danas

GoNavyXC...
Didn't I say at least two? I think I did.
Anyway, I have a bias. I'm a Florida grad who is tired of beating Vandy at football for decades. And when has Vandy been basketball national champs? Never.
HYP get a pass on that stuff. Their students are just flat out smart.

applejack

^^
You must not know very many HYP graduates if you think they're all just "flat out smart". Not all that glitters is gold.

TheOC89 - I stated flat out the bias in that list to avoid the predictable "you can't compare undergrad and grad" response. That list was of select programs that are pretty common between all of the schools listed. So, obviously it didn't include all.

I think if you choose to go to Vanderbilt, you should do so if you plan on staying in the South. Perhaps due to regional pride or networks, the South has a whole different hierarchy of schools that do not necessarily correlate with general worldwide reputations and rankings. In the Midwest / Northeast, I think most people associate Vanderbilt with football and not its high quality academics. If you're looking for name recognition, I'm not sure it would raise too many eyebrows outside of, perhaps, academia. It's certainly not going to be considered on par with the Ivies (whether it is or not is immaterial).

Don't attack me - I'm just stating a cultural reality.

Wwoody123

I gotta agree with applejack... I think part of the reason that the responses haven't been overwhelmingly similar is that many don't consider "vanderbilt vs ivy league" to be much of a competitive comparison. I think there's only a few schools that can compare: MIT, Caltech, & Stanford are on par with Duke & UChicago close behind.

TheOC89

Danas, what does Vanderbilt’s academics have to do with their football team? Also, congratulations on Florida’s recent basketball success but historically Vanderbilt has the upper-hand in the all-time head-to-head record. Also, very few academically orientated schools perform well in football (Duke, Rice, UNC, etc.) all struggle.

Applejack, the data in the chart is still inaccurate. Vanderbilt has several top programs ranked by USNews that fail to show up in the chart. The second part of your statement is completely ludicrous. I’m from New York and I interned at a top investment bank my junior year. Everyone there was very familiar with Vanderbilt. I’m graduating in a few weeks and I have several offers at top companies while most of my friends from lesser schools are struggling to find finance jobs. Similar to other top schools in south (Duke, Emory, etc.), New York is one of the heaviest represented states at Vanderbilt. If you go to Dore2Dore.net you will see tons of Vanderbilt Alumni from the NYC area. Many of them work for elite companies – Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Deloitte, Accenture, IBM, etc. are all well-represented at NEW YORK CITY locations.

patlees88

The fact that the Vandy grads are fairly well represented in the East Coast doesn't mean that its prestige level is on par with the ivies. I think that prestige-wise, only Duke, Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, and maybe JHU are roughly on par with ivies.

TheOC89

The Ivy League, despite its academic connotations, is a sports conference. Grouping the Ivies as a whole is misleading because within the conference each school has a different level of prestige. By most accounts, HYP are at the top of the totem poll. For the record -- I never claimed Vanderbilt was on par with 'HYP'. Its not, and very few schools are. However, I was accepted into two of the lower-Ivies and chose Vanderbilt and I am very happy with my decision.

patlees88

no, vandy isn't on par with HYP and other ivies. While ivy league is a sports conference, even before founding of the ivy leauge, each ivy school was prominent, prestigious institutions. Very few people in the East or in the Midwest associate Vandy as an elite insitution equivalent to ivy schools...It is still an excellent school, and its rep and academics are impressive. But, going by pure prestige and "wow" factor, only Duke, Stanford, MIT, and few others are on par with ivies.

TheOC89

I'd say most people in New York would compare Vanderbilt to a school similar to Georgetown. If this "tier" of schools is not on par with the lower-Ivies, they are close enough where people should pick on social fit.

lgellar

The original question asked how Vanderbilt stacks up against the Ivies and I think it's safe to say that the social scene is a lot better at Vanderbilt than those other schools.

Another important thing to realize is the Southern mystique. Sometimes I feel like Ivies such as Dartmouth, Brown, and Penn get lost in the mix because there's just so many schools in the Northeast and some of them do sound like other, less impressive schools. On the other hand, I think most educated people will regard Vanderbilt as the strongest institution located in the real South.

