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Why Emory?
1081736
200 replies71 threads Junior Member
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1081736
200 replies71 threads Junior Member
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Replies to: Why Emory?
Basically, never admit that you love Emory
......Just being facetious, though it is somewhat true.
Plus, apparently there is a lot of Vandy fervor going on here lately (lots of paraphernalia), and I don't quite understand it because the school identical academically, but has a football team and significantly less diversity (no offense, but the reverse occurs as many Vandy students hate us b/c we're too diverse), and is known for their pretty Caucasian women, which is irrelevant to me . Students here seem to worship it. I was excited however, to see their team beat 43-0 by UGA. And to bash Vandy, if I wanted their environment, I would have gone to UGA instead
Really, a lot of it just comes down to marketing. Harvard, Yale, Princeton are household names. Why? In large part because they are so old and also because sports programs once dominated nationally (of course they're pretty much a joke for D1 now). Don't get me wrong, all of the Ivys excellent schools. But the brand "Ivy" is way overrated.
I go to Emory and I'm very proud to say that I love it. One of the most rewarding parts about going to Emory is to see that Emory is constantly moving-- constantly improving, even in the year and a few months I've been here. I have no doubt that Emory will be even better the day I graduate than the day I arrived, and I'm not the only one that thinks this. Emory was ranked by U.S. News and World Reports as both a top-20 school and an "up-and-coming institution," define as schools "that are making improvements in academics, faculty, students, campus life, diversity, and facilities. These schools are worth watching because they are making promising and innovative changes."
Most of the people who complain about Emory are just chasing an image.
Emory has a lot of things going for it, some of which include, in no particular order:
1. Beautiful campus including huge park
2. Suburban location very near urban center
3. Very high research activity
4. CDC and resources
5. Hospital on-campus
6. Emory Healthcare is the largest healthcare provider in Georgia
7. Strong greek life (not a state school, but nevertheless strong presence on campus)
8. Very diverse (most diverse top 20 school both ethnically and religiously)
9. Atlanta is a really fun city (4 pro sports teams, Little Five Points, Downtown Atlanta, Buckhead, Georgia Dome, Georgia Aquarium, concerts, etc.)
10. Decent party scene. Full disclosure: Emory's certainly no state school, but students have a lot of fun. It's not uncommon for people to be out on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Emory really cracked down hard in the mid 90s because Emory actually had a party school rep, so frat parties aren't what they use to be, but they're still a lot of fun.
11. Always getting better. Emory's built 4 new dorms in the past 3 years. A new bookstore-- the largest bookstore on any college campus. A new psychology building. A new med school building.
12. Great Student Programing Council (SPC) brings in huge artists like Sean Kingston, Kid Cudi, Third Eye Blind, Girl Talk, Super Mash Bros, Outkast, O.A.R, Ben Folds, OK Go, N.E.R.D, Matt Nathanson, Ludacris, Sister Hazel, John Legend, The Roots, Howie Day, Everclear, Lupe Fiasco, Common, and B.o.B. -- and all concerts are free for Emory students.
13. Great pre-professional programs (pre-med, pre-business)
14. Great liberal arts college curriculum
15. Excellent teacher quality (teachers really care about their students, get to know them, and are really accessible)
16. Small class sizes (I've never had a class with more than 60).
17. Great student to faculty ratio (8:1)
18. Great D3 sports - Emory is competitive nationally (Women's Swimming & Diving won the national championship last year; Volleyball the year before)
19. Emory has the most Academic All-Americans of any DI, DII, or DIII school.
20. Great president - JWag (James Wagner) is the man. Very accessible, and very well liked by students and faculty.
21. Good weather for 10 months of the year.
22. Dalai Lama (actually was lucky enough to meet him at a private breakfast during his visit this past week).
23. Not as far from home as you think -- Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport is the largest in the world with over 90 million passengers each year and the most direct flights to any location. It's really easy to get a cheap, direct flight home. The airport is within a 2 hour flight of 80% of the U.S. population.
