<p>“Some schools do get better reputations within the admissions process because of the faculty working there - i.e., Harvard is good not because it’s HARVARD but because X applicant worked with Dan Schacter, who is famous in my fiend. Some schools also have good reputations because of students they have already admitted - but that doesn’t necessarily go along with mainstream name recognition. For example, my college is a mid-tier liberal arts college but I’ve gotten comments on how well students from my college have done in the program.”</p>
<p>“my undergrad department was rated amongst the top three in its discipline, though the university at large probably wouldn’t raise that many eyebrows. This probably didn’t mean a whole heckuva lot when I applied for graduate school. However, after undergrad I worked for a few years in industry where the reputation of my former department held quite a bit of weight; I got one job pretty much on the strength of my undergraduate preparation. It was through the professional research experience that I gained my competitive edge for graduate school.”</p>
<p>Seconded.</p>