<p>There have been several discussions on whether ones undergraduate matters when applying to graduate school, law school, business school e.t.c. I have heard from reliable sources that prestige does count for some graduate schools. However would say that a state student with a high GPA could be better than a "top" school graduate with a lower GPA because:</p>
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Logic actually attests that the student with the high GPA from the less prestigious university is the better candidate, having achieved as much with less facilities.
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<p>Sounds partially true. I have never heard such a view before on CC but it does have merits. Usually, Students at "good schools" have wonderful facilities, dedicated professors, world class research, a huge library stocked with lots of resources for them to write their papers. They have motivated classmates to make them believe erroneously that they are smart. But this gives them the confidence to strive to be smart. Students at a lower tier might not have all this things. Attaining a high GPA might then require more effort. When you are surrounded with the best party rockstars, its more difficult to study. Unlike at UChicago where everyone studies on a weekend anyway so you are in good company. You attain excellence by yourself instead of being told consistently how excellent you are and how you are from a "selective bunch" or those BS rhetoric that top schools give during convocation.</p>
<p>Would you buy this if you were looking at the graduate application of a student for example?</p>
<p>The issue imho is not so much where the person went to school as the grades given to them at that school. By that measure a person would be much better off going to Harvard for undergrad (AVG GPA 3.4) vs. UT undergrad (AVG GPA 2.9) there have been a few studies on grade inflation and you will find that the grades at private schools are going up disporpotionatly quickly when compared to public institutions. So why you ask would top graduate and professional programs take from these private schools? Well of course the students who have worked equally hard as those in public schools seem to have higher grades on average.</p>
<p>^For the most part, I disagree, peskytrojan. There is a decent amount of grade inflation at many of the private schools, and I don’t think the prestige of the school is the only thing that matters. That’s waaaay oversimplifying the process.</p>
<p>well definitely not at USC as the average gap is 3.2… I agree.
General Rule: a 3.4 or 3.5 at any ‘top school’ > 4.0 in state school
inflation at private schools used to be a problem (but it was found out), at harvard u know how much they work… to break 3.0</p>
<p>^ yeah not quite THAT much, agreed. but it does play a role. i have family members on admissions committees for medical schools, including some top ones, and they have confirmed that they definitely take what school you went to into account. but no, a 3.4 won’t outweight a 4.0. if we were talking 3.5 versus a 3.7, maybe.</p>
<p>I’d be interested to see whether grad adcoms and others thought about the possibility of a wide GPA variability even within the elite universities/LACs. </p>
<p>For instance, I keep hearing about how GPA distribution at MIT, Caltech, UChicago, Cornell, and similar schools, it can be extremely hard to even break a 3.0 without studying so intensively to the point of being a practical hermit because everyone at such institutions are extremely competitive and Profs grade quite harshly (Mostly C/C- grades). </p>
<p>On the other hand, I’ve heard from nearly every high school classmate who went off to many Ivies with a few notable exceptions (Cornell, Columbia, Princeton) that the hardest part is getting in and that “You’d literally have to go our of your way to screw up/goof off to end up with less than a 3.0+ GPA upon graduation.” On the other hand, one will still have to study hard to get -A/A grades…but it is still doable for those willing to put in a reasonable amount of time and effort.</p>
<p>Hmm. Interesting question. Let me propose an alternate scenario:</p>
<p>Kid A graduates from a terrible high school (poor facilities, less than stellar teachers and peers, ill-informed guidance, etc.) with a 4.0. Kid B graduates from a decent high school (with all that entails) with a 3.8. Who would you, as an admissions officer, view as a better candidate for your school?</p>
<p>Of course, this is taking it to the extreme, and graduate admissions is an altogether different beast when compared to undergrad admissions. Overall, I’d say that the student from the school with more prestige in the field would generally still have a leg up in graduate admissions, if only because GPA really doesn’t matter that much; GRE scores, connections, good letters of recommendation, and research experience count for much more than your GPA, and all of those can be found in plenty at prestigious schools. As an example, it would be much more difficult to get into a PhD program for Egyptology if you went to UGA instead of UChicago, even if you wound up with a higher GPA at UGA, and that’s because UChicago’s a bastion of Near Eastern research and, well, UGA simply isn’t.</p>
<p>@ cobrat: Slightly OT, but while UChicago’s intensive, it’s not nearly that intensive. Though, okay, yes, I am pretty much a hermit, I wouldn’t really put it in the same category as Caltech; I’ve heard horror stories about that place. Grades of 9% that end up being curved to an A because the tests there are apparently just that hard. Heh. (Though, really, it escapes me why any professor would write an exam that difficult.)</p>
<p>neltharion: All reputedly hard schools (UChicago, MIT, Caltech, Swarthmore, et al.) have those horror stories swirling around them. Caltech isn’t as hard as you describe it to be, and you only know that such rumors aren’t true about Chicago because you’ve been there.</p>
<p>I used to think that Chicago was a not-so-hard place. My opinion has changed since my third year here. I recently realized that there is absolutely no way to avoid working on the weekends if you wish to maintain a reasonable GPA, for instance. I decided that for my fourth (and final) year, I would work really hard during the weekdays and then have a decent time on the weekends. Guess what? Not even possible. Chicago’s workload is not as tough as it is reputedly (because all tough schools’ reputations are blown out of proportion), but it’s a pretty damn tough place to be.</p>
