This year, 14 of the 78 students admitted into the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy were MSU students — the highest percentage U-M has ever seen.

“The high number of graduate students is a reflection of how good Michigan State is at its quality of science programs,” Fleck said.

Fleck was accepted into both universities as an undergraduate but chose MSU because of the science program and look of the campus. Now, as a pharmacy graduate student at U-M, he said he likes the small classes and different teaching methods.

“If you go to different schools you get the best of what both schools have to offer — just a more diverse education,” he said.

Karen Klomparens, dean of MSU’s Graduate School, said in an e-mail the majority of MSU’s doctoral students come from other states and countries.

Out of about 5,600 masters degree students, 67 percent are from within the state of Michigan. Of about 3,200 doctoral students, 28 percent are from Michigan.

MSU has graduate students from all 50 states, Puerto Rico and 137 countries, she said.

Moving to a different university is good from an experience standpoint, Klomparens said.

Ian Gray, MSU’s vice president for research and graduate studies, said he’s found that it’s in the students’ best interest to go to a graduate school different from the one they attended as an undergraduate.

“It’s good to be exposed to different research environments,” he said.

Fleck found the classes at U-M to have more interaction with professors.

“In some of my classes, such as a statistics class I took at MSU, (they were mostly) lecture and rarely ever any interaction with the professor,” he said.

It also is important to change schools in terms of career development, Gray said. But everyone is different and it depends on circumstances — not everyone wants to leave the school they attended or can afford to.

“Graduate school prepares you for self-sufficiency, you need to see what model fits you, but you can only do that by being exposed to different philosophies,” he said.

For some students, going to another university for graduate school depends on the programs offered.

“MSU does not have a pharmacy program, so students would have to go somewhere else,” Klomparens said. “MSU has programs in agriculture that U-M does not have, so it might be the place for students elsewhere to come here.”

But she said programs do like to keep their best students for graduate education.

Stephen MacGuidwin, a fourth-year law student and MBA student, said he came to MSU from U-M because of scholarship opportunities.

“Law students go to graduate school where they want to practice,” he said. “So law firms in Michigan will look for students in the Midwest because they know that’s where they want to reside.”