If most careers require grad school does where you get your 4 year degree really matter?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh, not all schools are equal.

A top honors degree from third rate undergrad may not get you into prestigious graduate school, especially if their programs suck in your field of interest.

There's a lot to be said for being the big fish in a small pond. I ended up at a third rate undergrad for financial reasons and had no problem getting into a top grad school and top law school. Leaving undergrad I had tons of awards, glowing recommendations, and perfect grades. I don't know that my application would have been as stellar from a more competitive school.

How many other kids from your undergrad were at your top law school with you? How many of your law school classmates graduated from the undergrad of your law school?

Congrats to PP for threading the needle and getting into top law school the harder way. We have a very close relative at Yale law. They went to a different ivy for undergraduate. Over half of the YL entering class each year is from the same 20 or so elite undergrads. Most of the rest are from T25-40 types/6-15 ranked LACs. There are almost no students from colleges below the top100 and these students are either hooked demographics or truly genius.

Yale lists the 86 undergrad institutions that are represented at Yale Law School on their website. You'll see lots of non-prestigious schools listed, from Northern Arizona University to Florida International University to Southern Utah University.

https://law.yale.edu/admissions/profiles-statistics

Yale used to list the number of Yale law students attending by their undergrad school. The top 20 schools comprised 65% of the entire law school. Yale undergrad was 20% of Yale law school.

Then there was one kid from all the remaining schools...though they listed more than 86 in total.

ear after year, Yale Law School is ranked #1 in the US. (Harvard Law & Stanford Law School complete the top 3, followed by Chicago, Columbia, & NYU as the top 6 law schools in the USA.)

In 2019 (last year they tracked these stats..600 law students in total)), the undergraduate schools with the highest number of alumni then at Yale Law School were:

Yale--90 students enrolled in YLS
Harvard--59
Columbia--34
Princeton--31

Stanford--22
Dartmouth--21
Cornell--19
U Chicago--18
Brown--17
U Penn-16

UC-Berkeley--13
Georgetown--13
Duke--10

Northwestern--8
U Michigan--8
USC--8
U Virginia--7
Johns Hopkins--7

Among LACs:

Amherst--6
Swarthmore--6
Bowdoin--5
Barnard--4
Pomona--4
Wellesley--4
Williams--4

Looks like a good Top 25 list for humanities majors planning on attending law school.

You listed UVA when no one else did - Booster! Sorry - wanted to be that guy once.

UVA law is currently ranked #4 presently by USNWP - it's either tied or one above Harvard .... doesn't really matter, just sayin....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Other than Ivy schools, why does it matter what 4 year you attend if most people need a graduate degree?

Also, if you don't go to grad school what benefit does a higher ranked college get you? Really curious because I feel like I am missing something?

1. Most people don’t need a graduate degree.

2. The Ivy League is not the be all and end all of life. My education at Georgetown SFS was a much better preparation for my career than I would’ve gotten majoring in Government at any Ivy League school except for perhaps Harvard, which does not have the opportunities SFS students get in DC.

There are zero Ivy League schools in the top 9 undergrad engineering programs. Cornell comes in at 10. So if I want the best undergrad engineering, I’m not going to Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Most careers" do not require grad school.

This.

Keep telling yourself and your kids that...but it's absolutely not true. I have 2 recent grads and all of their friends are getting or working on prerequisites (yes, this is def. a thing) to secure masters degrees...

Not sure why you are throwing you kids and their friends under the bus...sorry they aren't capable of getting jobs, but their failure isn't a testament to anything except their failure.

Wow. Sorry you don't value education and think so small - but to each his own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other than Ivy schools, why does it matter what 4 year you attend if most people need a graduate degree?

Also, if you don't go to grad school what benefit does a higher ranked college get you? Really curious because I feel like I am missing something?

1. Most people don’t need a graduate degree.

2. The Ivy League is not the be all and end all of life. My education at Georgetown SFS was a much better preparation for my career than I would’ve gotten majoring in Government at any Ivy League school except for perhaps Harvard, which does not have the opportunities SFS students get in DC.

There are zero Ivy League schools in the top 9 undergrad engineering programs. Cornell comes in at 10. So if I want the best undergrad engineering, I’m not going to Harvard.

I don't know...on another thread there is a statistic that 17% of Virginia Tech grads (#13 for engineering) are unemployed 6 months after graduation while only 2% of a specific Ivy league engineering students (they don't say which one) are unemployed after 6 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Most careers" do not require grad school.

This.

Keep telling yourself and your kids that...but it's absolutely not true. I have 2 recent grads and all of their friends are getting or working on prerequisites (yes, this is def. a thing) to secure masters degrees...

