Going to add one more voice of support to all of the above posters. I went to a large, not top-tier state school and I think it I actually had more opportunities, in some ways, than I would have had at a more prestigious school. I stood out more and received more attention from professors and in terms of awards, scholarships and the like than I would have otherwise. It was also cheaper (both due to it being a state school and the scholarship I received) than other schools would have been, which has given me a bit more freedom while looking at graduate schools--where, IMO, going for the bigger name is more worth paying for.
Graduate admissions are different than undergrad. I'm sure you know this, but specifically what I mean is that a bachelor's degree from a well known university can open doors for you in industry, but graduate programs mostly look at your academics. Lots of people get into big name graduate programs from smaller named schools simply based of their performance. If you truly can graduate with all of that, with a good GPA, GRE scores, research experience, and letters of recommendation, you'll be fine. Get to know your undergrad professors. Work I'm their labs. Get into internships over the summer.
I should mention this as well: those schools you hope to get to for grad school are well known and highly ranked, but graduate school is about the program, not the school itself. When you start looking into grad programs, look specifically at their departments and faculty. Look for the specific professors you'd like to work with. Compatible research interests are the most important part of finding good grad programs. You may find that an overall "lower ranked" school has a really stellar program for your research interests.
Honestly the most important thing you can do is do lots of research, which is something you will have a lot of opportunity to do at MSU if you're proactive. Join a lab or two, work there a couple years and then join a couple others if there's an area that you find interests you most. MSU is a high level research institute with a lot of output. If it makes you feel better, I'm about to graduate from MSU and I have gotten into top programs in my area of interest despite not getting an undergraduate degree in that discipline. In addition, if you get in to UMich, that school is essentially a public Ivy, no one is going to consider you less for attending. I think anything you can do to save money is good. And with your intended course load, being close to home (I'm assuming you're from Michigan?) will be a good thing too for your mental health. Like @goosejuicesaid, it's all about your experience and your fit in grad school Also, also, no one cares too much about your minor. You can take courses that interest you without going full out to get the minor. If it will be useful to you in terms of your research focus when you apply to graduate school, it's useful to say you minored but otherwise I have never had it come up.
Seconded, all of the above. The prestige of your undergrad institution doesn't mean anything without the experience and skills to back it up! MSU is a perfectly good school, and there's no reason to transfer mid-degree just on the basis of rank or the promise of prestige. Use your four years to build a resume, explore your interests, and make connections with the professionals wherever you end up.
You might find, like I and a lot of other people did, that your academic goals and interests will change after you start actually getting into a field. I went into my biology degree wanting to do invertebrate zoology. After internships, summer lab volunteering, and my thesis project, I ended up settling on microbial biogeochemistry! (Which MSU has some good research in). Where you eventually apply to grad school should be where you can find mentors and opportunities that fit your niche.
PS: good luck!! you'll be fine
I wrote this to answer a question in the questions and answers forum, but I thought people over here may find it useful! I wrote it from the STEM perspective, so feel free to correct me/add details for other fields.
If you think you may want to apply to grad school, there are several things you can do now to set yourself up well for your future applications if you end up deciding to apply to later down the road.
1. Keep your grades up! This goes for getting a job post graduate school as well, but GPA tends to be a reasonably large factor in the admissions process. The most important classes will be those related to your field of study, but you will also want to have the highest overall GPA you can manage.
2. Start/maintain strong relationships with a few of your professors. Talk to them during their office hours, go above and beyond in their class, chat with them regularly, create relationships with them. When the graduate school application process rolls around, you are going to need professors to write recommendation letters for you where they vouch that you are an amazing student and have strong potential to succeed in graduate school. The best letters come from professors that actually know you well and can speak to their personal relationship with you.
3. If you end up in a lab research-centric field (like biology, chemistry, engineering, etc.), start in undergraduate research as soon as you can. The best way to do this is to poke around on professor and department websites and search for their research blurbs. Read through those until you get a feel for the types of work that interests you. Obviously your interests are going to be broad and undefined at this point - that is absolutely fine. Just find a few things that sound fun and roll with it!
Reach out to those professors (either by email or by actually going to their office) and ask if they have any openings for an undergraduate research assistant. Be persistent! It is HIGHLY unlikely that you will be able to get into the lab of the first person you talk to (depending on your department/university), but you will get absolutely no where if you don't try.
