[Agamemnon]

Sorry if this is an ignorant question but, does the ranking of your university effect where you can go for postgrad? (i.e. a student with a 2:1 from a former polytechnic and a student from a red brick, if all other things are equal should be equally likely to be admitted to the most prestigious universities for postgrad?)

[shady lane]

It doesn't affect it.

[The Boosh]

not in the slightest. and it shouldnt.

[Phoenix Wright]

Not terribly. I've begun to meet people from my area who are going to LSE for postgrad and they all come from universities with massively different regional and global prestige and yet the requirements are still the same. If you went to a university with a less rigorous curriculum, you may have more catching up to do, but since you're considering "aiming higher" than you should be just fine with that.

[Agamemnon]

Are you all absolutley sure it wouldn't effect where you can go in the slightest?

What would you say are the important factors that will be decisive when applying to one of the most pretigious universities for postrgraduate study? (Or any university for that matter)

[shady lane]

You can often expect to get a higher offer if you went to a less academically rigorous university. But you seem to be asking if you go to university X, can you go to Oxbridge? And the answer is yes, as long as you are a good candidate you can get in.

I don't see why you're so incredulous. We are all postgrads or about to be. I have friends at LSE who went to Princeton and others who went to Oxford Brookes. And you can't necessarily tell who went where based on their intelligence in seminars either. Postgraduate success has much less to do with where you did undergrad; it's how well you did and how focused of a student you are.

[The Boosh]

^^^ what shady said 100%. i know expoly grads at oxbridge and london, and i know oxford and london grads at smaller, lower-table redbricks. postgrad is much more dynamic.

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by shady lane

You can often expect to get a higher offer if you went to a less academically rigorous university. But you seem to be asking if you go to university X, can you go to Oxbridge? And the answer is yes, as long as you are a good candidate you can get in.

Yes, that is what I wanted to know, thank you.

Although, if they alter their offer based on where you went for undergrad, surely it does 'effect' your application for postgrad? Unless I am misunderstanding something.

Originally Posted by shady lane

I don't see why you're so incredulous. We are all postgrads or about to be.

No, no, don't misunderstand me, I respect you and know that you all have detailed knowledge of postgraduate admissions etc. I just wanted to be sure.

[The Boosh]

ive never heard of people being offered higher entry standards because of their undergraduate university. often, before you apply, the grades required are often explicitly advertised. shady has probably experienced otherwise though...

[shady lane]

I don't know as much for British universities, but it seems that students from lower-ranked US universities got much higher conditional offers than I did.

[The Boosh]

hmmm. perhaps you had cracking personal statement/references or a more relevant degree? who knows...

[shady lane]

all of the above heheh j/k

Don't know about the PS but my references were incredible, I was very lucky to have good relationships with two academic superstars. Maybe that was it.

[The Boosh]

If the right people sing your praises then you are half way there!!! For my PhD scholarship I had one person write my reference who had never met me, and one person who taught me for one module only (in a class of fifty students). They both commented on the quality of the research proposal and it's impact in the field (that they worked in). Both academics were key players in the field and I got really, really high marks for the referee section.

[the_alba]

No offence to the OP, but why are these threads so repetitive? This seems to be all we do in the postgrad section - reassure anxious non-Oxbridge undergrads that yes, they can still get into Oxbridge, and no, they won't be given harsher conditional offers than everyone else. And all this when most of us know that Oxbridge is not all that anyway, and the people we are reassuring often want to go there for reasons we would find obnoxious (again, not you OP). Yet still we type out the same lines.. thread after thread. Why? Seriously, TSR has a search funtion. And we all have lives.... don't we?!

[shady lane]

I've gotten loads of neg rep for saying "Oxbridge isn't the best for many postgraduate courses anyway." People even accuse me of being bitter after having been rejected (I never even applied!). So I try not to say it anymore, I'll leave it to you alba

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by the_alba

...and no, they won't be given harsher conditional offers than everyone else.

Shady Lane's comments suggest otherwise? Although I think she is perhaps not sure?

[The Boosh]

lol i too get snapped at whenever i suggest something like that. but i agree, alby-poos.

[stoney]

Originally Posted by the_alba

No offence to the OP, but why are these threads so repetitive? This seems to be all we do in the postgrad section - reassure anxious non-Oxbridge undergrads that yes, they can still get into Oxbridge, and no, they won't be given harsher conditional offers than everyone else. And all this when most of us know that Oxbridge is not all that anyway, and the people we are reassuring often want to go there for reasons we would find obnoxious (again, not you OP). Yet still we type out the same lines.. thread after thread. Why? Seriously, TSR has a search funtion. And we all have lives.... don't we?!

What constitutes a legitimate reason for wanting to go to Oxbridge for postgrad then?

Sorry I'm honestly not being confrontational I'm just wondering since we often hear plenty of reasons as to why you should not want to go for postgrad, these obnoxious reasons as you put it, but never the negation of this.

[shady lane]

Originally Posted by stoney

What constitutes a legitimate reason for wanting to go to Oxbridge for postgrad then?

Sorry I'm honestly not being confrontational I'm just wondering since we often hear plenty of reasons as to why you should not want to go for postgrad, these obnoxious reasons as you put it, but never the negation of this.

Presumably because the course is actually decent and the university in question is good at the subject.

[ba_mhaith_liom]

Perhaps a general post should be made with links to previous threads, and made a sticky?