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<p>My third-tier undergraduate degree in mathematics got me into Michigan in engineering. (I ended up elsewhere.) They seemed a lot more interested in my enthusiasm, grades, test scores, and recommendations than the name of my undergraduate school. Remember, a lot of people who go to grad school, especially in the sciences and engineering, are boring. Plenty of professors would rather have interesting students from no-name schools than Ivy-League wet blankets.</p>
<p>Which brings me to another point: If you connect with a professor who likes you personally and in whose work you are genuinely interested, your undergraduate school becomes all but irrelevant. I was admitted to three top graduate schools after making two visits to each and having face-to-face contact with the professor at each school whose work I was most interested in. I made no such effort at my “backup” graduate school and was rejected. I really doubt these results were coincidental.</p>