How important is undergrad school name?

[imean]

Sorry if this has been posted previously, I'm new to the website. But I've been wondering, I go to a pretty well-known school for undergrad and have been wondering how grad schools consider that in the admissions process? Although I feel like it's no big deal, I do understand that the hard work I did here may not be comparable to the work load at a less competitive school. So, do graduate schools even take this into consideration? Thanks!

[psycholinguist]

Welcome!

It's not an automatic in. Not by any means. I graduated with an honours degree from a top American college and had one heck of a time getting into graduate school last year. Why? Because it was clear that I didn't really know what I wanted to do, that I was torn between two fields. Yes, your ability to handle a lot of work does play a role, but being a good match for the department's research-interests is what is crucial. My guess is that a strong department probably wouldn't take a 4.0 kid from Princeton with multiple publications if he or she hadn't shown in his or her application that he or she was keenly interested in a subfield being studied by at least one faculty-member at the institution in question. You can take pride in getting to where you are, but assuming that the name alone will be able to take you further is always risky.

[wbts historian]

Your question is a little arrogant, which I believe is typical of those who attend the University of Washtenaw County.

In seriousness, a 3.9 from UM will always look better than a 3.9 from State (depending on difficulty of classes taken), but if you rest on your laurels while the State applicant busts his butt to do tons of research and get great LORs and a perfect writing sample, he would probably get in before you. Oh, and GRE/other test scores count too.

[The Pseudo grad student]

Honestly I don't think the stature of an undergraduate school matters at all. What I've found was most important across the board were GRE scores and GPA from whatever school they attended. (Information via UIUC Graduate students) However in the case of comparing two different students with the same exact stats, GRE and GPA, coming from Berkeley vs. a state school, they would be paritally to the Berkeley student because the cirriculum is set to be harder as compared to the state school student. This advice was given to be by an adcomm themselves so hope this helps!

[Alea Iacta Est]

I'm going to reiterate what the other two posters wrote, and say that coming from a famous undergraduate institution would in no way equate to an automatic acceptance. Nevertheless, I think that you have a couple of advantages that people from lesser-known schools might not have access to. The first thing that springs to mind is having access to a well known, well connected faculty, whose glowing letters of recommendation would hold more weight with grad admissions committees.

The second big advantage I can think of is the increased number of opportunities to do research as an undergraduate. Well known institutions frequently have more resources for people who want to do independent work and the like. So on the whole, I think it's the way you exploit the opportunities your school put your way that counts rather than a passive boost by virtue of mere attendance.

Edited February 23, 2010 by Alea Iacta Est

[joro]

It's more what you do during your undergrad instead of where you came from.

Edited February 23, 2010 by joro

[imean]

I am so sorry if it sounded arrogant, I really didn't mean to come off that way! Thanks for all the input though, I definitely agree with what all of you have had to say.

[bgav]

A bunch of the schools I applied to suggested the undergrad schools did matter, but not as much as other parts of your application. One guide I saw from Carnegie Mellon suggested that a GPA from a higher ranked school could be lower than one from a lower ranked school. But it probably depends on your field.

[rising_star]

Going to a well-known school will not hurt your application. If your school is known for challenging academics, that will bode well for you as it will show to the adcom that you are willing and able to take on and meet academic challenges. This is probably even more important if you're switching fields/disciplines to one that you have less of a background in.

[Caligula]

NOTE: I speak for History Ph.D. programs only, as that is the basis of my experience.

General prestige/ranking of your undergraduate program is given very little consideration, if any at all. What matters to (history) adcoms is what you did wherever you were. Some top programs (e.g. Northwestern) even make a point of stating this on their website - prestige matters not at all.

As a previous poster pointed out, the main advantage going to a prestigious undergrad program would allow is acccess to a distinguished faculty, which could come in handy when you need outstanding letters.

[anya11]

The undergrad school name adds a positive weightage for international applicants. There is little means of knowing the quality of the program, grade comparison and abt grade inflation. Having aluminus or attending students from the same univ is a plus and overall reputation does matter.

I also agree that it is not as important as the other parts of the applications like sop, lor, publications and research exp, work exp. Emphasis on gre and gpa depends on the program and adcomms of the respective univ. It is used mostly used for financial aid consideration and rarely for elimination if u pass the min requirement.

[liszt85]

The undergrad school name adds a positive weightage for international applicants. There is little means of knowing the quality of the program, grade comparison and abt grade inflation. Having aluminus or attending students from the same univ is a plus and overall reputation does matter.

I agree completely. I'm an int'l student and my undergrad institution is pretty well known (it is the best in my country for the program that I attended). I've had at least 3-4 professors here tell me that they thought my background was excellent for this kind of work (also because I'd attended that university).However, I didn't get in because of that. I got in because the research I was doing at my undergrad was VERY similar to the direction my current adviser wanted to take his research to (just in terms of analysis techniques, not the actual research goals)..and its been working out very well for the both of us.

