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][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]

PP. Thinking that all of the things you mentioned don’t happen at schools across the top 100 is extremely out of touch with reality. “We are not the only ones who met our mates there.” “Others are professors or have started companies.” It sounds like you’ve been out of school for 50 years.[/quote]

AVERAGE GPA students at schools ranked 60-100 do not go to med law or top phD schools. Pull up any of them and look at the most common careers, pull up the med and law school matriculation data--it rare from these schools, less than 10% of grads. Top14 LAW school is even more rare. T14 is easily accessible to average GPA(3.8) students from an ivy/T10. [/quote]

We aren’t talking about average GPA students at schools ranked 60-100. We are talking about whether undergrad matters for grad school. The kind of kids who can get accepted to ivy+ are not average GPA students if they end up at 60-100, they will be top students there, surrounded by other top students in honors classes, Honors Colleges, etc. And they will get into the same grad schools because what matters is grades, test scores, recs. Even your 3.8 GPA average at Ivy example highlights this, as the average GPA at lower ranked schools is much lower. So you can be “average” at an Ivy but you can get into good schools in part because your grades are still high.

As I said earlier, all you are doing is positing a causal fallacy (cum hoc ergo propter hoc) because you see a correlation and have assumed causality, though there are obvious confounding factors (ivy+ kids are at ivy+ because they are good at the same things that also get one into grad school, like grades and test scores). It’s funny that you keep talking about how superior these schools and their education are yet you keep committing this extremely basic logical fallacy.

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Maybe because you are a one-trick pony with the causation vs correlation argument.

Explain why if there are so many Honors kids at these schools why they still aren’t represented all that well at top grad programs.  How does that make any sense?

For example if you believe DCUM there are tons of kids attending Alabama for free as NMSF kids coming from UMC families.  So, why isn’t Alabama represented better at these top law / MD programs…again, these aren’t hard scrabble kids from rural Alabama but UMC DMV kids taking the free ride.  In theory, they have the same notions about needing grad school.[/quote]

Only because you keep committing the same elementary logical fallacy over and over and don’t seem to realize it. That’s not my fault.

These types of kids *are* well represented at top grad schools but they come from about 100 universities instead of a dozen or so Ivy+. It’s just a matter of dispersion. Quite simple, really.

And to be clear, I never said there were “so many honors kids” or “tons of kids” at these schools. You said that. It’s honors and associated programs, after all, so it’s selective. I just said the ones that are top are capable (and do) get into the same grad schools as equivalent kids at other schools. Because the causality runs from the metrics used to assess admissions to those schools (grades, scores, recs), not the name on the diploma, and many of the top students at lower ranked schools can and do get into better undergrads but choose the lower ranked school for a variety of reasons. And then end up at the same grad schools and in the same jobs.[/quote]

Except they aren’t well-represented.  That’s your problem.  If they were well-represented we wouldn’t have these arguments.

Someone posted actual data of the Yale law school and undergrads.

Post your actual data to prove your point.[/quote]

I said the “types of kids” are well represented. We see that in how many schools these grad schools draw from.

Harvard MBA Class of 2026 has graduates from 143 domestic and 153 international universities.

Stanford GSB Class of 2026 has over 150 schools represented.

Wharton Class of 2026 around 200 undergraduate institutions represented.

Harvard Law 2023 class over 170 undergraduate institutions.

Harvard Kennedy over 200.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of good graduate schools. We could go on.

Are the highest ranked schools the best represented? Yes. Because that’s where the strongest students who get the best grades and test scores and academic accolades concentrate. But that’s just a correlation, it doesn’t make the university itself a causal factor. Because as grad school admissions officers will tell you, they don’t really care (I mean, they care past a certain point, but it’s reasonably far down the list as I already said).

Now show your data that demonstrates causality. Oh, that’s right, you can’t. You’ll just give me another correlation because you don’t know the difference.
[/quote]

There is Yale law school data which shows number kids by undergraduate university.

Provide the same...then we can talk.  I want to see how many from each university feeding into Stanford GSB or Wharton or Harvard Kennedy.

Oh yeah...you will just spew your one-trick causality vs. correlation nonsense but show no real data...when the only posting with real data doesn't at all support your nonsense.[/quote]

Lol that’s exactly the correlation vs. causality point, as well as my previous point about dispersion! I’m sorry you don’t understand it. Showing the universities demonstrates a correlation. It doesn’t demonstrate causality. And we know from the profiles of students that get in, from the wide range of schools that send kids to top grad programs, and from the schools and admissions officers themselves that the causal factors are things like grades, test scores, interest/prep (depending on the type of program), and recs. Kids at top undergrads are good at those things (which is how they got into those undergrads in the first place!), so they get into top grad schools. But that doesn’t make the school itself causal.

Maybe take a statistics and a logical reasoning class so you’ll stop thinking this is “nonsense.”[/quote]

Awesome, now provide the breakdown of the number of kids entering GSB, Wharton et al by university so we have something to discuss.

[/quote]

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