<p>good summary, mirimom. We do have to concede that Brown has Emma Watson (Hermione from Harry Potter) in the class 2013 athough Nashville is a crossroads for pretty much all celebrity lecture and performance tours plus it is easy to get anywhere in Nashville to attend events and plenty of celebs are around town. Brown does offer the Shop Around for Classes culture that is unusual…and I think Brown really does “trust the student” to design their coursework path in a noteworthy way.</p>
<p>My son now at Vandy is pretty left of center and he was admitted to some great schools that lean in that direction. He decided it would do him good to attend a national college like Vandy that actually publishes both a liberal and a conservative paper. Although he might be happier in Brown’s “left liberal” scene, he feels he will be stronger from attending classes where both sides of America are in the debate. Vandy is unusual in that respect…conservatives are not a tiny minority. We feel it is more like the real workplace and real world in terms of “marketplace of ideas”.<br>
I would say that Vandy compares very well and perhaps does better sometimes with peer colleges in terms of numbers of intimate classes and classroom size and access to full professors. For premeds or hard science students, ease of access to the Vanderbilt medical complex is a big plus. For students of policy, state legislature and other government offices in town are a big plus…with easy access. For students of business, ease of access to a good economy in the private sector in Nashville is a plus. For students of public service/teaching in HOD/Peabody, Nashville offers a good amount of internship locations in a city where one can get around with ease.</p>