Pizzagirl

"Personally, in the NE, I've never heard of vanderbilt until I was a senior in high school... Ivies are much better known there..."

And I would hazard a guess that most midwesterners have never heard of Tufts (as an example of an NE school that doesn't mean much out here). Vanderbilt has a very strong name in the midwest and south, nothing to sneeze at, at all.

applejack

Applejack, the data in the chart is still inaccurate. Vanderbilt has several top programs ranked by USNews that fail to show up in the chart.

*************

Once again, the person who compiled that list selected certain popular programs that are present at all the schools listed. Not sure how many times I can say that. I never said it was comprehensive.

I also never said that people going to Vanderbilt didn't get jobs in New York City. I was just talking overall reputation. People from all sorts of public and private schools across the country get great jobs in New York City. I have several friends who went to Albion College (a Midwestern LAC) making hundreds of thousands a year at NYC investment firms. Where one goes to school doesn't really matter that much beyond the experience that person wants to have. I'm simply saying that its reputation is not going to raise eyebrows relative to the schools asked to compare. No one said it's not going to get you a job.

palmettotree

You're comparing apples to oranges and this is the downfall of Vanderbilt. You people that go to the highest ranking or best 'tier' University you get into really need to stop applying to Vanderbilt you're killing it, thank God it's not on the East Coast or it would have already become the next Duke by the 90s. While it still is barely hanging on to its identity as a Southern school, it will soon change as the NY-NJ-NE broheims that couldn't get into HYP or a "lower ivy" keep sneaking into Vanderbilt in the hope that going to a high ranking University will get you a sweet job that you couldn't otherwise land.

I definitely don't feel alone in choosing Vandy over a "HYP" ivy in addition to other similarly "ranked" and "academically elite" schools, and trust me, after visiting each and determining how MY undergraduate experience would pan out, the decision wasn't hard. Most of all, know that plenty of Vanderbilt students fit a similar mold. You are comparing apples to oranges and that is the WORST thing about this whole ranking bonanza. Stick to New York if you care that much about a list.

Do you think it's feasible to hope that with enough signatures USNews will just stop ranking Vanderbilt? I'm going to look into this as I guarantee you within a year it would be on its way to returning to its old and right self. Some people need assurance from a number and reputation to "get you a job", some don't, schools like Duke, Emory, and Tulane have lost all signs of their old culture, even Davidson, Wake, and W&L's are quickly changing, spare one?

P.S. The worst thing about this whole sharade is how Vanderbilt's administration could stop it all easily. Obviously the whole heavily recruiting minorities and admitting them through AA is ridiculous, and the funniest thing about it is how even many Asians are seeing through it and turning them down (Vanderbilt inflates its Asian% by shipping in a ton of Malaysians for the school of engineering). The Administration could also stop shutting down news stories that would probably turn away one or two Northerners. Just last year two gay guys got verbally attacked and then beaten up when they were walking around in the Student Life Center or something like that (I don't know the whole story but it definitely happened). There's also the issue of Vanderbilt renaming "Confederate Memorial Hall" into just plain old "Memorial Hall". Many fraternities also celebrate Confederate Memorial Day late in the semester each year, but they of course choose instead to publicize an Indian Dance Festival that 20 people attend.

Basically what I want you to get out of this rant is the following: Rankings are ridiculous. If you really do care that much about rankings and don't know "anything about Vanderbilt until your senior year", do the school and the culture its students in the past and present have cultivated a favor by just skipping over it and trying your heart out to get into a school that has better reputation on Wall Street.

Milkmagn

Vanderbilt is neither as hard to get into as the ivies, has ivy-caliber students, nor as academically reputable as the ivy league universities.

MomofWildChild

^^ Glad you feel that way. Stay up north!

Pizzagirl

Amen. Gotta tell you, Milkmagn, Vanderbilt is very well respected out here in the midwest -- and no one's heard of Tufts.