Fact Checking: Vanderbilt's Amazing Alumni Accomplishments

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
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@Otemachi : The dorm boom (lots of interior renovations of dorms with historic architecture and some new dorms…but all for first years…the school has a knack for making old buildings feel new, but then it is Emory so not much is truly old) ended maybe in 2012, but I think they should reconsider infrastructure because enrollment has increased. They will need to reconsider guaranteed sophomore housing or summon the funds to build another dorm. Next couple of years will be some growing pains as that student center thing is built, but when I went it was far worse (so much construction and since the central campus core is so small, it is very disruptive). By ready I did not necessarily mean quality wise, I meant more like “for their functions”. Like those 4 have very high intellectuality so the model fits well. Just because they have them doesn’t mean it is best for everyone. Many other models of reslife exist to stimulate intellectual engagement I suppose, but the infrastructural changes VU will receive are indeed quite nice. And I think most schools have the same pricing scheme so that is good.

Me…I will be off to Utah in the fall for my PhD and will hear or observe the construction mess from the other side of the country while taking in beautiful city and mountain views from my lab (which is basically on a mountain side…I mean “hill”. Westerners only consider it a hill haha)! lol I will also keep in contact with my old chem. professor to shadily ask how teaching the new courses are going lol (imagine students coming in expecting a standard general chemistry sequence getting a huge dose of organic based reactivity and spectroscopy…I’m sure tutors will make bank). I remain loyal, but I will stick to sipping tea from afar as stuff goes down. I think that will be my friend’s (off to med. school) philosophy with VU.

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@bernie12 good luck with your studies

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@Otemachi
Okay for the others in this thread that do not know, you made this thread before asking the same question. I will reiterate that all of the schools are peers and often deemed IVY EQUIVALENTS ( As I think for the most part they are on par with Cornell at least with incoming stats).
All of these institutions have ares to improve on and different trajectories ( I also said Emory has more potential due to it’s age, endowment, and location)
I will say as a fan of Vandy I think the difference is that Vandy’s incoming stats are on par with Upenn and Columbia, however there graduate output seems to be on par and sometimes below its peers WUSTL, Emory, Rice, and UVA. Maybe Vandy just aims to high, just a guess.

And for the second time (after I corrected you in the first thread) Alben W. Barkley and Emory Undergraduate Alum (that actually graduated unlike John Garner) was Vice President of the U.S.

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@VANDEMORY1342 : Incoming stats are on par with WUSTL and Columbia (means, and honesly comparable to HYPM. If VU is like at 1480something pre-new SAT and HYPM are like 1510, that is not really a meaningful difference…) I guess though the actual IQR looks more like HYPM. I think the reason their IQR can be like the latter yet the mean SAT/ACT slightly off is simply because of what goes in the 25% (an IQR is low information in terms of showing exactly what type of scores many have above or below each quartile. Example law schools: Say they have 160-167 IQR. Could literally be that everyone in the IQR except the endpoints has a 163 but we would never know). Point is, they know how to take multiple choice exams like…most students at a top 20 (shamefully, all of these students may even like taking them :frowning: . The excitement that students even at elites get when they hear that a test is multiple choice or even has MC on it is kind of pitiful).

VU and other schools can aim high, but they need to make sure that their academic infrastructure transforms to serve and activate more academically include students better to reap the benefits. Basically it currently maybe isn’t ready to serve those types as well as some other schools who maybe do not have admit so high. It looks very much like Emory where pretty much only math (I do not count courses like frosh only ochem. This is a super standard option at elites) can serve very top students (one VU poster over in the engineering thread is such a person). The types that matriculate some of those top 10s more critically look at the academics and if they are more ambitious, they expect there to be tons of honors or accelerated options for them even as a freshmen in whatever they want to do (like some Scholar Candidates who are top scholar candidates admitted to say HYP, are the types to ask faculty questions about how they can accelerate or challenge themselves ASAP in w/e department. If they notice that the options are lacking in comparison to the other options, that type isn’t coming. Period. They would rather go elsewhere).