Not sure why you are throwing you kids and their friends under the bus...sorry they aren't capable of getting jobs, but their failure isn't a testament to anything except their failure.

Wow. Sorry you don't value education and think so small - but to each his own.

You responded to someone that says you don't need one for a career by saying your kid and their friends are getting masters (which implies they need one for a career). Your response wasn't to someone talking about the value of education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh, not all schools are equal.

A top honors degree from third rate undergrad may not get you into prestigious graduate school, especially if their programs suck in your field of interest.

This. The undergraduate reputation/prestige correlates to the grad schools where the students go.
Example: the top 5 grad schools from NC state, UGA —good but not top flagships—are similar level schools.
The top 5 grad schools coming out of Duke? MIT, Duke, Harvard, Columbia, NYU. Ivies are similar: the top 5 is almost always including the ivy itself, MIT, Harvard, Stanford and another top school.
PhDs which are fully paid /funded including stipends of $45k or so are about half of grad programs coming out of top schools, whereas at non elite /nonflagships of the ones not going to professional school, less than 10% go to phD, the rest are masters. Most masters, outside of elite programs at ivies or others, are not funded at all. Guess who gets into the funded masters.
Careers after phD or masters is highly dependent on the prestiges of program. Getting into the most prestigious grad programs heavily correlates with attending a top20 private or a top15 LAC or a top15Public. Those 50 schools boost . The ivy/plus group of 12 schools give the biggest boost.
Undergrad matters.

All of this is just a correlation of smart, motivated students with academic success. Nothing in here is causal, especially not the undergraduate university attended.

DP
in part it is just that. however being in an environment where average middle of the pack kids go to top phDs, MD, JD is a much more motivating environment of peers than being in a school where very few are aiming for this type of future, and the "average" kid is going to be a social worker or teacher or nurse. My wife and I were motivated by the peers around us at our ivy/plus; we made lifelong friends and are not the only ones who met mates there. We went off to top JD and MD programs as did most of our peers. Others run national nonprofits now, or are professors, or have started companies. We sent and are sending our kids to similar colleges for that reason. They thrive on the challenge of that type of peer group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other than Ivy schools, why does it matter what 4 year you attend if most people need a graduate degree?

Also, if you don't go to grad school what benefit does a higher ranked college get you? Really curious because I feel like I am missing something?

1. Most people don’t need a graduate degree.

2. The Ivy League is not the be all and end all of life. My education at Georgetown SFS was a much better preparation for my career than I would’ve gotten majoring in Government at any Ivy League school except for perhaps Harvard, which does not have the opportunities SFS students get in DC.

There are zero Ivy League schools in the top 9 undergrad engineering programs. Cornell comes in at 10. So if I want the best undergrad engineering, I’m not going to Harvard.

I don't know...on another thread there is a statistic that 17% of Virginia Tech grads (#13 for engineering) are unemployed 6 months after graduation while only 2% of a specific Ivy league engineering students (they don't say which one) are unemployed after 6 months.

Mine is at a T10 private uni that has an engineering school and this is the type of comparative stat they brag about, that their engineering undergrad program has only 1-2% unemployed compared to the top 20 publics (VT was not on the list of compared schools--probably too regional). They credit size, professors, research opportunities early, options for funding for undergrads. They also have a lot of start-up support for undergrads. They talk about "whole brain " engineering education with the emphasis on problems solving, interdisciplinary/humanities requirements, writing, and more. The starting salary has had two yrs or more over $110k which they say is around the same as MIT. The top schools they showed were this school, MIT, Penn, Cal Tech, CMU.

To the PP, "top engineering" undergrad "rankings" have nothing to do with difficulty of coursework, peer intelligence, matriculation into top phD programs, and reputation among companies or mid-career salaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other than Ivy schools, why does it matter what 4 year you attend if most people need a graduate degree?

Also, if you don't go to grad school what benefit does a higher ranked college get you? Really curious because I feel like I am missing something?

1. Most people don’t need a graduate degree.

2. The Ivy League is not the be all and end all of life. My education at Georgetown SFS was a much better preparation for my career than I would’ve gotten majoring in Government at any Ivy League school except for perhaps Harvard, which does not have the opportunities SFS students get in DC.

There are zero Ivy League schools in the top 9 undergrad engineering programs. Cornell comes in at 10. So if I want the best undergrad engineering, I’m not going to Harvard.

I don't know...on another thread there is a statistic that 17% of Virginia Tech grads (#13 for engineering) are unemployed 6 months after graduation while only 2% of a specific Ivy league engineering students (they don't say which one) are unemployed after 6 months.

