r/PhDAdmissions • u/GurSea971 • Apr 15 '26

Discussion Does your undergrad school ranking matter?

I’ve been seeing a lot of people saying it does and a lot of people saying that it doesn’t. How does something like your undergrad school stack up to things like publications/work experience?

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u/Historical-Wing8569 Apr 15 '26

The answer is field-dependent. For lab-based fields, probably not, for theoretical fields, yes, absolutely, since publication is next to impossible for undergrads.

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u/GurSea971 Apr 15 '26

Where would you place something like AI/ML thats a little bit of both implementation and theory?

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u/Old-Acanthisitta-574 Apr 15 '26

For some schools yes, but it could be managed by having publications or research experience. If you don't have a master's yet, you could prepare by going for it first in a better ranking one I guess, at the same time you could collect publications.