Is anyone else's kid struggling?

<p>SusieAnne–for the benefit of other prospective students, could you share your other reasons for wanting to transfer? </p>

<p>Best of luck in your new environment. In my opinion, state schools offer an incredible value and attract smart, hard-working, down-to-earth students. My guess is you’ll look back on this decision in a few years and be very glad you made it.</p>

<p>Absolutely!
The major academic reason is that I’ve decided to pursue a Finance degree and possibly a business one with it, and my state school is nationally recognized for some of its business programs.</p>

<p>On the side of more personal reasons, I’ve realized that when choosing schools, I underestimated the importance of finding people who had the same or very similar beliefs as me, and Vandy is definitely lacking. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for every student, but after getting here I realized not only how alone I seemed (not in a depressed way, just my attempts at finding like-minded people spiritually were fruitless. Still trying though, just in case).</p>

<p>And, of course, being 6 hours from home is proving to be more troublesome than I’d anticipated. Part homesickness, part practicality.</p>

<p>Best of luck @SusieAnne to your next school. I hope you will find what you are looking for at your state school.</p>

<p>One of the reasons that my daughter didn’t apply to an LAC is she’s scared that she will not find students that are like her because of their size. I’m surprised though that you didn’t find your “group” at Vandy since it’s a medium size university.</p>

<p>@2018dad‌ I’ve found some people who shared some ideas with me, but I’ve realized that I need at least one person who, beliefs-wise, is near-completely on my page, something I haven’t found here. Vandy, despite it’s place in Tennessee, doesn’t have as much in the way of traditional “Southern values” as I’d thought, and really it’s been hard to find it at all. Again, for some people, this would be a huge draw, and while I can appreciate and like having people with different opinions, I’m looking for more of a balance than I found here. Maybe I won’t find it at my state school, but I have to give it a shot, right?</p>

<p>@SoCalDad2 , I am an engineering major. I repeated courses that I performed very poorly in my first semester Fortunately I came in with a lot of AP credit so I had a lot of free room in my schedule for repeating the courses.</p>

<p>Some students come from schools where they have been stars without ever being tested in the way schools like Vanderbilt test them, and are “exposed”. Others have a temporary transitional difficulty while they adjust to the tougher standards at Vanderbilt.
However, it is time for VU to start grading students the way Harvard etc do, because VU is handicapping its students by its tough grading policies. There are some Profs. at VU who have been known to be almost punitive in their grading, for example INSISTING on handing out a C when a student was within 0.5% of qualifying for a B- (and was basically an A student in almost all of his other courses!). This kind of egotistical and harsh attitude serves students, and ultimately VU itself, poorly. If word spreads that VU has grade deflation, it won’t be long before VU stops winning ANY students in cross-admits from the Ivies/Duke etc. Why would a top student risk a lower GPA at VU when other schools will be much kinder?</p>

<p>Going back over 10 years, S was on the staff of The Hustler his freshman and sophomore years. During one of those years, he introduced me to a young lady who was the editor when we encountered her walking across campus. As we moved on, he mentioned she’d been admitted to a prestigous law school and talked about how the law schools adjust for grade inflation/deflation when you submit all transcripts to the clearing house. He told me Vandy was grade deflated then. I’m making this point because grade deflation is nothing new for Vanderbilt and I know many young people who have survived and thrived despite it (law school/med school/grad school). The university seems to have done pretty well for itself in the last dozen years as well.</p>

<p>^ A fine anecdote. I know Vandy alums at great companies grad school programs too. I’m glad some grad schools seem to take the time out to do adjust for schools. </p>

<p>However, I know that most grad schools and employers do NOT spend that much time adjusting for each individual school and whether they engage in deflation or inflation.
You can even look on Doreways career link at the job postings. When that company in DC states it wants a minimum 3.5 GPA, it doesn’t mean, since you go to Vandy and not GWU, a 3.3 will suffice.</p>

<p>That said, everyone, you can do fine and even well post-Vanderbilt despite its grade deflation.</p>

<p>Bud - this is so wrong it’s unreal. There’s a very well know student doctor website that has advice forums for pre-meds with adcom members monitoring it. They will tell you that there’s very little attention paid to the name of your school with regards to GPA. Nothing even close to .5, that’s for sure. It sounds like you’re giving advice on something that you’re not fully knowledgeable. </p>

<p>Please note my comment was about one med school which I know well and is an accurate statement. I suspect it is not true of others. Your GPA is part of the picture but there is so much grade inflation at colleges and universities a high GPA without a MCAT score to back it up is little help to students seeking admission. While the GPA and MCAT scores predict performance in the first two years of med school the interview, letters, essay, and EC’s do a better job at predicting performance in the 3rd and 4th clinical years and beyond. Med schools understand this and they are placing more weight on these areas of the application. .<br>
My state has about 50 colleges and universities. 75% of the med school admissions, at the main med school in my state, come from only 5 (10%) of these schools. The other 90% of in-state undergraduate schools send only 10% of the admissions (15% come from other out of universities). 30% of ivy grad school students come from other ivy schools and 75% come from top 50 universities. 25% of their students come from the other 3,700 colleges and universities. Coincidence, or does the undergrad school matter? If you want a job on wall street you should limit your search for UG schools to about 10-15 to improve your odds. If you want to go to med school you should limit your search of schools to about 300 or so of the 3,700 colleges and universities. Yes, you can get in from anywhere but it’s about putting the odds in your favor.<br>
That being said, there certainly are data that support grade inflation as being an advantage to students applying to med school and I think Vanderbilt needs to make sure it’s average GPA is on par with peer universities. Your odds improve if you select a well known school with grade inflation and avoid low GPA majors. Your odds are better as a below average student at Yale or Brown with a 3.6 than an above average student at Hopkins with a 3.35 GPA. Your odds of surviving the weed out classes are lower at a university full of brilliant students. Your odds of being able to stand out with a high GPA from a unknown non-rigorous university are lower. If you live between Washington DC and Boston or in IL, TX, CA your odds are better attending a top 50 university. If you live in a small state that does not send a lot of students to top universities your odds are better attending the one of the best schools in your state.</p>

<p>Although GPA and MCAT are large factors in med school admissions, they are many other factors that can lead to the results that you listed. Clinical experience, shadowing, research, interviews. All you’ve done is thrown out statistics and inferred relationships. Also, there is zero evidence that any med school candidates get a GPA bump based on their school, but there is evidence to support the contrary. </p>

<p>Of course, going to Vandy (or any other top school) can give you better access to help with those other experiences needed to get into med school (Clinical experience, shadowing, research). </p>