I went to a small, regional public university as an undergrad. I had no trouble getting into tier 1 graduate programs-- even the Ivies.
One of my graduating class went to MIT for grad school, in fact, and I was accepted into several prestigious schools (UVA, U-Rochester, RPI, etc.) We were a graduating class of... um..
five. We were not 'atypical' for that department. So that probably tells you something about the culture.
It was in some ways
more like a private school experience-- but without the $$ for modern equipment. On the other hand, the equipment that we
did have, I was allowed (encouraged, even) to touch and fiddle with. There were less than twenty people in my Physical Chemistry course, and we did ALL of our own prep work for laboratory exercises (sometimes days' worth). As I only later learned, in the sciences, such students are considered to be VERY valuble as graduate students, because they are so often fearless and already pretty self-sufficient. We're not technician and post-doc dependent people, in other words. we just roll up our sleeves and throw on a lab coat.
My graduate school experiences also suggest that grad students come from all kinds of backgrounds, and that there is no one 'recipe' for success there. Later, as a graduate admissions committee member, it was clear that it would be a lot nicer if there
were that kind of recipe through which to filter applications. But there isn't. It's hard to evaluate 'good work ethic' and 'determination' on paper.
Since I've never worked on Wall Street, Wren, I will definitely defer to your assessment of reality there in terms of Harvard and Wharton.
But I have to wonder if "good" is the right term to use in terms of seeking residencies...
after all, if we're talking about people entering CLINICAL practices, rather than academia, then it seems that the best training for being a doctor probably depends a lot on the individual. Placement in residencies is often about
fit. Well, and professional interests, which in the case of our hypothetical Iowan med student, might well lead his/her heart right back to Des Moines.
Now, to be fair here, I've not had a
lot of first-hand experience with medical residency
per se, but I do have a fair amount with veterinary and pharmacy residency, as well as nursing program residency placements.
Yes, it's "competitive" in terms of landing your first choice-- particularly in the market of a very large urban environment where there may be several programs feeing the system, or in a particularly SMALL market with a large program feeding into it... but it's seldom the case that students in the upper 2/3rds of their class get "lousy" placements. Most are less than ideal for
personal, rather than 'professional' reasons. Mostly those who are disappointed or upset tend to be so because they wanted to move. Or didn't.
On the other hand, some of the less ideal positions have exposed those candidates to situations that led to a lot of personal and professional growth that the person wouldn't have SOUGHT on their own. (Inner-city hospital pharmacy as opposed to cushy suburban clinic pharmacy, for example, or a small vet clinic externship as opposed to a 24hr, state-of-the-art urban veterinary hospital.)
I do know that a number of those people chose to return to those same "unfavorable" locations as professionals. So while they might have been disappointed in the initial placement, something drew them back. My senior lab partner is a general practitioner with a subspecialty in women's health, on a reservation, and I can tell without a doubt that she considers this a towering
success. It's not very prestigious, nor is it glamorous or particularly lucrative-- but I hardly feel that I'm qualified to tell her she's wrong.
I wonder, truly, if NOT getting exactly what we
think we want isn't actually better for us in the long run. Philosophical question, I know, but I think that it ties in to the notion of going to an Ivy versus somewhere else.
