<p>We’re just going to have to disagree, then. Wharton and Harvard aren’t the exceptions, they’re at the top of the MBA ladder but they follow the rule. </p>
<p>As far as research positions go, my opinion stands: better schools have better research opportunities that lead to better graduate school placement. If you want to restrict yourself to GT’s CS department, we can. I pulled the personal websites the CoC lists for all current and former graduate students. I only included people from US schools and people where I could find their previous school easily. It’s only 63 students, so it’s not exhaustive but it does give a nice cross section.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech: 15
Carnegie Mellon: 7
NC State: 5
Harvey Mudd: 3
Iowa State: 2
Michigan: 2
MIT: 2
UIUC: 2</p>
<p>Air Force Academy: 1
Appalachian State: 1
BYU: 1
Caltech: 1
Columbia: 1
Cornell: 1
Delaware: 1
George Mason: 1
George Washington: 1
Harvard: 1
Johns Hopkins: 1
Mississippi State: 1
Mills College: 1
Northeastern: 1
Northwestern: 1
RIT: 1
RPI: 1
Rutgers: 1
St. Joseph’s: 1
Tuskegee: 1
UC- Berkeley: 1
University of Chicago: 1
UMass: 1
UVA: 1
Washington and Lee: 1
Wesleyan: 1</p>
<p>So while you see some lower tier schools in the “1” group, the vast majority of students came from large, first tier research universities. And while you might say “well UCF is better than Appalachian State”, you don’t know the qualifications of the person from that school. In fact, that student had to go through 3 previous degrees of increasing school prestige before reaching GT (following an NC State MS).</p>