Getting into graduate school with first class honors, Brown, harvard, yale, georgetown?

I think your chances are good if you prepare your application well. You are right to assume that some Ivy League schools are easier to get into than others in specific fields. If you want to get a MBA, then Wharton is the hardest. If you want to get a MS in electrical engineering, then Cornell is hard. If you want to get a journalism degree, then Columbia is the toughest. You get my point. Brown Ph.D program in political science is easier to get into than the corresponding program at Yale, but Brown Ph.D in astronomy is harder to get into than the one at Yale.

In addition, you should prepare for GRE now. An excellent score would substantially increase your chances.

Best of luck to you!

Each of the programs in an Ivy League are very competative; sometimes having several hundred applicants applying for maybe 15 or 20 positions (depending on the department’s available funding). Having applied to these schools, and having gone to Brown for my undergrad degree, I can tell you that it will be very difficult. Having a Masters already helps, but not that much because a Masters isn’t really all that different from a Bachelor degree nowadays.

What I will say is that in a PhD program they are looking for several things, but one of the biggest things they look for is whether or not they believe you have the desire, commitment, and personal drive to complete a PhD program, which is something that’s far less trivial than any other degree. Even when you have everything they want, they still may reject you due to lack of space for your intended research area (for instance, say I’m interested in Number Theory for math….I can apply to a school and be perfectly well-qualified, but they already have so many number theory students that they don’t have room to admit me).

So in light of what all can happen in the process, the answer is yes getting into one of the Ivies is very hard, and even if everything in your record is sparkling it’s still a very real possibility that none of them take you. As for some beign easier than others, I doubt it….if so it’s marginal at best and not really worth giving any thought.

Hope this helps!!

yale? whats that some kind of beer?