<p>If you would like a good chance of attending a Ivy League graduate school, attending Michigan State University, University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, or any of the Big Ten schools ( including Arizona State University, University of Arizona, and University of Colorado- Boulder) puts you at fault for attending a Ivy League graduate school? Possibly at fault for attending any graduate school well ranked in a large city?</p>
<p>(Any other information base off my question you think I may be interested in knowing feel free to share)</p>
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<p>I’m currently a soon to be senior, and already having increase concerns about graduate school ( just briefly). As my top choice Michigan State University, and second University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, I have questions on whether ( and if with future interest) attending these universities will fault my own chances for attending a Ivy League graduate school?
I would like to attend a graduate school in a large city, mainly the coastal regions… and once completing my graduate education be able to get a great job, and explore the world ofcourse.</p>
<p>My d. is a graduate student at Princeton. In her very highly ranked program, in her year, and the year before and the year after, there isn’t a single student from the Ivy League, including Princeton itself. There are 14 faculty; exactly one has an undergraduate degree from an Ivy League school (not Princeton).</p>
<p>I know personally a few people at Northwestern that are heading to the top couple ivies for graduate school. Many universities publish lists of where their seniors are going (generally work or graduate school). I’ve checked out a lot of these for non-ivies, and there are many that are going to ivy league schools for graduate.</p>
<p>“Ivy League” isn’t really a meaningful category for graduate studies – when you go to graduate school, you go to study a specific topic in great depth, so what matters is the quality of the department in the subfield of your interest, not the ranking of the school as a whole.</p>
<p>Getting into a top graduate program in your field depends on things like your undergraduate GPA and GRE scores, but depends more heavily on your research and scholarship background, your letters of recommendation from professors, and your academic interests. Therefore, you want to go to a school for undergrad where you can succeed grade-wise, participate in research and scholarly activities early and in great depth, and get meaningful letters of recommendation from professors you know well.</p>
<p>Attending a big state school for undergrad is only bad if it means you don’t have easy access to professors and research opportunities, and clearly it doesn’t mean that for everyone. However, it’s somewhat easier to get into a top graduate program coming from a great undergraduate school, because of these resources. My Harvard PhD program (biology) is somewhat different from mini’s D’s – our top five feeders in terms of absolute numbers over the past four years are (in order) MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford. We have a number of students from state schools, though.</p>
<p>Ivy requirements for graduate school don’t hinge on undergraduate prestige. For the sciences, what matters most is research experience, prof recs and undergraduate GPA. A lot of smaller LACs, as well as state U’s, feed students to graduate Ivies. Although, graduate Ivy may not be the best choice. My friend’s friend who did UWisc undergrad (biomed sciences) rejected Harvard grad :P</p>
<p>That makes sense, it’s more about the specific program/ field your graduate school is ranked in… not the overall school prestige. Though with that said, it’s more than likely a Ivy League prestige in all your fields of interest for graduate school.</p>
<p>And why do you assume that? Do you really think the actual “value-added” at Ivy schools is substantially greater than that at other highly ranked schools? That preparation is significantly better?</p>
<p>There are many, many wonderful things about the schools in that football league, but pure academic experience might not always be among them. (Harvard ranked 26th for academic quality in the last COFHE survey, and that didn’t even include any public universities or many prestige privates other than LACs.)</p>
<p>You can find out a lot by looking at where Ivy faculty got their undergraduate degrees.</p>
<p>If your undergraduate school is known for being rigorous (Ivy or non-Ivy), and you have a great GPA, you will probably trump the same GPA from a non-competitive school, all else being equal. However, if you go to Michigan State, take a rigorous and interesting course load, do really well, have raves from your professors, etc., you will probably be chosen over a Harvard 2.9 GPA student.</p>
<p>FWIW, the University of Michigan is considered the most academically rigorous of the school you listed.</p>
<p>If you have a 3.7 GPA from a second-tier school, but significant research experience, excellent academic references, and (in the humanities and social sciences) facility in one or two other languages, and good GREs, you are more likely to get into an Ivy grad school than an Ivy grad with the same GPA and GREs who lacks the research experience, academic references, and languages. (And lots of those Ivy admissions committees know about massive grade inflation at Ivy schools or at least their own, and also know that such grade inflation is much less likely at state schools.)</p>
<p>Though surprise at a recent post saying if you attend MSU and get a 3.7 ( I think it was) etc… and a Harvard grad gets 2.7 you may get picked over? Almost as if a near 50/50…</p>
I absolutely agree here, but I think it’s worth noting that this is a massive stacking of the deck, and doesn’t necessarily represent reality.</p>
<p>Students with 3.7 GPAs from second tier schools should be aware that they’re competing with Ivy grads with similar stats and outstanding research experience and stellar recommendations from well-known professors.</p>
<p>i know when i was making up my mind on where to go i kept looking at lists of which law/grad schools students from the colleges i applied to ended up going and seeing various ivy league schools on the list for every school…schools not as good as michigan.</p>
<p>Don’t think the deck was stacked at all. There were dozens of Ivy grads who applied to my d’s Ph.D program during the past three years. NOT ONE was accepted. So, for whatever reason - whether it be poor research opportunities, subpar recommendations, or lack of languages - they were just thought of as less qualified than those who were accepted.</p>
<p>I had lunch once with a fraternity president at OSU who was going to grad school at Yale. This guy was impressive…he had near a perfect 4.0 gpa, he was SGA vice president, he did a study abroad in Paris, and our families both knew Sen. Coburn personally.</p>
<p>So basically…if you are one of the people that stand out at a big state school, the Ivies will take you…unless you went to some ridiculous school like University of Texas at Arlington…of course.</p>
<p>Mini, I’ve met a lot of graduate students in your daughter’s Ivy, and yes, they come from all over INCLUDING from Ivies. Your daughter’s department is too small of a sample. Most at that Ivy come from other Ivies, top LACs (as your daughter can attest to), and top research universities, both national and international. A few come from more obscure LACs, but they are in the minority.</p>
<p>Going to an Ivy does not hurt your chances, as you seem to imply. It’s all about what you do with your educational opportunities and how much you impress your professors as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>I don’t mean the deck is stacked against non-Ivy applicants – I mean that it’s stacking the deck to say that a non-Ivy grad with perfect recs and research experience and a 3.8 will get in over an Ivy grad with the same GPA and no research. Of course that’s true. But there are precious few Ivy grads applying to top PhD programs with resumes like that.</p>
<p>I once heard an engineer say his company wouldn’t hire anyone without internship experience, “not even if they came from MIT.” But virtually everyone at MIT (about 90-95%, at minimum) does research and internships. So while it may sound nice and egalitarian, it doesn’t describe the vast majority of people from MIT who would be applying to his company.</p>
<p>I just don’t think it does anybody any favors to pretend that all or most top school applicants are deficient in some major way and all or most state school applicants have perfect applications. It takes a lot of hard work to have a sparkling resume, regardless of where you went to school, and very few people end up with the kinds of credential sets for which top schools are looking.</p>
<p>I wonder how difficult it is to stand out at a big state school. That would be more of my concern, especially for a shy individual in a large major.</p>