At the Parents Forum, there is a discussion over a controversial article by a student at Columbia University. I found it interesting. The article made me wonder how much a Vanderbilt experience is similar to and different from an Ivy League experience as depicted by the Columbia student.
http://www.vice.com/read/going-to-an-ivy-league-school-sucks-400
I’d say the biggest struggle at Vanderbilt is the rigor of our courses. Many of us have felt defeated by a particular course or exam, because as this article suggested, students at top 20 schools are just not accustomed to getting less-than-stellar grades. I can definitely see where some of this writer’s sentiments are coming from – on a beautiful campus and surrounded by extremely bright people, you can feel pressured to look happy and put-together even when you’re not. I will say this writer suggests a level of academic rigor/stress that I never saw at Vanderbilt, but it’s still a challenge.
However, unlike this student, most Vandy students embrace the balance Vanderbilt offers and find refuge and camaraderie in our peers. not competition or disdain. I think being outside of the Ivy League is extremely helpful in that regard. Vanderbilt’s students are consistently named among the happiest in the country from student-driven statistics and I haven’t found any reason to doubt it. Just about everyone I know was absolutely devastated to have to graduate and leave Vanderbilt behind, myself included.
It’s of course important to point out that MANY Columbia students find balance there and love their school to death. This is just one student’s experience, though he certainly brings up some issues that are common across many top schools.
Vandy is just as hard to get into.
I think people readjust their standards at Vandy to find happiness, it isn’t given to them. I had to majorly adjust mine, and many upperclassmen I’ve talked to have discussed how they readjust the grades they expect for themselves. They were A students, and just realized that that wasn’t going to happen here for some classes.
In some ways, I feel like Vandy’s difficulty is stifling. I’ve talked to faculty who have outright said that they see so many students who would’ve been great doctors get pushed away from their dreams because of the difficulty of the weed out classes, and I think that’s really sad. But that’s life, I suppose.
I actually have a higher GPA at Vandy than my (UW) high school one at a top private school, and I have worked no more, probably less than in high school. It is all relative to what you are used to.