<p>Sconsindude,</p>
<p>I am answering the question you directed to me because I think my answer will be relevant to others in similar situations, not because I am trying to discourage your desire to pursue graduate study.</p>
<p>I had never heard of your university, because in my humanities field, Religion, UWEC does not have a strong department. I went to the departmental website, and none of its faculty are known to me, since they do not have perceptible research profiles. In fact, many do not even hold the PhD. The Religion department is not even an independent department, but is instead combined with Philosophy.</p>
<p>The Religion faculty at UWEC does not normally send students to grad programs, because their program is not designed to do so. If students wish to major in Religion at a Wisconsin state school, they should do so at UW or at Stevens Point. The faculty there do send their students to grad schools.</p>
<p>I have gone into such detail here even though you are interested in a completely different field because the point I am making should be illustrative. The point is this:</p>
<p>Undergraduate institutional rankings for any college or university are often meaningless when a student wishes to pursue graduate study. A university’s rankings (as determined by a non-academic mass-market magazine, no less!) will normally have nothing to do with a student’s success in graduate admissions, or in graduate study as a whole. The specific faculty with whom a student has studied will, on the other hand, be a significant factor. </p>
<p>In short, it is the department that prepares a student for study in a particular field, not the university.</p>