Undergraduate Institutions

[wigglytooth]

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Hey guys, I have another question.

I was wondering what your take on how the undergraduate school you are in/were in might have/had an effect on your admissions. Do you think the "brand name" schools (Ivies, 7 sisters, other top private schools) are really worth it? Do you think that those at the "brand name" schools have any edge over lesser known colleges or state U's? Right now I go to an Ivy and sometimes when I look at my grades I think it would have been a breeze at any other place. Everyone else who is pre-health here is asking the same question too 🙁 🙁

 

[armorshell]

Curriculum is going to be just as hard anywhere else as at an ivy... Though I would bet going to a name brand school is still going to be better for you with admissions...

 

[phremius]

Hey guys, I have another question.

I was wondering what your take on how the undergraduate school you are in/were in might have/had an effect on your admissions. Do you think the "brand name" schools (Ivies, 7 sisters, other top private schools) are really worth it? Do you think that those at the "brand name" schools have any edge over lesser known colleges or state U's? Right now I go to an Ivy and sometimes when I look at my grades I think it would have been a breeze at any other place. Everyone else who is pre-health here is asking the same question too 🙁 🙁

?? my cousin's a pre-health and Penn and he said there's actually a decent amount of GPA inflation at the place...

doesn't matter where you're at as long as it's accredited, keep your grades up and yo'ull be fine.

 

[americanpierg]

Curriculum is going to be just as hard anywhere else as at an ivy... Though I would bet going to a name brand school is still going to be better for you with admissions...

ive heard many things about the difficulty level of different institutions, i even saw something in the news about harvard giving out inflated grades all the time.

from what i can tell, the curriculum may be the same at both an ivy league and a non top-100 school, but at the ivy league there is less of a curve in the grading system that someone at a less academically competetive school might have the privledge of enjoying

 

[wigglytooth]

?? my cousin's a pre-health and Penn and he said there's actually a decent amount of GPA inflation at the place...

doesn't matter where you're at as long as it's accredited, keep your grades up and yo'ull be fine.

I'm at Penn too, and yeah the grade inflation thing has been an issue, but factors that go into that is the quality of student going up (avg entering SAT and GPA have been on a steady rise with each new class) and some teachers not really caring about grades and wanting their kids not to worry too.

But I should have specified my *science* grades. Everything is curved to a B- in the intro sciences, so even if you do just as well as everyone else (who mostly end up being pretty bright since they had to make it to Penn in the first place), you still get a B-. I don't think I can say this without sounding like a snob, but a lot of the students feel that because they are competing against top students but not always showing the top grades, they are at a disadvantage, simply because of numbers.

I'm in a pre-health club here, and we had an admissions guy from the PHD program at NYU talk to students, and this was their question. He said that he would love a Penn student for the PHD program because he says that Penn students are taught to problem solve better (or something like that), so he would love a Penn kid. But because the MD program loves numbers, they would look at the number more. I really don't know to what extent the problem solving thing is true. I'd love to see tests/notes from another institution and compare them to mine.

I really hope I haven't sounded like an elitist or anything negative. It's just the curiosity of "what if" when you're struggling. Does that make any sense?

 

[cowsgomoo]

Hey guys, I have another question.

I was wondering what your take on how the undergraduate school you are in/were in might have/had an effect on your admissions. Do you think the "brand name" schools (Ivies, 7 sisters, other top private schools) are really worth it? Do you think that those at the "brand name" schools have any edge over lesser known colleges or state U's? Right now I go to an Ivy and sometimes when I look at my grades I think it would have been a breeze at any other place. Everyone else who is pre-health here is asking the same question too 🙁 🙁

I didn't go to a "brand name" (not even top 100) school and I did alright as far as admissions was concerned. I think it just comes down to getting the best grades you can at any school you attend and killing the DAT and most schools will be stuffing your mail box with acceptances.

 

[colt]

I'd say that where you go doesn't matter unless you want into a top-tier school. Harvard, John Hopkins etc seem to admit a lot of their own graduates.

Does this mean you shouldn’t go to a top-tier school? I think you should look to challenge yourself instead of going where you believe it may be ‘easier’. If you work hard enough to get into an elite school than it is the institutions job to help push you.

 

[INFNITE]

My Columbia interviewer told me during the interview that attending Cornell as an engineering major is the best preparation for the workload dental students face. So yes, it does matter. A 3.3 GPA at a school like Cornell looks infinitely better than a 3.3 GPA at a mediocre party school.

 

[cowsgomoo]

Does this mean you shouldn’t go to a top-tier school? I think you should look to challenge yourself instead of going where you believe it may be ‘easier’. If you work hard enough to get into an elite school than it is the institutions job to help push you.

Very true!!

 

[wigglytooth]

I didn't go to a "brand name" (not even top 100) school and I did alright as far as admissions was concerned. I think it just comes down to getting the best grades you can at any school you attend and killing the DAT and most schools will be stuffing your mail box with acceptances.

Yeah, that's definately the way to ultimately see it, I think. The DAT will be the great leveler between every school's different approach to things. As I said, it was just the "what if" factor playing in (I've been uber stressed lately), and, in a weird way, I'm glad it sparked such an interesting conversation.

Haha, as for the school pushing you, it seems as though the Career Services people don't know much about dental school here. I asked a question to an advisor, and what she said was against other rumors I heard, which confused me. When I actually e-mailed a few d-schools, they proved the rumors correct. They are definately stellar when it comes to preparing a committee letter and all of that though, as I've heard, just the actual guidence on the path is pretty bad. I think it's more up to the individual student to get the information he/she wants in order to make it somewhere. And I guess that's why we're all here.

