Grad School Admission

Parents Forum
1

<p>My son did not matriculate at the state school he was accepted, instead he is attending a private LAC in the midwest. My question is: he will be applying to the same state school for his master degree in a year, will the state college hold it against him because he did not pick it for undergraduate study?</p>

<p>The state college has the master program he wants, plus it is only 20 minutes away so he can commute, which will save us room and board money.</p>

<p>Anyone has similar experience? Any comments/insights will be appreciated.</p>

2

<p>I don’t have experience with this but I would HIGHLY doubt they would reject him because he didn’t go there any more than they would reject anyone else for the same reason going to other schools. But it probably would have helped if he had gone there. I think most schools tend to favor their own undergraduates a little.</p>

3

<p>Actually, a lot of colleges tell their students to go elsewhere for grad school in order to be exposed to different curricula and meet different profs.</p>

4

<p>The reality is that the grad admissions people are totally separate from the undergrad. In grad school, the professors decide whom they want to work with and, except for administrative assistance, there is no “ad comm.”</p>

5

<p>Yeah totally separate people and committees, not that anyone would care regardless. It’s not personal.</p>

6

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<p>Most schools would rather their undergraduates went elsewhere to prevent ‘academic inbreeding.’ </p>

<p>As for the original question, I don’t think it will matter one bit.</p>

7

<p>^ I think it mostly doesn’t matter (not much ‘inbreeding’ between undergrad and PhD at any given school to matter). But when it does, it’s usually to the student’s disadvantage to be from the same school. The one exception is Harvard, who likes its own students, and likes to hire them as faculty too (yuck).</p>

8

<p>“Most schools would rather their undergraduates went elsewhere to prevent ‘academic inbreeding.’”</p>

<p>Why would a school offer a guaranteed admit program to their own grad schools for their own undergraduates then?</p>

9

<p>^Are you talking about professional schools? I was thinking in terms of research oriented Masters and PhD programs.</p>

10

<p>Yeah, I read somewhere that Berkeley discourages “inbreeding”</p>

11

<p>“^Are you talking about professional schools? I was thinking in terms of research oriented Masters and PhD programs.”</p>

<p>Not exclusively, but those too… But yes, professional schools, MBAs, MS in Engineering, is what I had in mind… Most people who go to grad school do one of these right? I didn’t have research in mind, as I expect that to be mostly for PHDs.</p>