Vandy in the next rankings

jct30
Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:53:19 +0000

Vandy is not the Harvard of the South. If there is such a thing, it is Duke, by far and away. But that kindof a term is stupid anyway - Duke is Duke and Vandy is Vandy. It’s not like the South needs to have its “Harvard,” it has Duke and Vandy.

That said, Vandy is an outstanding school, and growing fast. But fellow posters from the North, Midwest and West, don’t be fooled. You have to be brilliant to go to Vandy these days, but that doesn’t mean its anything like Harvard. It’s got some similarities, but mostly - culturally - it is much different. And we aren’t talking about the differences between Duke and the ivies, either.

Duke is very much like the Ivies, but with less intellectual ********, less liberal hegemony and a “just-get-it-done” attitude. It’s the Ivy’s little, bad-ass brother.

Vandy is the old Southerner, not without intellectual bragging rights but without the culture Duke and the Ivies share. I remember talking to one of their admissions counselors over coffee up at my boarding school. She told me she hated the “World Hard, Play Hard,” attitude of Duke and the Ivies. She asked, “Why does everything have to be hard?”

Well, Southerners, there you have it. If you focus on the “south” part, Vandy may really be the Harvard of the South. In the South, I’ve learned, people take time to smell the roses. And there’s no time for that in the North, or at Duke, or in the rest of the world, you know, where important things are happening.

So no matter how much you think of Vandy, keep this in mind: There is a difference between the questions of how one approaches education, and how important that education is to you.