<p>Looking back at my first two years, I’m surprised I didn’t notice how hard it was. My very first test, I received a 26%. The class average was a 40%. (And this was actually an improvement over years past, when the tests could have an average as low as 10%, with medians of 0%. I kid you not. Look at Peter Constantin’s old tests.) This was Honors Analysis, the 2nd hardest math course in the country, but apparently a similar distribution occurs in some of the other Analysis and Algebra sections as well. As I finish my Core and listen to the first-year conversations, I can recall how one can work all week on a 5-page essay and still get a B+ or a B. I recall the early mornings where, instead of sitting in a lecture hall with my mind turned off, I would have to participate in the 19-student Core classes, talking about Thucydides and Herodotus. So in retrospect, I’m surprised I survived this damn place.</p>
<p>TL;DR: The “hard” universities aren’t as the myths surrounding them, and under most conditions, a 3.0 GPA is very feasible for hard-working students (and some super-intelligent slackers). Chicago, MIT, Caltech, et al. are certainly difficult universities, though, and you better expect to be studying your ass off your entire time there.</p>
<p>My daughter worked hard at Brown, constantly overloaded her classes, Did research every year and most summers, winters too, some years. Her school was known pretty well for getting people into grad school, med school and law school. As for business school, you usually go to work, then apply 5 to 10 years later if you are a star.</p>
<p>Top student at top state school is attractive and very valuable.</p>
<p>@ phuriku: I suppose it didn’t even occur to me that some people don’t work over the weekend? That just seems like the reasonable thing to do, whether you’re at UChicago or elsewhere; my work ethic is essentially the same as it was in high school, so there was very little adjustment involved, and I guess it never registered that needing to work over the weekend to keep grades up could be equated with a school actually being difficult. Likewise, spending an entire week on an essay only to get a B+ is something that doesn’t seem particularly astounding, though in retrospect I may only think that because I had Aaron Johnson as my HUM professor and a B+ after fifteen hours of work on a 5-page essay was considered good, an A- lucky, and an A almost unheard of.</p>
<p>I guess the distinction I’m trying to make here is one of hard work vs. an honest-to-god difficult school? Though on second thought, if you can’t measure a school’s intensity based on how many hours you need to spend on schoolwork, I guess you can’t really measure it at all. For the most part, though, I think UChicago’s course-load to be very reasonable, if you go in knowing that you’re not going to be partying 24/7.</p>
<p>Graduate admissions are rather different from undergraduate admissions. It is not clear from this discussion what kind of graduate schools or what kind of programs we’re talking about, but let’s assume we mean admission to strong graduate programs in the arts and sciences (not law or medical school). Let’s say we’re talking about PhD track, not terminal Masters programs for professional training in business, social work etc.</p>
<p>In that case, a knowledgable student generally applies to a specific program, often to work with a specific professor(s), not to a school based on the general reputation and prestige of the whole place. Typically, you would visit the graduate school to sit down and talk to the department chair or other professors. If you’ve published anything or presented at a conference, then that is likely to interest the faculty much more than where you went to college. It’s as much about deciding whether your research interests align with the faculty’s as it is about school prestige or the applicant’s grades and GRE scores. </p>
<p>If you look at the top 10 or 20 colleges that produce the most PhDs per capita in various fields, you might be surprised. CalTech and Chicago make the lists, but so does Kalamazoo (life sciences), Wabash (physical sciences), Beloit (anthro), Wooster (chem), and Lawrence (physics). One of the few public universities to make these lists is UM-Morris (for physics), which is a small, LAC-like university (only 1705 students). Small liberal arts colleges, not necessarily very prestigious ones, are disproportionately represented. This may be due to several factors, including student self-selection of colleges, or the fact that they do not have professional programs to draw off students into business or engineering. I do think one factor is that these small schools provide good opportunities to develop mature research interests. Regardless of where you go, this can be as important as working hard and getting great grades.</p>
<p>Most grad schools are familiar with the undergrad schools that send candidates; GPA issues are understood. So don’t place much importance on average GPA differences between schools; having an above-average GPA for YOUR school is what counts.</p>
<p>Among mid-sized and larger universities, many discussion sections, intro math classes, labs and writing classes are taught by grad students. Among these colleges, it is much better as an undergrad to attend a university with high quality grad students. With a high quality university, many of these grad students who are teaching you will be one step away from becoming professors themselves, as opposed to just people who didn’t have anything else to do except stay at college.</p>
<p>“With a high quality university, many of these grad students who are teaching you will be one step away from becoming professors themselves …”</p>
<p>Hmmm. I would have thought there aren’t anywhere near enough open professorships to absorb these TAs. A professor retires once in a lifetime, but every year multiple former TAs are looking for jobs.</p>
<p>For those concerned about the quality of TAs, there are schools with no TAs.</p>