Do Classics PhD programs care where one goes to undergrad?

[Augustinian122]

Is where one goes to undergrad a huge deal for admission into top Classics PhD programs? I'm considering attending a very small, conservative Catholic college. One of the profs in their Classics department got his PhD from UVA, another got his PhD from Penn. Hypothetically, if I take 4 years of Greek & Latin, get nearly perfect grades and GRE scores, and have good recommendations, would the low profile of the college hurt my chances of getting into top programs?

[heliogabalus]

Augustinian, people won't like this answer because it's unfair--but yeah. Unless it's Holy Cross, which has a strong reputation for Classics, it's going to be tougher. Certainly not impossible--especially if you have professors who know you well and write great recs (an advantage of the small school) and you have good GRE scores--but a professor once explained to me that the undergrad students who tend to have the most success are the ones graduating from schools with top grad programs, because there's a certain amount of wheeling and dealing with departmental grad school admissions. Basically, professor X from Berkeley can call professor Y from Harvard and tell her that if she takes the Berkeley student, he'll take the Harvard student. Same with UNC, UCLA, Penn, Texas, Michigan, Brown, etc. If you graduate, even from a highly respected liberal arts school like Middlebury, your professors writing your recs and going to bat for you don't have any comparable currency. (The advantage, though, is that they will know you well and could write better recs, and possibly teach you Latin and Greek better--since you will always have profs instead of grad students your first year or two.)

[Aperio]

Personally, I went to a very small and relatively unknown liberal arts college where I received an excellent education, due largely to the small class sizes, and was still able to have some success in the PhD application process. I interviewed at a few of the schools above and ultimately decided to attend Duke. Although, I will say that the majority of students at the interview weekends were from Ivy League caliber schools. However, it certainly can be done with a degree from outside that circle. 

Edited August 7, 2017 by Aperio

[suntaliquidmanes]

I don't think the PhD app situation is quite as tit-for-tat as heliogabalus makes it sound. Of course committees are impressed by a transcript from a prestigious university, but the quality of work you've done at your school -- even if it's very small! -- is absolutely the most important consideration. Your potential is judged most by your grades, recommendations, writing sample, and ability to fit well with the department in question.

I've met plenty of grad students in prestigious Classics programs who had previously attended tiny colleges of which I had never heard. There is hope.

[psstein]

Generally speaking, yes. Rightfully or not, the best PhD programs will want the best applicants from the best universities. What that means is that you're much less likely to see someone who went to University of South Carolina as an undergraduate working as a graduate student in classics at Johns Hopkins or Yale. Unknown or lower ranked universities are often seen as less academically rigorous than higher ranked ones, which also means that a 4.0 GPA would not mean as much as a 3.4 at Reed (which is an excellent college with brutal grade deflation).

There are ways to get around it (impressive language preparation, publications, outstanding application materials, etc.), but it's more of an uphill climb than it would be from somewhere else.

 

[heliogabalus]

On 10/3/2017 at 7:06 AM, psstein said:

 you're much less likely to see someone who went to University of South Carolina as an undergraduate working as a graduate student in classics at Johns Hopkins

Maybe in 1890. These days Johns Hopkins isn't the Classics powerhouse it was with Basil Gildersleeve.

[psstein]

On 10/16/2017 at 1:33 PM, heliogabalus said:

Maybe in 1890. These days Johns Hopkins isn't the Classics powerhouse it was with Basil Gildersleeve.

Oops, you caught me! This is why I'm not a classics person.

I think the point stands, though: students from second rate undergrads aren't, with few exceptions, going to attend top 10 programs in history/classics/etc.

[heliogabalus]

 I was just teasing. With a small field like Classics, I think it may be easier sometimes for someone from a middle-ranked school to get in to top programs--if you show your language skills are up to snuff and have good recs. But when I was an undergrad, it always seemed like everyone who did undergrad at Harvard did their grad work at Berkeley, and everyone who did their undergrads at Berkeley did their grad work at Harvard. (Exaggerating, but it did seem indicative of a trend.)

[heliogabalus]

That said, scanning the profiles of the grad students at Harvard, a lot of smaller and less well-known schools are represented.

[Concordia]

By now there can't be more than a few dozen classicists nationwide-- won't they all know each other and be able to evaluate you through word of mouth?  (/JK)  This isn't going to be like sorting out budding economists or computer scientists.

That said, if you're thought to have gone to the one school that really sucks at teaching Latin and Greek, the knives will be out.  So maybe ask around a good graduate department to see what they know or think they know.

 

[ciistai]

I went from humble beginnings at York University in Toronto to a fully funded place at the University of Oxford to a PhD program at the University of Michigan.

So, imho... no. 

[Pius Aeneas]

 

On 8/5/2017 at 6:33 PM, Augustinian122 said:

Is where one goes to undergrad a huge deal for admission into top Classics PhD programs? I'm considering attending a very small, conservative Catholic college. One of the profs in their Classics department got his PhD from UVA, another got his PhD from Penn. Hypothetically, if I take 4 years of Greek & Latin, get nearly perfect grades and GRE scores, and have good recommendations, would the low profile of the college hurt my chances of getting into top programs?

 The answer is yes and no. Obviously going to a well-known and prestigious university can only help in the grand scheme of things. Are you dead set on going to a small conservative Catholic college? If you want small, there's well-known SLACs you might consider. If you want Catholic, there's places like Georgetown. That said, what really matters are your letters of recommendation and your statement of purpose along with language preparation. 

[superdupergirl]

No. This is anecdotal, of course, but I went to a public city college for undergrad and ended up at a fully-funded PhD program at an ivy league. My transcript, CV/work experience, letters of rec, GRE scores, personal statement, and very strong background in several modern languages/Greek & Latin were more important than the reputation of my undergrad (though it does have a good reputation for classics, however mediocre the rest of the university is). Don't be discouraged. Faculty members have NEVER given me a problem or treated me differently because of it - it is usually other graduate students who make snide remarks.

Edited December 11, 2017 by superdupergirl

[ClassicsCandidate]

This has been a great thread that's helped me feel a bit better about my upcoming application(s).