*More about what you have for ambitious students to do (I do not mean ECs) more so than what scores they have. A culture that promotes more students intentionally challenging themselves academically and providing with real opportunities for it early on is super important for not only bringing in the most ambitious students, but for also optimizing their talent and the results they get. Providing nice facilities and great EC opps (all top 20s have this…some are just more stressful that others so students may more or less indulge in them as a result. Again, the ones that excel in outputs have a greater share deeply indulging co-curricular options). I know these schools love to be so “unique” (like quality of life is a unique thing at many “new Ivies”) but it isn’t horrible to look at some peers or aspirational peers to guide some ideas in areas that actually matter in the long term.

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@VANDEMORY1342 Thank you again for your response, dear Emory student. Would you actually READ my thread before posting something silly? I NEVER asked a question, i only listed some relevant statistics to show that Vanderbilt is as good as Rice and WUSTL. Also, I made this thread before posting the other thread on the main forum, so I didn’t correct the erroneous information.
And no, Vanderbilt is not inferior to Emory in terms of student accomplishments. Emory’s medical school acceptance rate (54%) is significantly lower than Vanderbilt (67%). So stop being delusional :frowning:
Finally, nice try equating Emory (or Vanderbilt) to the Ivy’s.

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of matriculants into UVA Law (JD C/O 2017-2019)

Vanderbilt: 21
Emory: less than 15

of MD matriculants into WUSTL medicine (2005-2014)

Vanderbilt: 18
Emory: 15

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@Otemachi : Don’t go there lol (they also never said that specifically Emory was better, but more so that it is technically in a better position to improve mainly because it has more money. I personally do not know, but there is potential) VU has like 1/2 the applicants that Emory has for medical school even if you compare first time applicants head to head, maybe 3/5 or something like that. That doesn’t measure a school at all. JHU has 63% ish. I would still go to JHU for STEM or pre-med despite that percentage because if I don’t make it, something is definitely waiting on the other side. Emory’s 54% rate seems to come from many non-competitive applicants still applying so it seems to be a cultural thing where people apply even when the app. doesn’t look good (it has this rash of chemistry majors, for example, that apply with a lower GPA thinking they will be cut slack). Like, no school should have nearly 300 first time applicants in a cycle. That is just bad. Data without a context is misleading. It appears, for example, that students within the same statistical range at VU and Emory (the magical 30/3.4-3.5) have the same success rate. Also, even with a 54% rate, when you have 365-400 folks applying ( :frowning: ), it means that generally, Emory will send more students to medical school than VU. This may be why in a study about access to elite professional programs (only based on matriculates though) released a while ago, Emory was near the bottom (at like 32), but I do not think VU and WUSTL were there. So it is alright, if you apply when qualified, but Emory should find ways to discourage folks who are not competitive from qualifying (though I am still ambivalent about this, because I feel as if students should be more aggressive in figuring it out, but the pre-professiona/pre-med craze runs deep and Emory and I can tell you that there is a strange amount of students with lots of parental pressure. Folks coming from families where both parents are doctors for example. It leads to some basically making choices that seem irrational to me) But regardless, avoid using med. school admit rates. You would have to know a lot more of what is going on behind the scenes to explain that away.

Like, I was sad to find out that apparently an MIT student needed the same stats as a Duke student to get into ANY medical school. People often cite that the students at MIT may have to put more time into academics which takes time away from other things they need to be competitive (again students becoming less competitive mainly because they chose to challenge themselves at higher levels. Thank you med. school admissions…). I personally do not care, and would again, accept MIT as technically the better school if you want to go to.

Also, hate to say this, but other than branding effects, Cornell and Brown at the UG level are on par with that tier of schools. I know it is hard to get over this idea of ALL Ivies as some magical bunch of schools, but at least two of them are more comparable to most of the lower top 20 schools. Brown does have the benefit of being academically unique in certain ways, but that darned sure doesn’t make it particularly better. Like with my STEM interests, I do not think I could convince myself that theirs are better than either VU, Emory’s, Rices, or WUSTL (though in some ways it is different). Cornell, other than breadth, outside of engineering and physical sciences…cannot give them a nod and claim that they are particularly better though they do indeed have some characteristics of other Ivies that the others ranked around them do not (more accelerated options, but when you look at the paths that the majority takes, the level of the courses and the content is much more similar to Emory, VU, Rice, that ilk…In fact, I would honestly put WUSTL as better than both in UG life sciences, but maybe lesser so in physical). If you remove branding, those two should be viewed as similar caliber. And at the UG, some new Ivies outside

Why UVA and WUSTL? Also that is matriculants! Look at Emory’s data for law schools. Seem many don’t go regardless of being admitted certain places. They do not want to pay: http://staging.web.emory.edu/career/documents/about/outcomes/pre_law_2016.pdf

Pretty good and I suspect many more applicants than VU.