Mine is at a T10 private uni that has an engineering school and this is the type of comparative stat they brag about, that their engineering undergrad program has only 1-2% unemployed compared to the top 20 publics (VT was not on the list of compared schools--probably too regional). They credit size, professors, research opportunities early, options for funding for undergrads. They also have a lot of start-up support for undergrads. They talk about "whole brain " engineering education with the emphasis on problems solving, interdisciplinary/humanities requirements, writing, and more. The starting salary has had two yrs or more over $110k which they say is around the same as MIT. The top schools they showed were this school, MIT, Penn, Cal Tech, CMU.

To the PP, "top engineering" undergrad "rankings" have nothing to do with difficulty of coursework, peer intelligence, matriculation into top phD programs, and reputation among companies or mid-career salaries.

Is this Northwestern? Or Hopkins? We toured both, DS is applying both RD(ED ‘d to Penn) and they both said very similar on tours.

[Anonymous]

For law school, people here say your gpa matters along with LSAT. Go where you can get a 4.0 while adding geographic diversity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outside of law and medicine which jobs require a masters? I think there are far more jobs that Don’t require a masters than ones that do ?

Lots of DC area “policy” jobs do.

Don’t most teachers have a master’s now?

Yeah, teachers get a silly Masters in Education that even teachers think is stupid...but it's an automatic pay bump, so why not.

If I recall the govt also has automatic pay bumps for advanced degrees and there was a scandal about people getting mail-order advanced degrees.

Let’s make sure we don’t pass up an opportunity to insult teachers!

Regarding teaching: yes, many districts require a masters now. And, despite what the PP says, many of us have different degrees. My neighbor has Library Science, the teacher across the hall has a masters in English Literature (as do I). The science teachers upstairs have masters (and even 2 PhDs) in their content area: Chem, Physics, etc.

So, no… not all “silly” education degrees. But points for being insulting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh, not all schools are equal.

A top honors degree from third rate undergrad may not get you into prestigious graduate school, especially if their programs suck in your field of interest.

This. The undergraduate reputation/prestige correlates to the grad schools where the students go.
Example: the top 5 grad schools from NC state, UGA —good but not top flagships—are similar level schools.
The top 5 grad schools coming out of Duke? MIT, Duke, Harvard, Columbia, NYU. Ivies are similar: the top 5 is almost always including the ivy itself, MIT, Harvard, Stanford and another top school.
PhDs which are fully paid /funded including stipends of $45k or so are about half of grad programs coming out of top schools, whereas at non elite /nonflagships of the ones not going to professional school, less than 10% go to phD, the rest are masters. Most masters, outside of elite programs at ivies or others, are not funded at all. Guess who gets into the funded masters.
Careers after phD or masters is highly dependent on the prestiges of program. Getting into the most prestigious grad programs heavily correlates with attending a top20 private or a top15 LAC or a top15Public. Those 50 schools boost . The ivy/plus group of 12 schools give the biggest boost.
Undergrad matters.

All of this is just a correlation of smart, motivated students with academic success. Nothing in here is causal, especially not the undergraduate university attended.

DP
in part it is just that. however being in an environment where average middle of the pack kids go to top phDs, MD, JD is a much more motivating environment of peers than being in a school where very few are aiming for this type of future, and the "average" kid is going to be a social worker or teacher or nurse. My wife and I were motivated by the peers around us at our ivy/plus; we made lifelong friends and are not the only ones who met mates there. We went off to top JD and MD programs as did most of our peers. Others run national nonprofits now, or are professors, or have started companies. We sent and are sending our kids to similar colleges for that reason. They thrive on the challenge of that type of peer group.

I think you are ignoring the boost that comes with being a big fish in a small pond. I was at a no name school (despite getting into a T10 but needing a full ride to afford college) and had weekly mentoring sessions with the University President and Provost. I was mentored by the Chair of the Board of Trustees. I had all the support of the Honors Program director, who could open any door on campus to me with a phone call. Lots and lots of support.

Meanwhile as a PhD graduate student at a T10 I saw undergrads who were fighting to get a spot in the lab they wanted, getting zero attention from the PI if they did get a spot, and struggling with trying to stand out academically from a really talented crowd.

An ambitious kid can succeed from wherever they attend, but it isn't necessarily all sunshine and roses if you go to a T10, nor hopeless if you're at a regional Tier 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Eh, not all schools are equal.

A top honors degree from third rate undergrad may not get you into prestigious graduate school, especially if their programs suck in your field of interest.

