emory and vandy

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
1

<p>Hey all,</p>

<p>So I got into vandy and emory as a junior transfer and I accepted emory, but I'm immediately regretting my decision. Im much more loud and school spirited but want a academically rigorous environment and I realized that balance is more present at vandy. Vandy kids either seem to be neutral or love the school and emory kids seem to be ok with it or hate it there. Also, I've heard that the preppy stereotype at vandy isnt true, and even if it is, it doesnt really bother me. My parents also disrespected the fact that emoey fudged the admission data to climb rankings, but that didnt bother me too much (though vandy ranks higher this year regardless). Vandy also has everyone living together that keeps a tight knit community and its also a closed campus which I like. </p>

<p>I called admissions begging them to allow me to submit the deposit but they said no. So heres the choices that im left with.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Stay at my old school and transfer again (but stay at vandy for 5th year even if I get in because I need to be there a minimum of 4 semesters to get a degree. Thats what admissions suggested)</p></li>
<li><p>Go to emory and apply as a transfer again. </p></li>
<li><p>Go to emory and stay there.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I understand that many people on this forum always talk about job prospects and stuff, but that doesnt really concern me. I feel like both nashville and atlanta have a lot to offer and with my majors in both neuroscience and business, I want to go into consulting anyway. I hear both HOD at peabody and BBA at goizueta get students into consulting just fine. Im also thinking of going into a JD/MBA program. But I still feel like undergrad only comes once in your life and I really want to enjoy it to the fullest.</p>

<p>So if any of you can comment on what option I should take, dispel any lack of social "rah rah" spirit rumors at grad schools (any. Not just vandy or emory), or tell me more about emorys school spirit (or lack of) so that I can feel better about going there or decide to stay there, that would be greatly appreciated. </p>

2

<p>What you perceive about Emory is wrong. You haven’t even been a student there yet, how would you know? </p>

3

<p>I assure you that you will be happy at the school. </p>

4

<p>I suppose that is true. Its is the impression that I’ve been getting however. I guess what im trying to say is that the SEC sports dont matter to me as much as their sense of school spirit. From the many students ive been speaking with, they seem to state that there is no such spirit (“its one of our worst problems” or “school spirit here is dead” and “people say 'go ‘dores!’ But no one excitedly says ‘go eagles!’ or anything”) which is kind of a concern for me.</p>

<p>What are the big things in campus people get excited about? I know about homecoming and dooleys week and wonderdul Wednesdays. Anything else?</p>

5

<p>My son is a junior at Emory and he doesn’t like his school much. He says that there is little school spirit or pride, and the students are too much pre-med/-mba/-law oriented. Further, the school is not as academically rigorous as he expected. Of course, there must be many satisfied students at Emory, but my son is not one of them. Nonetheless, I think you should stay at Emory and make the most of it, because the other options just do not make sense to me.</p>

6

<p>There are plenty of people at Emory who love it there. Give it a chance! </p>

7

<p>I’d like to interject that it seems there are other people who are in the same position as you, that is to say, who are dissatisfied with the school spirit at Emory. So, have you considered trying to form some sort of student organization focused on raising school spirit? You could all tailgate and go to games, decorate the school for important events/days, all kinds of stuff. And who knows, the more you do, the more students you may find coming out of the woodwork to join you, who have always wanted to show school spirit, but didn’t want to feel alone. Just an idea I’m tossing out.</p>

<p>(And working with a student organization may give you a reason to be happy to stay at Emory. You can think about how, regardless of your distaste for the classes/atmosphere/whatever, your group needs you!)</p>

8

<p>You have two years to go. Forget about Vandy since you no longer have the option to attend Vandy. Instead dig into Emory and make it your own. </p>

<p>Positive things happen to positive people. Forget about “what your country can do for you…”.it’s all about what you can do for Emory now. Yes, Emory has an issue with apathy re school identity/sports. Every college has its gripefests and detractions on some subject or another. What Emory does have…speaking from living in Atlanta four times and Nashville twice…Atlanta loves and appreciates Emory just as Vanderbilt is appreciated in Nashville. That is a good thing. Emory has a good financial foundation and innovative things going on in the arts and sciences. Atlanta has a much broader place for internships and summer employment options. Vandy is more selective and will be more selective for a long time to come but that doesn’t mean Emory students are not smart!! Vandy’s student body is across the board academically able. </p>