There are a lot more reasons... feel free to add some.
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I dare to venture that the way some people here act, they would have been very well off at an awesome public school, many of which probably deserve to be top 20s themselves. Point is, it's clear many people just ended up here b/c it's the only top 20 they got into. I'm just proposing that you need not go to one, or even a private school, to get an excellent education. Such students should have considered awesome places like UVA, Chapel Hill, and similar schools more seriously instead of coming here with preconceptions. No point in coming to a school you won't like, no matter the rank. That's a huge risk to take with your money and time.
The true whiners are the ones that make uninformed comparisons and assumptions about peer institutions "superiority" to Emory. They look at their rank, and realize that the school has a football team, and assume it's not only a better school, but a "way" school. This even goes for Vandy and Rice, who we were tied with for quite a while until we dropped a particular application agency (thus lost applications). I've seen the work at these schools, and the academics are about the same, with some depts and classes being easier or harder (thus still averaging out to the same thing). I would even argue that many of our teaching staff and faculty might be better and not in the touchy, feely way either (like "really cares" for the students); I mean quality of lecture/insight and learning outcomes. This school has some absolutely amazing professors and lecturers, many who actually do research. But for some reason, the quality doesn't suffer (but in fairness, in many cases it does).
The same could be said about Duke, as I have a friend there, that was supposedly in an accelerated bio course b/c he had AP credit for bio 1 (they thus wanted to do something special for his bio 2 sequence once he got there) there, but could not help me with bio 142 p-Sets I sent him. Duke is probably ranked extremely high due to its level research activity. Other than that, their classes outside of engineering will be similar to everyone's, they also have the same levels of grade inflation. Only a hand full of schools are known to be both very difficult in terms of rigor and grades given (Princeton, JHU, Cornell, MIT, and x-many public schools in the top 40-45 come to mind right now)
To answer your question- Many value prestige, school-spirit and social scene over academic quality. This is probably an American thing, but you see less complaints about such things, at schools with very high academic prestige. Emory suffers b/c it isn't there yet. Not to mention, a person from an elite, wealthy or upper-middleclass family from the NE or mid-Atlantic was probably raised to matriculate at an Ivy or some top 10, so being at number 20, that they believe no one has heard about is probably humiliating to some extent. I'm tired of this perception as Emory receives almost as many applications (and sometimes more) as UGA and a good bit more than Georgia Tech for example. These are "public" schools with more than twice as many undergrad. students. The application numbers indicate that people managed to find out about us somehow, and apply despite how little spots we have compared to many public schools. We don't shouldn't need to have the same amount of apps. as other top 20s for people to realize that people have heard of the school. The amount at those is a resort of marketing. Many people wouldn't apply here because they are afraid of rejection, but now people apply to Ivies as a joke. Go figure.
Emory Class of 2014.
Feel free to admit if you do perhaps over-value the things I mentioned last in my post. You did grow up in America so you probably can't help that, in which case Emory may not be a good fit for you. Best that you elaborate so that the OP has other opinions, unless it's really personal.
However, whatever you do, do not throw out the: "It's not intellectual enough" card. Even I have gotten over this. Only a few schools left in the top 20 are known for intellectualism, and it is not really the Ivies. Most schools are pre-dominantly pre-professional and many Ivies have extremely competitive students. So unless, you are considering UChicago or a small LAC, I would not transfer to another top 20 looking for "intellectual". It's simply not a huge part of American higher education anymore.
I'm very sorry that you aren't enjoying it. Would be willing to help or make recommendations (2.5 years experience helps, trust me) if I knew what the issue (s) was. Unfortunately I can't change stuff like the party scene though.
for my Emory supplement, I shall just post a link to this thread.
Have you visited? If so, talk about your visit. What did you like specifically? Any professors? Any conversations with current students? The more specific you are, the better. If you haven't visited, take the time to research it online, focusing on what you want to study and how you might contribute to its campus life.
By the way, this question is the most common supplemental essay question asked by colleges. It is extremely important - more than most students realize.