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cherish_wisdom

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  • Location
    USA
  • Application Season
    2014 Fall

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  1. I spoke to a professor at Stanford about this a while ago (I was inquiring about the Philosophy program there), and basically he told me that the most important parts to an application, in order, were: 1) Letters of Reference 2) Writing Sample & SOP (joint) 3) GPA 4) GRE Now, I asked him specifically about the prestige of the undergraduate university, as I went to a smaller Australian university, and his answer made a lot of sense. No, it does not matter what undergraduate university you went to per se. What matters, and is the main reason why top tier UGs go to top tier graduate programs, are the letters of reference that you get from them. So, when they get a letter from a superstar academic in the field, it is treated with a lot more respect and (and this is key) trust. Even if your LORs are excellent and amazing, if the faculty reviewing your application have never heard of that person and have no reference to their own academic abilities or judgment, it unfortunately makes your application a lot weaker than someone who gets a short simple recommendation from a world leader in the field. So theoretically your UG institution does not matter. Practically, however, it could matter a lot depending on the faculty.
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