<p>What Emory has…smaller classrooms are actually a norm at Emory. There is only one big lecture hall for undergrads I think…Emory professors are very accessible. Emory’s facilities are quite excellent across the board. Atlanta is a big draw away from campus life which is not Emory’s fault. Students often prefer Virginia Highlands on Saturday night to campus. Or Midtown. Or Piedmont Park festivals or the Chattahoochee or the Braves games. Emory has a very business oriented campus energy going on…but doesn’t skimp on liberal arts and sciences are very very good.
To stand out at Emory will take 100% of what you got. Make your two years count and think about your summer and post graduate work experience to come. Most graduate schools of business don’t want you till you have worked 3-6 years. Landing a job is your real worry…not school spirit. (most juniors have moved on to kvetching about summer and post graduate jobs…that is where your mind needs to be.) Emory professors deliver the goods. Think Blue and White. Buy Tshirts and give it all you have. Get to know the profs who will be your future references…contribute, network, dig in.</p>

9

<p>@dotori - I am just curious. Knowing all this, and it was certainly knowable before you had to declare which school you would attend, why did you pick Emory in the first place? I mean this in a positive way. You must have had reasons for choosing Emory over Vandy. Focus on those positives. Because I have to agree it is better at this stage of your college career to make Emory work for you and do your last two years there.</p>

<p>I wish I could dissuade you that grad school has some “rah-rah” in it, but that hasn’t been my experience or observation. Even at big sports schools like 'Bama and Duke. But that doesn’t mean that grad students don’t go to the games and cheer for the school. Of course they do, if they like that kind of thing. Just like a working adult would. And grad school is more like a job than just being a student in very many ways.</p>

10

<p>Is this a serious question? Grow up, you made your decision now live by it.</p>

11

<p>@doubleeternity‌ : Unfortunately academic rigor is largely up to the student and the major they choose (and the courses. Like if your son or anyone randomly chooses or simply chooses courses based upon requirements, then the person is not really exercising any discretion with regard to choosing rigorous courses or instructors. They are simply choosing based on other things that don’t take being challenged into account. I understand that you should expect rigor from schools like Emory and Vandy or any top school, but in the days of the “consumer” based highered that we lived in, it won’t be the norm and generally courses will only be a medium level of rigor or be underwhelming unless you are at a very, very, very top school in one of the more rigorous academic programs (like econ., physics, or math at places Harvard, Chicago, or Yale or something). Sorry that your son didn’t enjoy it that much. They should have chosen more of a place with a stereotypical college experience I guess. Just don’t expect rigor levels to be different. I’ve kind of compared syllabi and coursework across several top schools in certain disciplines and often Emory was similar and came out on top in certain cases (especially when compared to closer ranked institutions). </p>

<p>However, at a departmental level, if I compared natural science courses to those at Emory, I would give Emory the edge (even if only slight, because Emory has a great deal of inconsistency, but so do other schools) over Vandy (I’m talking biology, chemistry, and neuroscience). I don’t know about other disciplines (like I would imagine physical sciences being more rigorous). Also, if your son is business, business schools are generally not that rigorous compared to programs in the sciences and social sciences, even at top schools. </p>

12

<p>*correction in case misunderstood: I expect physical sciences and math to be more rigorous at Vanderbilt. The point is the schools likely “feel” the same academically. </p>

<p>@dotori: As for this ongoing concern. Where is this idea of neutrality or hating it coming from. I feel like you can find samplings like that at Vandy as well and you are more likely to get that from RD applicants at Emory. 1/2 of the students at Emory are actually ED and a majority actually love it. It just isn’t “rah rah” in your face love “everyone must come to Emory” type of love. It’s more like an experience driven love for the school that often comes through their academic or EC involvements, which often mix at Emory perhaps more so than Vandy (because Emory seems to have a lot more undergraduate fellowships and programs directly associated with or derived from specific departments, especially in humanities and social sciences). It is just a much different experience than Vanderbilt so the levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction are expressed completely differently. And honestly, usually transfers really like it in comparison to their old place because they like the change in academic pace that they usually induce for themselves. For some reason, transfers, at least from my experience in the sciences, tend to take academic rigor into account when choosing instructors much more than freshman matriculates. As in, transfers will intentionally choose the more rigorous and higher rated instructors and better optimize their Emory experience. </p>

<p>One of the cool things I see about Emory is that you can find tons of students truly passionate about their major or department and it isn’t necessarily because of the courses so much as the interactions with professors. Take a look at this video highlighting UGs who either were religion majors or took classes in the religion department: <a href=“Studying Religion at Emory -- What Students and Alumni Say - YouTube”>Studying Religion at Emory -- What Students and Alumni Say - YouTube;