VU students do tend to be wealther, so say they get into Harvard or some top 10 law school and have to do full pay. Which student is more likely to go?

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@bernie12
Yeah Vandy and WUSTL are admitting and Enrolling high stats. Nut outcomes are not indicative of these stats. This IMHO indicates either Vandy and WUTSL aren’t providing the same opportunities as HYPSM (probably the case), or that HYPSM are better at screening for ambition, interested, and intellectual students ( also probably the case). Vandy and to a lesser extinct WUSTL’s supplemental essays are pitiful, and its clear that admissions for these schools are stats based like Caltech/Gtech. I’m not even sure they care much about EC’s. And I would agree that both schools don’t have the infrastructure (not yet at least) for some of these types of students. However Emory seems more inclined to be able to handle them in some departments( WUSTL too).
However for WUSTL and Vandy to be able to ENROLL a 1475 while being southern schools and not one of the Ivy’s, while Emory can only admit a 1475( for the first time ever too) is MIGHTILY IMPRESSIVE.
However, I will say that I think Emory( especially if the rise in stats continue) will yield fairly high themselves, around maybe a 1415-1430 or so which would be around or higher than Cornell, and Brown. This too is impressive because Emory is better at screening for and yielding more ambitions, self-reliant, and determined students than its peers IMHO.

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@VANDEMORY1342 : Simple, you do not admit much below 1500…except in the ED rounds. This isn’t that complicated. If you cherrypick high SATs from the get go, you make a model that predicts which will come. If you admit at a 1530 mean for example, then yes it will slide down there. You just need a model that predicts the high scoring types that will come or maybe not be admitted to schools that still win-cross admit battles. I think WUSTL and VU have a much better grip on which students actually like their types of environments and what types of profiles they typically have. You select as many high scorers meeting that profile as possible. For Emory to pull that off, it would have to be viewed as unique and maybe attract a certain type so that any model they use has more predictive capabilities. Also, to be blunt…you gotta pay up! Gotten spend the dough on the high stats (okay, I prefer just really accomplished or ambitious, super high scoring or naw) folks. Emory doesn’t do that and even if it claims it wants to do it some, it is limited in its ability to do so. Also, if not done carefully, does not matter in the long run.

@Otemachi : Seems like there is some surprising lack of affinity for Duke and Georgetown in 2015-2016 year. Perhaps those folks get into NYU as well (I am not surprised that Emory would have many matriculates to NYU [per year given the demographics). 2014-2015 had more matriculates at those types of schools (as in more ponying up the money).

I also, how wonder how many MDPhDs VU usually sends out. I imagine it being low at both.

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@bernie12 I try to stay polite as much I can, but I don’t like baseless assertions.
Back to the discussion. Real story. Last summer I interned for a U.S. company at one of their Asia offices. During intern orientation everyone had to say where they go to school. One guy goes to Cornell and when he said Cornell every one was like Wow! Amazing! You must be genius. Then I said “Vanderbilt” and still another person said he goes to another top 20 (think Emory/WUSTL/Rice) but there was no reaction at all. There is a significant gap in international reputation between Cornell and VU/RICE/EMORY/WUSTL

Additionally, there is no evidence Vanderbilt discourages low stats people from applying to med school.

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@Otemachi For one it does not matter if this is your first or second thread it still speaks to your insecurity ( Like who cares what foreigners think I know people who go in Cornell with 1200-1230). I did not insult Vandy I actually gave them a lot of praise but noted some of the discrepancy’s between there inputs and outputs. Seems like that struck a nerve with you. In what world is it a delusion to say that Vandy and WUSTL, are not on HYPSM, Upenn, or Columbia’s level despite similar stats. You look silly using data you barely understand and can’t interpret accurately. Then when someone gives you a different viewpoint of analysis you get upset ( again signs of insecurity).
Me saying Emory having more intentional was nothing against Vandy or WUSTL, it is based on trends in admissions, increasing research output , institutional culture, LOCATION, and ENDOWMENT.

