<p>Do you guys think it was because of Gee's departure? What gives with 19?</p>
<p>The better question is...</p>
<p>who cares?</p>
<p>Certainly not prospective employers, that's for sure.</p>
<p>nor i. </p>
<p>i think vandy's the greatest thing mankind has achieved in a while. didn't take that much hesitation to choose it over the likes of schmivies. a statically invalid article meant to sell publications certainly won't change my mind on that.</p>
<p>Eh it's still pretty gay that we dropped slightly</p>
<p>all they did is change the numbers a little. correct me if i'm wrong, but all the schools that were tied or above vandy are still there and all the schools that were below are still there. next year they'll just tie the school w/ emory or rice and do the same **** with all the others. it's a god damn shame so many people live and breathe this crap</p>
<p>yeah i 2nd what brian has to say. i did notice this year a ton of ties in that top 25... i mean there must be something to differentiate these schools lol. but in all honesty, 18/19... does it matter? its still top 20 (and its not top 10, but who's counting? :)</p>
<p>When I applied to Vanderbilt four years ago it was #19 and I've kept track with US News since. A few facts I've noted since 2004 onward (5 different reports with the new 2008 one released):</p>
<ol>
<li>The list of schools in the top 30 has not changed at all -- merely shifted around over the last four years (i.e. 30 schools, 30 slots)</li>
<li>Harvard, Princeton, Yale are always top 3 (3 schools, 3 slots)</li>
<li>MIT, Caltech, Duke, Penn, Stanford are always ranked between #4-8 (5 schools, 5 slots)</li>
<li>Columbia and Dartmouth are always ranked between #9-11 (2 schools, 3 slots)</li>
<li>Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Brown are always ranked between #12-17 (4 schools, 6 slots)</li>
<li>Emory, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt are always ranked between #17-20 (3 schools, 4 slots)</li>
<li>UC Berkeley, UVA, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Michigan, UCLA are always ranked between #20-26 (6 schools, 7 slots)</li>
<li>Wake Forest, Tufts, UNC, USC are always ranked between #27-30 (4 schools, 4 slots)</li>
</ol>
<p>For the remaining schools: WashU, Northwestern, and Chicago have been ranked between #9-14 (3 schools, 6 slots)</p>
<p>You see the pattern? There are categories of schools and while the ranks may fluctuate within a range, they don't ever shift drastically. This is totally normal -- would you believe a list that had Harvard as top 3 one year and 10th the next? 25th?</p>
<p>Good point, Matthew.</p>
<p>Still though. What is with all the anti-vandy screeds on xoxo and the overall hostility towards the school in general?</p>
<p>I think Vanderbilt has a large reptuation for having strong southern traditions and sort of a southern good ole boy greek scene. While this is desirable for some people (I guess mostly southern people) it also deters a lot of prospects at the same time. I'm not saying Vanderbilt should try to change this image because it is a fundamental part of its identitiy, but I think that's the main reason. Contrast this to schools like Duke and Emory, which are known to have more of a catering to the northeast, which at the same time probably deters a lot of southern people.</p>
<p>but the school also takes in a lot of northeastern kids from new england prep schools. MORE so than Emory or Rice. I mean I see Vandy as more than an Auburn, from the way you were describing it. Yet, it is more than a private version of UVA, as others describe it too. I think that it is a top caliber school that rivals Rice and Emory for top billing in the south. It's no Duke but it's slip was a little harsh. If you do not count the tie, Vandy is actually 20th this year.</p>
<p>I'm not sure about the amount from prep schools, but looking at Emory and Vanderbilt's demographics, Vandy has about 10% more from the south. Rice is more comparable to Vanderbilt in terms of amount from the south, except most of them come from Texas so it's a little different.</p>