Any grad applicant can come in!

[csl0402]

Im thinking about applying for Stanford grauate school for MA. I just wanna ask, will the prestige of my undergraduate school affect my admission? Do students from Ivy or other top schools have better chance getting in than students from not-so-good schools?

Thanks.

[juilletmercredi]

Sort of, not really. First, I wouldn't contrast "Ivy" with "not-so-good." This is simply a question of prestige, not quality.

Graduate admissions committees care far more about what you do at your undergrad than where you went. Sometimes, what you do is affected by where you went. Students at prestigious large research universities may have more opportunities to work in scholarship and research than students who went to small regional public schools or small liberal arts colleges where professors don't do much research. So in that sense, where you went might affect your admissions in that it will improve your overall profile when compared to your average student from a smaller school.

Are graduate admissions committees wholly unaffected by the prestige of Ivy League and other top schools? No, they're human beings. But I'd say the process is subjective enough that it's going to be based on a program's individual assessment of a program. If the department has accepted two past students from Harvard and they were both duds, they may have a wary eye on the department at Harvard and thus the students who come from there. If the department has accepted three past students from Kansas State and they all did spectacularly, Kansas State may now have a high position in these professors' eyes wrt students coming from that department. Given no prior experience, professors are going to rely on peer evaluations of the programs, which are influenced by prestige. But - for example, in my field, the departments at Michigan and Wisconsin may be more highly valued than the ones at Princeton and Brown.

Long story short - probably it will affect you a little bit, but not enough to make any substantial difference in the likelihood of your admission. If the rest of your portfolio is mediocre, the prestige of your undergrad school won't save you.