Also at the undergraduate level I do feel these schools are on par or very close to Cornell, and Brown so IMHO they are Ivy equivalents( all of them including Vandy lol)

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@Otemachi : That is a branding effect…Ivies naturally have a branding effect everywhere that is hardly indicative of UNDERGRADUATE quality NOW. Many have a notorious halo effect because of the presence (some have fairly legit overseas campuses) and influence of their professional and graduate schools/research infrastructure. If you only want to limit a discussion to branding, you may certainly say that Ivies have a huge edge, but in terms of undergraduate programmatic qualities, it isn’t particularly deserving anymore at least (at least not those 2). They have done a lot to spread their brand overseas for a long time. What do you expect? Once you are good, it is really up to marketing much like how effective marketing to UG students within the U.S. and different strategies bring more apps (though those efforts usually have to be more personalized). Like I wonder if Chicago gets the same reaction as Columbia or all the schools in or near its tier.

I didn’t say VU did, I said that Emory should. I don’t care what other schools do in that arena as long as it works and ensures the best outcome for the student (no that need not always be medical school.
Anything that makes them happy/a good outcome for them if they cannot immediately go to med. school). Also, there may never have to be evidence that any place does it. You simply have pre-health advising be more thorough and recommend different options to folks (whether it be another field or a post-bacc. You avoid having them get the committee letter ready until they have really thought about it…). That is a way keeping it real with Emory students who may not be competitive, letting them know where they stand, what they can do, and when they should do it if not competitive. I was not attempting to mention how VU gets those numbers, obviously a larger chunk of the applicants are competitive, but when you have as many applicants as JHU and Emory…and many will not make the cut, I think at least a soft intervention is probably a good thing.

Chicago used to have a problem there and they changed pre-health advising to make sure advisors told students (even top performers) to apply to a broader range of schools. Many things can be done:

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@Bernie12 Why UVA and WUSTL? Well, because they are both in the top 10 in their respective category, and they are the very few schools that actually list their top feeder undergraduate schools.
Keep in mind that UVA is NOT one of the top five law school destinations for Vanderbilt students in fall 2015 (as shown here https://admissions.vanderbilt.edu/major/Pre-Law.pdf). In Fall 2015, nine Vanderbilt students matriculated into UVA law school. That implies that in fall 2015 more than nine Vanderbilt students matriculated into Columbia Law and more than nine Vanderbilt students matriculated into Penn Law.

https://content.law.virginia.edu/admissions/class-2018-profile

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@bernie12 Okay makes sense but Vandy trying to be more (laughably) intellectually inclined will not work with the students they attract they created a stereotype for themselves.

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@vandemory1342 Who cares what foreigner thinks? Lol in this globalized society where literally every school is increasing their international recruitment efforts I can’t believe you just said that. If this is the mindset of every Emory student then good for us LOL

Your accusation again shows you never read what I wrote. I never rejected your claim that “there is a discrepancy between Vandy’s inputs and outputs.” Rather, I actually acknowledged in my response to Bernie that Vanderbilt’s admission philosophy is simply different from you guys, not necessarily better. What I have been saying all along is Vanderbilt is not worse than Emory.

You inability to read flabbergasts me… are all Emory students like you? And one more time, no I am not insecure. You think I am insecure because you can’t read lol

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@Otemachi I guess whatever makes you fell better, It’s quite clear that Emory is much more global and has a bigger outreach than Vandy. Emory has Health and Medicine, Georgetown has Law, Vandy ??? :frowning: I guess education right?lol

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@VANDEMORY1342 Please. Vanderbilt’s medical school is ranked higher than Emory’s.

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@Otemachi I know, I can read. Its still not something Vandy is stereotyped for so no it doesn’t do much to correct their stats or nothing image. Georgetown Law is not top 14 anymore, but I guarantee that it wont matter as its image and stereotype are intact and intertwined. ( And I did say Health as well)

And on your insecurity this proves my point…
“One guy goes to Cornell and when he said Cornell every one was like Wow! Amazing! You must be genius. Then I said “Vanderbilt” and still another person said he goes to another top 20 (think Emory/WUSTL/Rice) but there was no reaction at all.”
I’ll leave you alone now.