[alexis]

I thought I'd add my two cents, kind of tangential to the question. Going to a well-respected undergrad certainly won't hurt, but if you're someone like me, who went to a good undergrad and at the time had no idea what they wanted to do, you can miss out on the advantages that the school could provide. I didn't make any connections with faculty in my field or get involved in meaningful research. Why, oh why couldn't my 26-year-old self go back to my 19-year-old self and tell her to actually make the most of my UG experience because someday I'd be applying to PhD programs. *Face palm*

[chimerical]

I'm going to reiterate what the other two posters wrote, and say that coming from a famous undergraduate institution would in no way equate to an automatic acceptance. Nevertheless, I think that you have a couple of advantages that people from lesser-known schools might not have access to. The first thing that springs to mind is having access to a well known, well connected faculty, whose glowing letters of recommendation would hold more weight with grad admissions committees.

The second big advantage I can think of is the increased number of opportunities to do research as an undergraduate. Well known institutions frequently have more resources for people who want to do independent work and the like. So on the whole, I think it's the way you exploit the opportunities your school put your way that counts rather than a passive boost by virtue of mere attendance.

Completely agree. I went to a prestigious undergraduate school and I'd say it's not the name of the school that's helped me so much as the faculty connections and research experience.

I'd also add that the level at which the same course is taught can vary greatly from school to school and a name brand can serve as an assurance that your coursework was sufficiently rigorous to prepare for graduate study. Now whether that assumption is fair is a topic for another discussion, of course, but in my experience it has been made.

Edited February 24, 2010 by chimerical

[TravelLadyBug]

I went to a small state school. It doesn't have the best name, but I had GREAT experiences there. There are no PhD programs in Psychology here, so a lot of faculty give a lot of attention to undergraduates. Most of the faculty in the department knew me, I got tons of research, scholarship, conference, teaching, and committee experience. I talk to my friends at the prestigious named universities and they said professors don't know who they are and their research experience consists of being a data-collecting monkey. I'm glad I went to the school I did, but I am ready for a bigger school with adequate research funding!

[Subang]

It is all a matter of what you do with the opportunities presented to you. I'm a first generation college graduate...that's right, even undergrad. I went to a small state school because it is where I got money. I then went on to another small state school for a Master's, but this time because I specifically picked the program that I wanted to join. It was a great decision and I've slowly worked my way up the educational ladder until this year when I was awarded a fellowship for a Ph.D. at an Ivy League school. Whether you went to an Ivy League school for undergrad or not doesn't matter in the long run if you don't work hard and go after a goal. Focus and the rest will fall into place...even for those of us whose background seems less than likely to succeed.

[socnerd]

I think it can matter, but it depends on where you go and where you apply. My experience was that I applied to a bunch of schools not expecting to get in because my GPA was only a 3.1 at that time. To my surprise I got into a bunch, some even with full funding and an assistantship (in a Master's program) and when I went to visit them to decide where I wanted to go they said that even though my GPA was not the best they knew that coming from the school I was coming from that it meant a lot more. My undergrad had a great reputation (tier 1 liberal arts place) and was known for grade deflation so they knew that my 3.1 was more like a 3.5 for regular schools and that they were very impressed. I was surprised when they told me this, but I guess to some places it really does make a difference where you're coming from. That was my experience anyway.

[TheDude]

All things being equal between two applicants I'd hedge with you and the school name, but as mentioned above a lot of the smaller schools, including the one I went to, allow for more individualized attention between advisors and students, which I think shows in the quality of the research one is allowed to do. So in the end I bet it doesn't matter as much as people from those institutions think it does, and as much as those outside of institutions think it does.

Everyone applying this round is going to have good stats and from there it is about what you did with research, IMO

I also don't think whether or not one's perception of how weighted their GPA is from their undergraduate institution matters, maybe every once in a while but for that to be the norm would be wierd. How much more arduous would the admissions process be if that information needed to be obtained or explained on the part of every applicant? In the end isn't the data just normative and one assumes so with the GPA? If we really want to go that far, I had a professor who historically only hands out one A in every class he teachers- I got a B+. Should that be explained in my statement of purpose? You can really go crazy with this stuff. In the end it is about what you did.

Edited May 21, 2010 by musicforfun

[Yang]

My application experience has proven that a school's brand name matters quite a bit. I went to a lowly ranked undergrad/MBA before applying to PhD. My resume would show that I'm a hard worker, I have very well written SOP's, fairly well thought out research ideas, glowing recommendations, and competitive test scores. I was not offered a single interview, much less admit, by any top 20 PhD program. After speaking with some of the faculty at these programs, it seemed like I passed all the initial screening rounds on paper, but none of the schools were willing to take a chance on me because of the signal that a poorly ranked undergraduate institution sends.

I was accepted by every school that offered an interview. At each of those interviews, the interviewer's first matter of concern was my academic pedigree. These questions usually started with, "you have great GMAT's, why did you attend xxxx?" Directly related to this concern were the concerns about the rigor of my academic preparation. In short, if you went to a school with a good brand name, you won't be subjected to these doubts during the admissions decision that can lead to cognitive biases, i.e. halo effect.