Does undergrad reputation affect grad admissions

juillet
Fri, 03 Feb 2017 00:14:14 +0000

You can go to graduate school - a good graduate school, a top one even - from UMass-Boston.

Undergrad reputation has a small effect on admissions, but it’s not the way you might assume. It’s not the allure of prestigious names that are prestigious with people off the street - like “Ooh, Student A went to Harvard” or “Wow, Student B is at Amherst.” It’s about the level of familiarity with the program and college in preparing students for graduate study. Obviously many elite schools are well-known for that - there is, after all, a reason they are elite. But there are lots of other not-so-obvious places where faculty know that the students who come from there are well-prepared for graduate school. For example, I was a part of a lot of networks for students of color, and a lot of my grad school colleague in those networks - especially Latino colleagues - went to Cal State Northridge. They have a great psychology department and are known for preparing lots of diverse undergrad students for graduate study in that field. Two other places known for great departments in my field are SUNY Binghamton and SUNY Stony Brook, also regional public schools.

And that’s not to say that if your college isn’t known to faculty that they won’t accept you. It gives you a little leg up. But WHAT you do in undergrad is far, far more important than where you go. If you go to UMass-Boston, get great grades, do excellent research and foster great connections with your professors, you’ll be in better shape than a Yale or Swarthmore student who does none of those.

Also, one thing a lot of students might not know is that you don’t have to do research at your home university. I went to Spelman, which is located in Atlanta. There are great research opportunities there, but lots of my classmates went to do research at Emory, Georgia Tech and Georgia State professors - and CDC scientists - because those universities and institutions are so close. And when I was at Columbia as a grad student we often had CUNY students do research in our lab. So even if you attend UMass-Boston, if you see a professor at Harvard or MIT or Tufts or BC or BU or NEU or any of the other schools in the area that’s doing fascinated research - reach out to them and see if they would like a volunteer RA from UMass-Boston.