admissions reader but doesn’t necessarily mean they have to choose you. That’s really it. There isn’t any special point formula that includes the reputation of a college as far as I know. Just the admissions readers bias that’s why you want to impress the reader with as much accomplishments as you can such as the reputation of your school. And the most common advice is that grades should always be a priority, a 2.8 at a prestigious school does not look as well a 4.0 at a decent college no matter the reputation but a 4.0 prestige against a 4.0 decent college may impress the admissions reader.</p>
<p>bump bump~</p>
<p>A 3.7 at Vandy would significantly increase your chances of admission in comparison to a 3.9 at UT-Knoxville. Vandy is the 17th ranked school in the country and UT is #104.</p>
<p>@ChicagoBears1 Did you transfer out of Vandy?</p>
<p>I am interested as to why you are looking to transfer from Vandy?</p>
<p>@ momtotwins My major is math&computer science and Vandy is definitely not the best school in these two fields; It is strong in education and law, though. Plus many other reasons.</p>
<p>To a certain extent reputation does carry a <em>value</em> but beyond your early adult years the piece of paper you got from the school will matter a lot less. I mean do any of your parents who’ve gone to college get asked by potential employers what their GPA or major was? </p>
<p>I’ve met many people in various industries with years of experience and employers/head hunters don’t care about the school after 5-10 years of relevant job experience. They care what you can do for the company and what your past results were. </p>
<p>However for gradschool it is a bit different, they are more likely to scrutinize you for the grades and where you came from. (A measuring stick in a sense; flawed possibly, but at least it gives some standard for grad schools to go by)</p>
<p>My firm belief that it’s the degree that gets your foot in the door but it’s you that gets yourself the job, not the degree.</p>
<p>its a numbers game… get the highest gpa with high sat scores and a good reason to transfer and you’ll have a good shot…</p>
<p>transfer9858: To compare it to a numbers game is, at best, misleading. Yes, higher numbers help and are often necessary conditions for admission to certain schools, but soft factors are enormously important (i.e., recommendations, personal statement/essays) and often are the difference between an acceptance and rejection. If anything, something like law admissions is more a numbers game, whereas undergraduate and especially transfer admissions are very murky processes by comparison.</p>