The easiest professors to get in with are ones who you have had class with and already have a good relationship with (see #2), so you can always start there!
4. Use your summers wisely - do something with your summer breaks that is meaningful. This can be a summer internship, a volunteer experience, an outreach program, a study abroad term, or something similar. Whatever you do should be something that gives you a new experience and helps you grow as a person. Get out there, explore, try something brand new, broaden your horizons, all those cliches. Not only will you grow, but you'll get a better feel for who you are and what you want you want to do, and you'll also have something to talk about in that beast of a personal statement you eventually have to write.
Summer internships are an amazing way to get some research experience. If you are having difficulties getting into a lab at school, look for an internship that typically takes students with little research experience and use that as your springboard into the field. Internships are also a great way to explore research that's different from what you are doing at school and can help you narrow your broad research interests!
5. Do something with the research you're doing. Publications are the gold shining star of a graduate school application, but it can be extremely difficult to publish your research as an undergraduate (this depends on your lab). Whether or not you are going to be able to get a paper out of your research, try to find avenues to present it. Most research universities offer some type of undergraduate research symposium where undergrads present what they've been working on. There are also regional conferences as a part of the big national societies that students frequently present at. You can also present at a national conference (depending on your lab)! This is also an option with any research you do over the summer - be sure to talk to the people you intern/work with to see if that is an option.
6. Get involved with something you are passionate about outside of the classroom. So now that I've harped on the huge importance of research, I can move on to the other stuff. Do something outside of your classes/research that you are excited about. This can be band, sports, outreach to local schools, volunteering at a food pantry, working for the school newspaper, photography, something.
Get involved and not just on the surface level. Show commitment to the activity/organization. Take on a leadership role, branch out and start a new organization, or something along those lines that shows it is important to you. The goal here is to show that you are a real person with interests outside of school and also that you are committed and motivated. It's much, much better to be deeply involved in a select few things you are passionate about than to be barely involved in twenty different activities.
7. Look into awards, prestigious scholarships, etc. that you may qualify for. There are tons of awards and scholarships out there that will recognize you for all of the hard work you have been putting in. Depending on what your interests/fields are, you can join honor societies like Phi Kappa Phi or Phi Beta Kappa or field-specific ones. You can apply for the Goldwater Scholarship when you have one to two years of college remaining if you are in STEM. There's also Fulbright, Truman, Marshall, Rhodes, Gates Cambridge, and a whole slew of other prestigious scholarships that you can look into applying to. A lot of professional societies also have undergraduate awards and scholarships that you can consider for your individual field.
Your university probably has an office/person to assist people in applying for these types of awards, and I definitely encourage you to find them and talk to them about your options! There are also specific awards for minorities if that applies to you and first generation college students. While these are not nearly as important to your application as a strong research background and recommendation letters, they can definitely be extra jewels in the crown.
8. Keep track of everything that you are doing. You are going to be busy during college with lots of class, activities, research, and summer plans! Start a resume, CV, and list of classes (with course number, full title, number of credits, professor, textbook, your grade in the class, and a one-line blurb about what you did in the class). You can find good templates online for a resume and CV, or you can talk to the career office at your school for help. You will thank yourself later for starting early because it's so much easier to remember all of the details about your involvement when it's actually happening than three or four years down the line!
9. Keep in mind the components of the graduate school application so you can plan ahead as necessary. For every field, your graduate school application is going to have several key components: GPA (major and overall), GRE scores (verbal, quantitative, and writing), two to three recommendation letters from faculty, a CV, and a personal statement. For some fields, you may also need a subject GRE score, a writing sample, and/or a portfolio of your work. This is why I said keep your grades up (#1), have good relationships with faculty (#2), do research (#3 - 5), and start your CV early (#8).
10. Do your research! When you reach your junior year (probably the spring of your junior year), you should start thinking about what grad school programs you might be interested in, what you want to study, and what you need to prepare for your applications. You should also think about when you want to take the GRE and set up a study plan. I won't go into more detail here because there's TONS of information about both of these things on the site, and that's still a while away for you.
11. Take a deep breath and enjoy college. I listed tons of advice here, but the last thing you need to do is stress out. By already thinking about what you need to do to prepare for grad school, you're way ahead of the game and you're going to be just fine. Take the time to enjoy your college experience because undergrad can be a whole lot of fun, and you don't want to miss out on that! GOOD LUCK!
