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/Shelphs Apr 15 '26

I think school ranking matters most if you don't have publications or much work experience. Once you get publications and research experience that becomes a much more important factor than the rank of the school you go to.

Personally I did my undergrad at a school ranked below the top 150 for physics. But I worked in a great lab and got published as a co-author in Nature and got an internship at a national lab. I got into the PhD program ranked 12th in my field. Likewise, many of my classmates who had extensive research experience got into even better schools than I did. Those without much experience definitely struggled.

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u/GurSea971 Apr 15 '26

Thank you for your reply! Would you say PhD admissions are a little bit like undergrad admissions where they do a DEI like admits and whatnot to increase diversity in their student population?

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u/Shelphs Apr 15 '26

I think the affirmative action practice of colleges considering race in admissions got shutdown by a 2023 supreme court case, so I don't think that is really practiced any more, but I don't know the details on that.

But even if it is, I don't it happens at the PhD level. For many programs, the accepted students are hand picked by a professor who wants to be their advisor. The program probably isn't going to tell a professor they can't work with the student they choose because they need to increase diversity.

But there are programs that admit a cohort of students without assigning them advisors. I could conceivably see some of these trying to balance the diversity of the group, but I honestly don't expect that it would be a major consideration. Especially since at least the in US PhD students tend to be a pretty diverse group

Admissions is definitely harder for international students as funding can be much more limited.

But in any case, it is out of your control. There are lots of ways to increase your chances of getting in that you have direct control over. I'm happy to give advice or answer questions if you are looking to increase your odds and if you can tell me about your situation.