Does it help to attend the undergrad of where you want to go to grad school?

[TMS@1987]

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Does it help to attend the university that you want to go to for your doctorate? I am thinking about applying to schools whose doctoral programs interest me (BU, Washington State, Fordham, etc.) to attend for my undergrad, but I am wondering if it actually helps or not.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Probably not. Some programs will go out of their way not to take people from their program (academic inbreeding concerns), though that isn't always the case. There are some schools that recruit from their MS programs for their doctorate programs. I'd say in the end it probably doesn't make a difference either way, but maybe people can speak to the schools you are interested in.

 

[psychwanabe]

What T4C said. 🙄

There are some exceptions I think. My UG did not take clinical students from their own ranks, but the experimental program was much more lenient about that.

 

[JockNerd]

I terms of how accepted it is by grad schools, I think the variation is more by prof. I know some profs who are adamantly opposed to it, and others at the same institution who couldn't care less.

What you intend to do also matters. For someone interested in consultation or clinical work, staying in the same geographical region might be hugely beneficial in terms of networking and building client bases. For an academic career, though, doing your UG and grad work at the same place looks weird. For the Canadian national research funding agency I used to work for, it was a massive, massive red flag for a grant applicant to have done their entire university education in one place--it significantly reduced their chances of getting grants.

 

[deleted176373]

Does it help to attend the university that you want to go to for your doctorate? I am thinking about applying to schools whose doctoral programs interest me (BU, Washington State, Fordham, etc.) to attend for my undergrad, but I am wondering if it actually helps or not.

I think this is the worst thing you can do to get into a competitive program. The best thing in my mind would be to pick a person of interest that you want to work with and then do your undergrad somewhere where you can get experience with someone they mentored and still respect.

For instance, if I wanted to work with Dr. X. I would find the school where Dr. X got his Ph.D. and see if his mentor is still there and active or students of Dr. X. that are teaching at other schools now that they have their Ph.D. By building relationships with professors who know who you want to work with in graduate school you can get recommendations that carry huge amounts of weight.

For instance, If I wanted to work with Antonia Abbey, Ph.D. at Wayne State, I might track down Tina Zawacki, Ph.D. at UTSA (University of Texas at San Antonio). It's likely that they have a strong relationship still (in this case, I actually know this is a fact.) This takes more planning than many undergraduates are capable of this early when interests are usually under developed.

Second choice is to pick a school with a strong tradition in Psychology, Columbia, Yale, Stanford, University of Minn, University of Wisconsin, UNC... etc. Where as a school that's not so well known like UTSA might not carry the weight that a better known school would.

Mark

 

[xlittlemissalix]

I think this is the worst thing you can do to get into a competitive program. The best thing in my mind would be to pick a person of interest that you want to work with and then do your undergrad somewhere where you can get experience with someone they mentored and still respect.

Yes, I agree with Mark. When you're 17 and have no idea what you want to do with you're life.. you really need to be thinking about which POI you would like to have in graduate school. I mean, that's what we all did. Haha. Then just cross your fingers that you don't change your mind after all your hard work!

I'm just kidding!! [Now that Mark hates me...hopefully he'll find the humor!]

It really does just depend on schools and professors and what not. I honestly wouldn't think it's anything you'll really be able to control. I mean, you shouldn't not go to a school for undergrad because you think that you MIGHT want to go there for grad school. I think you should definitely still apply to any school you are interested in and see what happens. It's sort of out of your hands.