 

[Mackchops]

My comments on the name of the school from where you receive your undergraduate degree could become quite extensive so I'll try to be blunt. I think that the USNews rankings and the term "Ivy League" are nothing but an unfortunate labeling sinkhole that colleges fall into. The educational difference between Harvard undergrad and East Podunk U solely lies in each institution's popularity or public image. The better students and teachers who have the highest SAT scores and the most letters after their name will inevitably be drawn to the school who is seen in the brightest light by different rankings. Just look at dental school where there haven't been any rankings for a number of years now -- the general sentiment (at least on SDN) towards schools such as BU and NYU is much lower than that towards Penn, Harvard, or even UOP with it's high DAT scores. Does this viewpoint result from the strength of each dental school's individual curriculum or the ability of its professors to effectively teach the material? NO! It merely results from the fact that these schools historically accepts students with lower scores and GPAs and, therefore, must be inferior. However, the dentists that graduate from these schools may, in many cases, be as good as if not better than those students who graduated from the dental ivies. Most practicing dentists I've talked to told me that the dental school you choose matters very little in the long run (one graduated from Georgetown which doesn't even exist anymore) and only one advised me to avoid Harvard for clinical study because it's reputation is as a research school. Undergrad is the exact same way except USNews makes the labeling of the "top tier" university that much easier for hopeful parents by publishing rankings pretty much focused around that same things that make BU and NYU dental schools less appealing to some. Anyone who knows anything about undergrad schools (read: adcoms) are able to see through this very thin smokescreen and will judge and value your undergraduate education on more realistic terms when deciding whether or not to offer you an acceptance. The name of the school doesn't mean as much as how prepared its graduates are for the intense rigors of a professional education and each adcom has his or her own individual formula for determining a candidate's suitability...

I could go on... this is a hot button for me... but I'll spare you. I'd be really interested in hearing anyone's response to this however.

Mack

 

[colt]

I saved this article from long ago--I don't know if it relevant though. http://money.cnn.com/2002/02/06/college/q_collegeprestige/index.htm

 

[wigglytooth]

I saved this article from long ago--I don't know if it relevant though. http://money.cnn.com/2002/02/06/college/q_collegeprestige/index.htm

Yeah this is the only bit I found talking about professional schools:

"According to a recent survey by Peterson's, graduates of higher-priced schools end up practicing law and medicine at nearly twice the rate of graduates from other schools, while moderately priced schools graduate far more teachers, counselors and health professionals."

But that doesn't necessarily answer the question. Oof.

Now I feel I was silly in bringing up the question in the first place. Lapse of judgement, sanity. There's really no way of knowing.

 

[Yellow Snow]

I did half ivy half state and the biggest difference between the two was that the state school had alot more support set up such as free tutors on hand, etc.

Dental schools do take your undergraduate institution into account. Each school is actually assigned a number based upon a national entities rankings. Most dental schools use these numbers to quantify an applicants application. That being said, I think that the institution value is of little importance compared to the overall gpa.

 

[syn_apse]

every adcom is going to note what school you went to. some will even scale your GPA accordingly. but who really know's what happens in their heads?

GPA & DAT trump everything

 

[Sprgrover]

I didn't go to a "brand name" (not even top 100) school and I did alright as far as admissions was concerned. I think it just comes down to getting the best grades you can at any school you attend and killing the DAT and most schools will be stuffing your mail box with acceptances.

I agree. 👍

 

[colt]

This is mostly what I took from the article:

It noted, however, that students who attend more selective colleges do not earn more than students who are accepted at comparable schools but attend lower ranked, less pricey colleges.

It's the students who make the school, not the other way around, argues Martha Phillips-Patrick, who was director of college counseling at the Madeira School in Virginia and Amherst High School in Massachusetts. She is also the mother of a Stanford junior.

"We are paying Stanford for its ability to assemble an extraordinarily talented, stimulated group of undergraduate students in one community," she said. "Whether [this community] is worth $150,000 remains to be seen."

Eventually, I believe it comes down to the person and not where they went to school. If you go to Harvard and want to be a dentist, you'll find a way to accomplish the goal (afterall, the Harvard undergrad found a way to get into Harvard!). The same could be said for the average joe that goes to Boondock Central Univ. and gets a 3.7GPA and 22 DAT score. I guess the only thing you can do is go where you go, do the best you can and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[edkNARF]

An ivy education is NEVER a prerequisite for success. The only way to guarantee success is hard work (and a little bit of luck). There are plenty of people in our class who are doing very well who did not go to a "brand name school," and there are some ivy graduates who are struggling just to get by.

 

[rambo2006]

If you go to a brand name school, IV or what have u, and u dont do so well, no adcom is going to pat ur back and say "its ok that u didnt do as well, u did happen go to a harder school."
If you dont have good grades to start with, the school u attend wont compensate. Thats my opinion.

 

[INFNITE]

what a name brand school does help though is if you're a borderline candidate. A person with identical stats going to some school that's not ranked in the top 50 vs. a person going to an Ivy league school. Obviously, adcoms will choose the Ivy league candidate. this is especially true for those schools who weigh DAT more heavily than GPA's because these schools understand that DAT is the only universal measure of an applicant's credentials, and GPA may not truly reflect a person's academic abilities. Obviously, if you have a sub 3.0GPA anywhere, you're chances aren't very high. But, if you have lets say a 3.3~3.4, which establishes the fact that you are a fairly solid candidate, going to a top ranked school will indeed help. Don't tell me there's no difference between Stanford and some no name school. You got in the top ranked college in the first place due to the academic competency you show during high school, and you're competing against some of the brightest people in the country in the undergrad level. these are the people who are just as smart if not smarter than you, and it's not your fault that your GPA is 0.2 lower because it's just that much harder to earn a high GPA.