<p>Everything they are saying is true (I took the intro. religion class which was run by Dr. Diakite and Dr. Bobbi Patterson and it was so amazing that I took 2 more advanced religion courses for writing requirements and they were absolutely excellent and had the scholarly rigor to improve my already solid writing skills while also just giving me a new perspective on studying cultures, especially in the context of religion). I should also mention that instructors in several departments are really looking out for students who are really interested and surprise them with great work. For example, it was an essay that I wrote in the religion 100 course that caught the attention of the TA’s and Dr. Dianne Diakite that essentially got them trying to recruit me to the Mellon Mays Scholars program (I was hardcore science, so it did not have much of a place for me, but they did basically invite me to take some advanced courses in the area which I did). This was not the only course that this happened (this was actually a large lecture course by the way, with like 90-100 students) to folks. My Arab-Israeli Conflict class was actually in the auditorium that Faline2 mentioned and it was taught by Dr. Kenneth Stein (who was basically one of President Carter’s right-hand men in the Israeli-Palestine Peace agreements) who basically targeted all students with an A- or higher on the first exam and attempted to get them in significant positions that would allow them to write professionally. Dr. Eisen (my cell biology instructor known for his unorthodox methods of teaching science in even large lecture courses) networks with students who score about B- (80) on his midterms to develop them professionally or place them in lab positions (as in, he will reach out to lab PI’s for students and try to place them. Even when it came to asking questions about material via e-mail, he would actually ask other researchers and forward their responses). My organic chemistry instructor, much like Eisen, monitors most students’ development and growth over time (he even sends e-mails to all graduating seniors who took his section for both semesters) and helps them with career development and even finds scholarship and fellowship opps. for students who show high interest or are excelling in his course (which is unusally difficult, much like Eisen’s. There is no surprise that both courses has passed through a significant amount of Goldwater Scholars, Fulbrights, and those who have received top awards from their respective departments. Last year my ochem instructor’s former freshman ochem students essentially cleaned house for the top prizes in the chemistry department). </p>

<p>When you choose your instructors with any sort of discretion, you can’t help but be amazed how personable Emory instructors can be. Even when they are teaching a large class, they manage to scavenge for talent and interest when they could really choose to be rather detached like many instructors of large or medium courses would. Now just imagine some of the experiences I’ve had in smaller classes. And you may wonder what this has to do with you since you are going to the business school. There are instructors like these in there and there are instructors like Dr. Bannerjee in economics (who you should take before entering if possible) who are extremely personable and interested in more than just grading students’ work. </p>

<p>There, instead of just talking out of my behind, I have shared some of my experiences and have provided other reasons that students may like Emory that go far beyond it having or lacking “school spirit”. You have so much to look forward to, especially if you do more than just choose classes that are b-school pre-reqs. Again, ECAS offers so much in the way of EC opps, academic opps, and even hybrid opps. And again, there is this ongoing development of a large scene of student generated innovation and entrepreneurship as well at Emory that you have the chance to get in on if you would like. Also, if you should choose another major or minor in the social sciences (polsci, history, QTM), humanities, or even healthcare (Human Health is the next cool thing on the block), there are so many formal experiential opps offered through such depts (and we just have many interdisciplinary programs and majors in general offered through the college that are often more about hands-on learning or research). You get to take advantage of GBS’s resources and network along with the things happening in ECAS (again, a lot of student generated projects and innovation have been coming from ECAS lately, much more so than the B-school): <a href=“In the spotlight: Emory student entrepreneurs”>http://news.emory.edu/stories/2013/12/er_student_entrepreneurs/campus.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Clearly there are many exciting things for you to do or that you could do that should keep you less occupied with your notions of school spirit. Emory is awesome to those who take full advantage of it. </p>

13

<p>I feel like Emory and Vandy are academic peers. Vandy is ranked a bit higher likely because of higher test scores… but students are probably roughly equal. </p>

<p>Vanderbilt is in the city of Nashville, about 7 minutes from 2nd Ave/Market Street (via 21st and West End/Broadway). It’s also very close to Music Row.</p>

<p>Emory is more suburban… suburban Atlanta.</p>

14

<p>@prezbucky: Don’t push the “students are equal but test scores are higher” button. It may be true, but people don’t like hearing it lol. I would say that students have similar attitudes and perform and behave similarly once at each school. That would be accurate (they didn’t necessarily come in equal. Although I think, in the past, Emory students used to come in with slightly higher GPA’s than Vandy students despite the much lower SAT’s. It suggests that Emory students are very grade centric and work better for a classroom than for a standardized exam. No surprise, lots of pre-profs). Academic peers is correct because I think the intensity levels are about the same, just a different departmental distribution. Student post-grad. accomplishments seem to be at a similar level as well. Lots of academic programs at the grad. level (not professional programs, but graduate division of arts and sciences mainly. Often this trickles down to the quality of UG courses and opps. in each dept with doctoral programs) rank similarly too. Research funding is similar. </p>

<p>Also, I assume you are talking about walking from Vandy. Otherwise you would have to claim that popular suburban districts like the Highlands, Little 5, and Decatur are like 10 minutes from Emory (they are in a vehicle). Yeah, but all the “urban” elements that love so much from Atlanta are like a 20-25 minute drive away. </p>

