<p>If I want to go to an ivy league simply because of the name. Is it really worth transferring? Out in the real world, when I’m looking for a career, will it make a huge difference in the way people view me if I say if I went to an ivy versus if I say I went to UVA?</p>
<p>How much value does the name “UVA” have out in the real world? both domestically and internationally?</p>
<p>please don’t take this the wrong way. i’m simply asking a question. nowhere in this question do i say the words “ivies are better than uva”. nowhere.</p>
<p>Yes you do, if you didn’t believe ivies were better than UVA, you wouldn’t be applying in the first place. You’re a huge contradiction, if you want a name don’t be afraid to say it, just don’t shy away from saying it and masking it with insecure statements.</p>
<p>To a great degree, the answer to your question lies in the specifics. Obviously Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are names known–and revered–worldwide. Brown and Penn, for example, not so much. I’m not slamming on Brown or Penn–both of which are fine schools–but their fame simply does not compare to HYP. Virginia is in a similar situation. In places like Washington and New York, UVA’s reputation is very strong, but in Shanghai or Mumbai (or even Seattle) I wouldn’t say as much.</p>
<p>Depends on what you want to major in… I would take UVA over all Ivys because UVA has a fantastic program for what I want to major in and is also the school for me. UVA is definintely considered a “public Ivy”.</p>
<p>I would concur with Marsden’s post. I live in a small town/suburb in PA about 90 miles north of Philly and 80 miles west of NYC. Most people do not equate UVA with having the same kind of prestige as a HYP school or even Georgetown and Penn State (gag)…many did not even know how to compare it versus against a local state-run university (UVA is 1st tier, while that school was 3rd tier). However, when I conducted several interviews in NYC when I first graduated, it was a different story. There was definitely a lot more respect.</p>
<p>I would say that it also depends on your field as well. Someone at McIntire’s business school may have a significant advantage (in the business community) with regards to nationwide recognition of the program.</p>
<p>A lot of places won’t even care where you went to school, but simply what your degree consisted of and how well you did. In many environments, the school doesn’t matter as much as the credential.</p>
<p>I’ve done graduate admissions for a very competitive PhD program. We look at individual students, not, per se, the schools they graduate from. High-ranked public institutions provide the same academic advantages that the Ivies do: many of our top applicants come from Michigan, Rutgers, UNC, Wisconsin, Texas, Berkeley, UVA, UCLA as well as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, etc. Possibly the top “public” applicants had to work a little harder to get those same academic advantages; my sense, from having taught both at a top Ivy and a flagship public, is that the same opportunities are available to motivated students in both settings, but the Ivy made them inescapable, whereas at the public school the kid had to show some initiative to get, say, into a residential college, or do an honors thesis in his/her major. </p>
<p>The people who are at a disadvantage in the grad admissions process are those who go to much lower-tier schools, and thus who don’t have access to faculty who are currently involved in cutting-edge research. That’s not because we’re snobby, but because they haven’t received sufficient exposure to the field. Many students in this situation get a master’s degree at a prestigious institution and then are in good shape to apply to PhD programs.</p>
<p>From what I hear, if you’re not going to grad school but going to work after graduation, most employers care a whole lot more about your ability at what they’ve hired you to do, than they do about where you graduated from. My sister, a graduate of a SUNY school hired by a big company, was at first intimidated by the Columbia and Yale graduates in her cohort, but she was managing them within a couple of years.</p>
<p>So all told, I don’t think the difference between UVA and an Ivy is worth uprooting yourself, unless you’re unhappy at UVA.</p>