This. The undergraduate reputation/prestige correlates to the grad schools where the students go.
Example: the top 5 grad schools from NC state, UGA —good but not top flagships—are similar level schools.
The top 5 grad schools coming out of Duke? MIT, Duke, Harvard, Columbia, NYU. Ivies are similar: the top 5 is almost always including the ivy itself, MIT, Harvard, Stanford and another top school.
PhDs which are fully paid /funded including stipends of $45k or so are about half of grad programs coming out of top schools, whereas at non elite /nonflagships of the ones not going to professional school, less than 10% go to phD, the rest are masters. Most masters, outside of elite programs at ivies or others, are not funded at all. Guess who gets into the funded masters.
Careers after phD or masters is highly dependent on the prestiges of program. Getting into the most prestigious grad programs heavily correlates with attending a top20 private or a top15 LAC or a top15Public. Those 50 schools boost . The ivy/plus group of 12 schools give the biggest boost.
Undergrad matters.

All of this is just a correlation of smart, motivated students with academic success. Nothing in here is causal, especially not the undergraduate university attended.

DP
in part it is just that. however being in an environment where average middle of the pack kids go to top phDs, MD, JD is a much more motivating environment of peers than being in a school where very few are aiming for this type of future, and the "average" kid is going to be a social worker or teacher or nurse. My wife and I were motivated by the peers around us at our ivy/plus; we made lifelong friends and are not the only ones who met mates there. We went off to top JD and MD programs as did most of our peers. Others run national nonprofits now, or are professors, or have started companies. We sent and are sending our kids to similar colleges for that reason. They thrive on the challenge of that type of peer group.

This is so gross and striver/climber-ish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Outside of law and medicine which jobs require a masters? I think there are far more jobs that Don’t require a masters than ones that do ?

Lots of DC area “policy” jobs do.

Don’t most teachers have a master’s now?

Yeah, teachers get a silly Masters in Education that even teachers think is stupid...but it's an automatic pay bump, so why not.

If I recall the govt also has automatic pay bumps for advanced degrees and there was a scandal about people getting mail-order advanced degrees.

Let’s make sure we don’t pass up an opportunity to insult teachers!

Regarding teaching: yes, many districts require a masters now. And, despite what the PP says, many of us have different degrees. My neighbor has Library Science, the teacher across the hall has a masters in English Literature (as do I). The science teachers upstairs have masters (and even 2 PhDs) in their content area: Chem, Physics, etc.

So, no… not all “silly” education degrees. But points for being insulting.

56% of HS teachers have a Masters or higher. A Masters in Education is by far the most popular masters degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other than Ivy schools, why does it matter what 4 year you attend if most people need a graduate degree?

Also, if you don't go to grad school what benefit does a higher ranked college get you? Really curious because I feel like I am missing something?

1. Most people don’t need a graduate degree.

2. The Ivy League is not the be all and end all of life. My education at Georgetown SFS was a much better preparation for my career than I would’ve gotten majoring in Government at any Ivy League school except for perhaps Harvard, which does not have the opportunities SFS students get in DC.

There are zero Ivy League schools in the top 9 undergrad engineering programs. Cornell comes in at 10. So if I want the best undergrad engineering, I’m not going to Harvard.

I don't know...on another thread there is a statistic that 17% of Virginia Tech grads (#13 for engineering) are unemployed 6 months after graduation while only 2% of a specific Ivy league engineering students (they don't say which one) are unemployed after 6 months.

Without a source or any specifics, I obviously will use your post to reassess my entire outlook on the Ivy League.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Other than Ivy schools, why does it matter what 4 year you attend if most people need a graduate degree?

Also, if you don't go to grad school what benefit does a higher ranked college get you? Really curious because I feel like I am missing something?

1. Most people don’t need a graduate degree.

2. The Ivy League is not the be all and end all of life. My education at Georgetown SFS was a much better preparation for my career than I would’ve gotten majoring in Government at any Ivy League school except for perhaps Harvard, which does not have the opportunities SFS students get in DC.

There are zero Ivy League schools in the top 9 undergrad engineering programs. Cornell comes in at 10. So if I want the best undergrad engineering, I’m not going to Harvard.

I don't know...on another thread there is a statistic that 17% of Virginia Tech grads (#13 for engineering) are unemployed 6 months after graduation while only 2% of a specific Ivy league engineering students (they don't say which one) are unemployed after 6 months.

Without a source or any specifics, I obviously will use your post to reassess my entire outlook on the Ivy League.

This is DCUM dipshit…but go read the other thread about new college grads struggling to find jobs and decide if you trust their sourcing.