Public undergrad school to Ivy graduate school - possible?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
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<p>(Please pardon my grammar, it has been a long day…and also read the whole thing if you have enough patience.)</p>

<p>Let me introduce myself and say that I am a pretty bright but extremely lazy student. I find high school very pointless, other than the fact that it gets us into college. The content, the lack of quality of the majority of the teachers, and the repetitiveness of practically everything all contribute to the fact that arguably you are wasting four years of your life learning nothing. I like to argue that you will not only learn this material in college, but you you learn it far better then in a crappy state-funded room using the cheapest materials possible.</p>

<p>I am not going to say I am a genius like most people would on this forum, but defining someone who got a 2400 and a 4.0 is pretty closed minded and ridiculous. My stats are a above average 2000 SAT and a 3.4 GPA with 6 AP’s, which I am I am proud of and not proud of in many ways. My first choice is McGill university in Montreal, Canada, while my second and more realistic choice is University of Connecticut. Seeing that it is not logical to expect the best, I am fully prepared to go to Uconn when the time comes.</p>

<p>Ironically, my father went to Uconn undergrad, NYU Mount Sinai Med school, and then to Yale for residency, and he is fully committed to send me to Uconn, mostly because of the price-to-education ratio, and how it “blows everything else out of the water”. My father is probably the smartest man I know, and I am not just saying that because he is my father. His reasoning makes sense, and arguably most private schools are just about the money. My plan is most likely go to Uconn (hopefully McGill), and go to Business school, and then go into doctorate studies with a focus on engineering.</p>

<p>Uconn is probably one of the most well known, if not most recognized school in Connecticut. Everyone in my highschool applies there, even the “geniuses” and idiots, with each thinking that Uconn is either their backup or the best party school you can go too. Its academic rating is rising each year, and the in state cost is exceptional compared to pretty much every other competitive college. Uconn is best described as our flagship state school, and is rated the best public university in New England.</p>

<p>So I know Uconn is the number one public university in New England right now, so let me start off by saying that I know that it’s a good school with good advantages. However, I like to look at the bigger picture of things, and I would argue that graduate school is more important than undergraduate. I have also known that I have always wanted to go to some kind of Ivy league university for graduate school. As of now, during my senior year in highschool, this seems like a far fetched dream. Seeing that Uconn is probably going to be the school I go to, my real worry is Uconn itself.</p>

<p>I have recently heard that only about a handful of students who graduated from Uconn receive admission to Ivy League graduate schools. I even heard that only one student was accepted to harvard in the past couple of years, which seems like baloney. However, as right or wrong this my be, the source that told me this does have a point: even though Uconn is considered good by many in Connecticut, what are the chances of getting into an ivy league school after you graduate? Uconn is neither a University of California or University of Michigan, nor could you say it’s even a University of Florida. It definitely not a Carnegie Mellon or Tufts University either. My biggest concern is my future, and as of now, Uconn seems to be one of the only choices I have.</p>

<p>In all, I would like to know someone’s opinion on this. My question is that do a lot of “Uconn” type graduates get into ivy league schools for graduate studies? In other words, do a lot of kids who graduate from flagship universities get accepted into Ivy league graduate programs?</p>

<p>Please, I beg you to not answer with bull answers like “college is what you make of it” or “if you try hard enough”. With my current knowledge and assumptions, my argument would be that to even have a chance, you would not only need to be in the honors program, you would have to graduate with a very good GPA, in addition to a lot of EC’s and some awards. Even then, you would probably have to be ranked very very high up in your class. Even with these stats, I would still be skeptical.</p>

<p>I originally posted this on Uconn’s forum, so replace Uconn with your flagship state school.</p>

<p>Anyone have any insights, thoughts, perspectives?</p>

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<p>One hundred percent; yes.</p>

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<p>I will be more skeptical on the high school forum. I will also assume that everyone is a highschool student like me. You dont have to write an essay, but whats your reasoning/why are you so confident?</p>

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<p>Certainly, students from the top public universities (think Michigan Ann-Arbor, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UVA, UNC Chapel Hill) are well represented at top graduate schools.</p>

