Does Your Undergrad Affect Graduate School Acceptance?

[heart_over_head]

I plan on going to graduate school for mathematics and was wondering if your undergraduate school affects your chances of admission or not.

I'm almost done with my soph. year at a community college and will transfer out after this year. I will hear back from UC Berkeley, UCLA, Brown, Cornell, RIT, and Western soon.

I always thought I'd prefer the

Comments

[d00m_patrol]

You don't necessarily need to be at a top undergrad school. However, it's important to be at a PhD granting school that will allow you to take graduate mathematics classes and conduct research. In short, you will want to have access to certain resources that may not be available at smaller non-PhD granting schools like WWU. You would, by contrast, have access to these resources at UW

[heart_over_head]

You are so helpful; thank you so much

[d00m_patrol]

No problem

[heart_over_head]

You're right that you don't need a perfect 4.0 for grad school; it's just that something inside of me dies a little when I see something other than 4.0 for me.

Wow, thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge about the UW math/grad classes! You seem so familiar with them, and I appreciate the help that you're giving me!!

GOod ideas with the calling and asking. Stupid questions--is it that crucial to take graduate classes while in your undergrad?

Engineering? Awesome. What kind of engineering?

[machuchu120]

GO WWU! I actually graduated from Western this past June and am almost done with the whole graduate school application process (although for biological sciences and not math). I can attest that you don't necessarily need to go to a larger, more "prestigious" school to get into a good grad program. I got decent grades, did undergrad research, and got to know my professors (which is fairly easy at Western given the smaller class sizes). I got into a few tier 1 research institutions including an ivy league.

I guess the point is, the opportunities to put together a successful graduate school application are present at WWU, you may just have to look a little harder to find them. I know a couple people from the math department and they seem to love it. Also, the town of Bellingham isn't such a bad place if you are into the liberal, hippie scene. =)

Best of luck.

[heart_over_head]

Yes, that is what attracted me to WWU: more interaction with professors. And I would love the Bellingham scene. I am just concerned about the things that d00m_patrol mentioned. He made some pretty good points.

So you're going for biology? What do you want to do with that? And which schools did you get into? Congrats!!!!

[machuchu120]

Although I did go to Western I'm going to agree that grad schools would probably prefer students from better ranked undergrad institutions given comparable stats.

By getting a PhD I hope to later become a professor, however, I wouldn't mind spending a bit of time in the biotech industry which is what I'm currently doing. The schools I got into were University of Washington, Emory, and University of Pennsylvania. Had I gone to UW instead for undergrad (which I didn't go to because I also thought it was too big), maybe I would have gotten into a top 10 program. However, I'm very excited about the schools I got into and it will be a tough choice because I loved all of them after visiting.

[lostreality]

I went to CUNY-Hunter for undergrad, a non-doctoral granting public university. I now go to University of Pennsylvania for my phd (and got in straight out of undergrad) and also got into 8/9 of the grad programs I applied to.

On the other hand, I had a nearly 4.0 gpa (i think it was like 3.95 or something when I graduated) and nearly perfect gre scores, and I also had 3 years of RA experience and 2 conference presentations under my belt when I applied.

I think what is more important is a)are you going to be able to do really well there (despite what people are saying above it's better to get a 4.0 from a good school then a 3.5 from a great school) and b) are you going to be able to find a prof who is willing to take you on as a research assistant. I found in my undergrad school without a phd program, faculty were very very willing to take on undergrads as RAs...may not be true in a school with a phd program in your field.

[bleedingcherub]

Were you in mathematics? I'm at Hunter for math right now, BA/MA.

[blueskysrain]

For math, if you go to a non-top tier department for undergrad, you should make sure you have a TOP NOTCH Math subject GRE for schools in the top ten to even look at you.

[blueskysrain]

Also note that I have met people that come from okay schools that grant PhDs getting 850+ on the Math GRE and not getting into any top 10 schools.

So don't get disappointed if you don't get into any because a lot of this is luck.

[bluewhenitsgray]

This is right.

This is not to say you can't get into grad school from WWU, but understand you are at a decisive disadvantage compared to an equivalent student from Berkeley or a well-known school with a PhD program. But it's a matter of tradeoffs. I went to a random, small liberal arts college and I'm in a PhD program at an Ivy as well, so it's of course possible to get into a good program without that large, well-known school with a PhD program background. But of course I can't help but wonder if I wouldn't have gotten more acceptances had I been the same student coming from a Berkeley-type place. Of course, possibly I wouldn't have been the same student...

Like I said, it's a trade-off.