Vanderbilt or SMU Honors with Scholarship?

SB27
Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:13:02 +0000

Like Vandy, SMU has skyrocketed in terms of quality of education in the past 20 years. When I was in school, SMU was essentially just a “wealthy kid” haven of preppiness. Come to think of it, so was Vanderbilt 20 years ago. Both schools have moved well beyond that phase.

Academically, Vanderbilt would be an A- and SMU would be a B+. Our company recently hired a superstar employee who attended undergrad at SMU and graduate school at Univ of Texas. She raves about how strong their undergrad programs were/are. The quality of faculty and VERY small class sizes were things she particularly noted. She said that SMU was far more engaging an experience than Texas (too large). I suspect Vanderbilt is like SMU in terms of faculty engagement.

Dallas is a larger and more cosmopolitan place than Nashville. Both are very livable cities where you can live very cheaply (just look across Central Expwy in Dallas). There is also an enormous SMU alum contingency if you want to live/work in Texas.

If you are interested in law, I would give the edge to SMU (great law school also and a real feeder to Univ of Texas and other law schools). For medicine, Vandy would be a clear choice.

Can’t go wrong either way. Good luck.