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<p>Uconn is not a UC Berkeley, or considered to be ranked close to any of those other schools. Those are considered public Ivy’s, the top of the top for public schools, with Uconn significantly lower than all of them. Uconn is best related to Flagship state universities, like University of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, UMASS, University of Florida and others like those. I am talking about going from those schools to ivies, and not about “public Ivy to a private Ivy”.</p>

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<p>tldr; Yes, possible.</p>

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<p>Why why why why why why why why why why why why why why</p>

<p>Does anyone even know how many students who are admitted to Ivy league grad schools come from private schools? It’s ridiculous.</p>

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<p>I went from a very small college listed as “third tier” in U.S. News and World Report to getting a Ph.D. at Harvard; so yes, it is certainly possible.</p>

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<p>Ok, its good to know that you rose up and got a Ph’D from an Ivy, but what about grad school? In my opinion, grad school is by far the most important education you will receive, and for most people, its the last step in you educational career. I don’t even know if I will follow through with doctorate studies, heck that’s almost 10 years away; but I am positive I will go to grad school after college. The problem is just where.</p>

<p>No one has yet given me a concise answer with at least some detail explaining the reasoning…</p>

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<p>Of course you have a chance to gain admittance to a top-level engineering grad school from UConn. But of course it depends on your results (grades, references, contacts made, experiences). My primary concern for you would be that you not carry your air of superiority to UConn – a state-supported classroom, by the way. Your description of high school could be stretched to fit 80% of all high schools, and plenty of people make it work.</p>

<p>What’s done is done, but what isn’t isn’t, and you will need to apply yourself.</p>

<p>I’d also make sure that your planned course of study – business undergrad, engineering grad – is acceptable to grad schools. Maybe someone with an advanced engineering degree can chime in?</p>

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<p>Well actually, I was thinking of engineering undergrad and then business grad. </p>

<p>Also, I am not a F student. If you saw my GPA and SAT, I get the occasional B’s in AP classes with one C here or there, and the rest A’s in normal classes. I could say that with little effort, I got into the best state school in the area. I did make it work, to a level. But like you said, what’s done is done, and what’s not is not. I am now turning my thoughts to college. My worry is that even with those straight A’s at Uconn, and the excellent everything else, it would still be hard to get in an Ivy business grad school, compared to someone from Tufts or Duke. How many people from Uconn go to Harvard Business school for grad studies?</p>

<p>I know I put this situation on myself, but that’s not what i want to hear.</p>

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<p>You are really assuming some stupid things. I agree with the American education part, but you have know clue about my school, or its system. I want to call you a dip*<strong><em>, but CC blocks out *</em></strong>, so I will now call you ubiomnibutthole.</p>

<p>So ubiomnibutthole, left me first say that I went to a private school for my first two years of my highschool education, and then went to a public school for the last two.</p>

<p>At this private school, I spent two very, very dumb years dealing with a lot of ********. I will bullet point them for you, because it may be too hard for you to comprehend, seeing you favor private highschools over public ones.</p>

<p>Private schools consist of:

  • Kids who have a lot of money, yet lack the actual knowledge to succeed in hard situations.
  • Every single kid at this school is considered a ***<strong><em>bag at my public school, with the exception of 1 or 2 kids. My public school knows most of their kids, so what I am saying is not bias or </em></strong><strong><em>, they are legally *</em></strong><strong>bags.
  • These kids spend $130,000 on a **</strong>ty highschool to attend a even more expensive university after they graduate; these universities are obviously private, small, waste of money higher educational institutes that no one has heard of.
  • Most of these kids study very dumb majors, like art and fashion, and will never make as much money as how much their ■■■■■■ parents spent on them.
  • This school does not allowed to fail anyone, so it lacks the competitiveness of the two or three private schools that you are thinking of.
    -The teachers my freshman and softmore years were college students. They were in their very early 20’s. They barely made any money, didn’t know how to teach, and had no state license. Overall, they were jokes, with my freshman English teacher being the only exception.
    -We had less school then public kids. Significantly less school. Not only did we have weeks off, we had multiple snow days every month because kids had to drive from other towns.
    -Only 6 Softmore students took AP’s. I was one of them.</p>