15

<p>Well some people tout Stanford as the equal of HYP and MIT, even though their students’ test scores are markedly lower than those titans.</p>

<p>But in terms of academic greatness/rigor, Stanford is pretty much their equal.</p>

<p>Here, Emory is Stanford and Vandy is HYPM.</p>

<p>Splitting hairs…</p>

16

<p>@prezbucky: Tell me about it…</p>

<p>It actually is not a horrible analogy because Stanford and MIT (these two are quite “techy”) are markedly different from HYP in terms of the academic environment kind of like Rice and Emory (these two lean more to the “quirky” and “work hard” feel) are a bit different from Vandy and Duke (okay, this one is on a different level, but if we were for simplicity’s sake say that the 4 top southern private research institutions are indeed similar, I would pair these two in terms of social environment and overall “feel” I guess. When you take a closer look at the academic programs you find a bit of a different story, but let’s just roll with it for now) with Emory being the most different (because of the D-3 sports, the huge behind business school, and no engineering entity). So honestly, while I get while people would compare caliber of the institutions, I don’t know why bother compare the environments. Seems more naive people act as if they are essentially the same schools with different scores or prestige. They really aren’t. I would say that 3/4 of them are similar caliber, but are markedly different in feel and people should be aware of that when applying. Some students would have been better off at a place like USC or UCLA if they could get into them and did not get into Vandy or something than they would be if they went to Rice, Emory, JHU, or WashU or something. And some Vandy students may be better off at schools like those (like if they were really into an academic department or some departments that were generally stronger at the others or something. In some cases, the social experience won’t compensate enough for those folks just as academics may not compensate enough for those at the others). </p>

17

<p>I think honestly that comparing Emory and Vandy … and Harvard, Yale and Princeton… and Rice and Harvey Mudd… and Duke and Northwestern… and MIT and Caltech… and U Chicago and Penn… you are talking about elite undergrad education. Academically they are six of one and half a dozen of the other. Like I said… splitting hairs.</p>

18

<p>@bernie @prezbucky while I appreciate your information, I do want to point out that this is a forum and people’s opinions and perspectives are going to be based on experiences not solely factual evidence. From what I have seen from speaking with both vanderbilt and emory students are that many emory students are apathetic or negative about their institution and as one person had said, “no one wants to be here because this is the ivy reject school. My friends have made it clear thay emory was not their first choice and they dont like it here.” Many vanderbilt students that I have come across have stated that vandy is their dream school and there was an article stating that with vanderbilts increased selectivity, many cross admit battles with gtown and duke are won by vanderbilt (in some cases not all).</p>

<p>The thing that I find interesting is that I understand most cc members are notorious for being academically obsessive. I get that. Never have I once stated that emory is academically inferior to vandy. I simply stated that I dont feel like it is a good fit for me for x reasons. I was hoping to begin this thread to not only dispel rumors about negativities about emory but also get advice on what I should do as well as understand the pros and cons of both universities. So please, let’s refrain from turning this into another discussion about rankings, selectivity, or quality of education. I am well aware that both schools are well respected and academically rigorous. </p>

<p>Finally, this is an online forum so theres no way for me to regulate any sort of discussion and everyone has the freedom to post, but bernie, I purposely made two threads in both emory and vanderbilt to gain a variety of perspectives from different crowds of people. While your passion for emory is admirable, I would like to hear from other perspectives as well.</p>

19

<p>The obvious question is:
what about your original University if Vandy is off the table? Now that you see things you don’t like about Emory, does that change your perception of the original University? It is easier to graduate on time (usually) by not transferring and then apply to Vandy (or your preferred U) for grad school.</p>

<p>And … is your major something that is particularly good at Emory? Emory is highly regarded in many areas (Business, Nursing, Psychology etc.) and certainly very elite. Vanderbilt though has gotten insanely hard to get in. Now Vandy is almost twice as hard to get in as Emory (and has higher test scores) so there is “snob” value in Vandy (and probably actual value vs. other Universities due to their remarkable student body if nothing else). And Vandy is reputed to have “happy” students. But Vandy is off the table so the choice seems to boil down to old U vs. Emory. Is old University a disaster for your major?</p>

<p>Although your circle of friends will be different in graduate school, and likely more focused on those from your program than it would be at Vandy or Emory undergrad - grad school can be a lot of fun since you are doing what you REALLY want to do full time (hopefully) and some of the smaller schools have a lot of school spirit and housing for grad students (rather than pushing them off campus where they are more isolated).</p>

20

<p>Atlanta is a great city, and Emory is always in the news due to the CDC being located next door and the joint work. It’s a beautiful campus in a great part of town. I’d dive in! Don’t look back!</p>