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@VANDEMORY1342 That shows Vanderbilt needs to improve its international reputation. I guess caring about my school is better than you damaging your school’s reputation by showing your inability to read…

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@Otemachi : I am still confused…It didn’t look like as many Emory students (admits at least) were as interested in UVA law (are they supposed to be? They could not want to stay in the south unless they receive significant scholarship (NYU getting a lot of love among admits). Also, VU “feels” more like UVA from what I have heard so maybe students there like it more, so if they get in, they attend) as some other schools in the past cycles or the new one. I still do not understand why the interest in that one or WUSTL when there are many other schools. Those are not the only benchmarks for anything as their yield could typically reveal regional preferences. Also, money plays a huge role in either. I had a friend who got into WUSTL and Duke, and took her behind to Chapel Hill because she and her fiance were NC residents. I had an MDPhD friend turn down Yale for Pitt (both top 20) because he was smart noticed during the interview process that immunology faculty (his field of interest) were defecting to Pitt and other schools. He straight up declined Stanford and Duke interviews. Another friend is at Michigan for MDPhD and he was accepted to WUSTL and Harvard for MD (but of course he wanted the MDPhD so took it). One guy I knew only got into Stanford and UF…he chose Stanford, but I am noticing that not everyone would. Another got MD offer from Duke and went back home to Baylor instead. Who knows what influences these patterns, but either way, you cannot use 2 schools to paint an overall picture when there are like 15 relevant top schools for law, 10-20 for MBA, and even more for medicine.

Also, since you used WUSTL…isn’t 15 to 18 a bit close for school that led in SAT scores quite a bit even with Emory’s inflated numbers (note that WUSTL has more pull from the midwest so maybe if students there get into elite medical schools, they choose WUSTL? Who knows because these places cost a lot of money). The study I referred to was up to 2003, so I suspect that would not be enough to close any sort of gap with Emory or the schools that ranked in the 30s out of 50 on that list. Emory has hurled applicants at those places for much longer and I guess y’all relatively recently started? Other places have been at that aspect for a much longer time and the fact still remains that even with the DRAMATICALLY increased stats, it remains competitive with Emory and that tier. That is a problem. Law School…oh boy. No offense @VANDEMORY1342 , but you know that is a real mess where paying a lot for any school incurs a risk. Decision making there gets messy. You also mention G-town. Its reputation in politics and law is so timeless and haloed that its rank hardly matters lol. Which is why I am so surprised idiots won’t matriculate. Maybe it costs a lot of money. But that doesn’t explain why more would go to NYU. Is the NYU rank really that important because its location makes it extremely expensive to attend. In that case, I could maybe see UVA being preferable to many. Also, there are funny patterns like one year where there were I guess some Harvard Yale cross-admits, but then both went to H lol (I thought Y was supposed to be the Holy Grail of Law Schools).

*Regardless, it is hard to get enough info. on this, because VU does not post enough information. I have my doubts that the patterns are systemic. What likely happens is that there are differences in performance and matriculation patterns per school depending on cross-admissions and stuff. We would need a full picture.

Why have professional school rankings come into this conv? They look different. VU has Emory in Law and Medicine (hasn’t this always been like that?), but in terms of research I think Emory now has the edge in many biomedical/biology categories globally (the medical school cannot carry all of that. The overall global ranking by US News puts them similar with VU at 64 and Emory at 70 and even then it appears Emory is hurt more so by VERY poor performances in a couple of areas while being a bit stronger in other ones, having more top 40 or so rankings and even a couple of near top 10. I think WUSTL is comparable?) And Emory has fields like nursing, public health, and business where it does better or has and VU does not.

Talk of foreigners views are kind of irrelevant in an undergraduate output conv because we mostly talked about opportunities and access for domestic applicants. I still stand by the idea that it is hard to use international reputation to gauge the quality of an undergraduate program today because of traditional halo effects and the fact that often reactions to a school have little to do with the outputs from the UG program so much as the institution as a whole and its historical impact in certain areas.