<p>My parents were just caught in the biggest spam ever. They just wasted $60,000 on the biggest ******** money could buy, far worse than the Government’s American educational system.</p>

<p>Overall, I did not go to a private school because this private school, and the majority of non-boarding private schools, are a waste of money and are complete ****.</p>

<p>At my public school, which is ranked highly, I have 3 teachers who gotten their degrees and taught at ivy league schools. Last year I had two teachers who taught at Ivy league schools. There is no grade deflation whatsoever. I have known these kids since middle school, and their is diversity everywhere. Kids don’t where extremely baggy dress-pants, and don’t have there ties loosely flap around their necks while their untied timberland boats hit the ground while they walked.</p>

<p>I am going to be arrogant like you and say that you would never last at my public school because your head would be so far up your ass, you wouldn’t even get through fundamentals of algebra without failing all of the other classes you have to take compared to private school.</p>

<p>The private schools that you are thinking of are the highest rated boarding schools in the country. There are only a couple of them. Choate would a great example of a school that would be considered more difficult than my public highschool.</p>

<p>Overall ubiomnibutthole, your private schools suck, and so do you. I could say that because of your private schools, my mindset is where its at now: wanting to get out of highschool as soon as possible.</p>

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<p>Looks like it: </p>

<p>[Undergraduate</a> Institutions - MBA - Harvard Business School](<a href=“http://www.hbs.edu/mba/perspectives/undergraduate-institutions.html]Undergraduate”>Undergraduate Institutions - MBA - Harvard Business School)</p>

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<p>Very good information there, thanks.</p>

<p>I am surprised that Uconn isn’t there; that’s interesting. It would be even more interesting to see number’s after those schools too. I pray that I will get into McGill…</p>

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<p>The University of Connecticut is in fact a public ivy, you can look that up so you are talking about going from a public ivy to a private ivy and it’s extremely possible, my sister is attending Harvard from UConn right now</p>

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<p>I think you’re looking at this the wrong way. It’s not so much where you go to undergrad that says where you’ll go to grad school as much as it is what you do in undergrad. Sure, you may have a better chance if you went to a private or public Ivy, but that’s only because I would assume that you are a motivated and successful student. If you go to a less known public or private university, you may have to work a little harder to prove that you’re just as educated as one of those Ivy league graduates. Looking at what intellexi posted, you can see that people from all types of universities are now studying at one of arguably the best business schools in the country. Pick the undergrad university you feel most comfortable at and take advantage of the opportunities that are offered. If you’re cut out for an ivy graduate school, then it will happen. If not, then you are part of millions of people who didn’t get an ivy education and will probably still do just fine.</p>

<p>So the answer to your question is yes, you can go from a public university to an ivy university. Ivy leagues don’t just pick their grad students from other ivies, there are a bunch of people from other universities that are part of the grad programs too.</p>

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<p>Yes.</p>

<p>My husband went from Rutgers to Harvard Law. Depends on how you do as an undergrad and how you do on the boards.</p>

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<p>I know five people who did it. And that’s just off the top of my head. Two that went from community college to the Ivy League.</p>

<p>However, they were anything but lazy. They got straight A’s, badgered prof after prof for research opportunities, worked their arses off every summer to work and research, etc.</p>

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<p>Maybe this was mentioned before, but I didn’t see it: it’s not that important to go to an Ivy League school for grad school. There are some disciplines where they are all very strong. But in most disciplines, most of the top schools are not Ivy League schools.</p>

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<p>I don’t have any numerical facts on how many public undergrads get into Ivy’s but there is this kid who lives 3 houses down from me. His brother went to UConn pre-med around 2004 and now he’s in Harvard Medical School. Stop being so skeptical, these people are real in living flesh. I also saw another previous post where this girl went from UConn to Harvard.</p>

<p>It’s not baloney, but it’s going to be hard. I think you already know the whole spiel on <em>work hard in college, have motivation</em>. But that’s the only way to get into the Ivy, by working hard! What other way is there?</p>

<p>I kinda feel you. More than 50% of my class applied to UConn. I got accepted there but I want to go to Penn State. However money is a big factor…</p>