<p>I’ve heard the pamphlet thing before, but I have no idea what they send or don’t send with the transcripts I never paid my $3 to get the “sealed” report to open it and see. There’s a sample transcript outside the door at the registrar’s (third floor of Green) that does a pretty good job of showing what different academic situations look like.</p>
<p>As for grad school admissions, everything is extremely dependent on program and department you apply to, not the school. The grad school forum here cannot help you with much because every program is simply that individualized and different from other programs in the same school. In fact, the fastest way to bother the long-time advice-givers there is to say, “I want to go to ‘X’ school” with no department in mind.</p>
<p>Grades, GREs are a small part of the package. You can’t flunk out of college and take your GREs smashed, but an earnest effort in a place where the median grade is roughly a B+ will do you no harm and is not worth obsessing over. As far as the “general” GRE is concerned, many people who apply to PhD programs sign up, take it and that’s the end. No $$$ Kaplan course required and they receive very good scores. The subject test GRE, which is much harder, another matter and not always required, is a larger factor in some admissions. And yet I know of several people (not necessarily Wellesley students) that scored in the <em>single digit</em> percentile for the subject GREs and got into at least one grad school because they had the recommendations to back up their competence. When I was looking for grad schools I sat down with professors, both of whom were frank about the where I would stand in the applicant pool at each school, recommended schools based on who they knew there, and the fate of their small sample of students in my department with each type of background and what happened to them.</p>
<p>While I can only speak from impressions beyond my department, I would say that every department at Wellesley is equipped to send and prepare students for grad school in their field. </p>
<p>At this stage in your life, you do not need to think much about grad school, other than the fact that your college of choice does send their enthusiastic students from your favorite department there. You need merely to know what classes you would need to begin take in order not to be “behind” in your program. In some departments (Physics) the major requirements and the grad school requirements are identical (though extra courses are suggested, but not always possible, to take). In other departments (Math), you would need to take a larger number of upper-level courses than is required for the major.</p>
<p>There is a large amount of mind-changing at every school. People often stop, realize that they aren’t enjoying what they are doing or doing it as well as they like and say “Hey wait! This is my life. I can do what I want and I don’t want X anymore, I want Y”. With any luck, they then major in Y.</p>
<p>So take my assurance that Wellesley is not the wrong place if you are interested in grad school. Instead consider it against all the other schools you are looking at on the basis of the great opportunities you can get as an undergrad at each place, and chose from there.</p>