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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]
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.[/quote]

+1. If you are a strong, academically-inclined student at an average school there will be tons of unique opportunities available to you. We had weekly lunches with the dean of our college. One kid was on the Board of Trustees as the Student Trustee. The best professors there were incredibly available because they were thrilled to meet with the top students. And this was at a Big Ten school.

It’s so weird when people seem to think that if you aren’t at a T20, then you are automatically a nursing major in 500 person classes.[/quote] Why don't you share the name of the school and the program? It seems quite gatekeep-y to keep this secret. Everyone knows Ivies provide excellent development opportunities, but no one's going to know which T100s' honors programs are worth it and which aren't special until people share?[/quote]

DP here. 2 reasons not to share:

Gatekeeping is one, as you said, especially for those of us with kids still in the process.

The other reason is any school we say will immediately be dismissed and $hat on by you, so there is no point to name it anyway.

[/quote]

I’m the person that question was directed at, and I have no problem saying. It was Indiana. Note that this thread has several different people making similar comments so I can’t speak for them.

But it doesn’t matter. These opportunities exist at any large, decent school. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. We all know great students with fantastic stats that don’t win the Ivy lottery, and they end up somewhere. They don’t magically become stupid when they do, and the schools don’t throw money at these kids just to forget about them once they walk through the doors. The schools have opportunities for them.

And though this forum is Ivy obsessed, lots of people live in parts of the country where they don’t want to go to school a thousand miles away, or they are full pay and can’t stomach 90k a year, and so they just go in-state or somewhere nearby. And those kids will get into the same grad schools, if that’s the route they want to go.[/quote]UIUC or Bloomington? And no, I don't think most publics allow students to have weally lunches with the Dean.[/quote]

Bloomington. UIUC is Illinois.

But yeah, there are lots of opportunities like this for top kids. [b]Ours was a student advisory group made up of business honors kids with the b-school dean. [/b]The heads of different student organizations (student government, interfraternity council, etc.) had a standing joint meeting with one of the Vice Provosts. The honors college had something with their dean but I didn’t attend so I don’t remember it well. I’m sure there was stuff I knew nothing about. There are layers to this; the higher up you go, the more access and opportunities are made available.[/quote]

I assume most of these kids went off well positioned in the working world, and some small subset may pursue an MBA.  Just highlighting why the premise of this thread is completely flawed.[/quote]

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