<p>I think there are only 4 good schools in the south, the others are ****. (Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice, and Emory)----In no particular order.</p>
<p>@ Colleges00701: I would also argue that UVA, UNC, Davidson, William and Mary, Georgia Tech, and Wake Forest are also excellent schools in the south. Academically, I would say they are equal or close to equal to Duke, Rice, Emory, and Vandy and surpass some of these schools in certain fields.</p>
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That’s one of the most important reasons why Duke may be better known. Until recently, Rice had about 5000 students. Also Duke has a much more visible athletic program. I don’t believe there is any significant advantage to one over the other in terms of recognition by employers or grad schools. Both are excellent undergrad institutions.</p>
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<p>Haha, espan2010, I’m your fellow NYer applying to Rice;) I personally like Rice because of the whole residential system there, the proximity to Baylor Medical Center, the campus, and everything someone above has said, but I never seriously thought about applying to Duke.</p>
<p>Colleges00701… I disagree that only DERV (Duke, Emory, Rice, Vandy) are the good schools in the South… Davidson, for one, is great… and so are the top publics such as UVa and W & M and so on and so on… But I just wanted to make one point… recently, a CCer made a good point when he/she said that calling schools like Emory, Rice etc. “Harvard of the South” is more complimentary towards Harvard than the schools being referred to themselves… Each school is different and unique and I think people do great schools a disservice by branding them “Harvard of the __<strong><em>” or like “Yale of the _</em></strong>”</p>
<p>Top Southern Schools</p>
<p>Duke/Rice</p>
<p>Vanderbilt
William & Mary
Emory
Wake Forest</p>
<p>LAC</p>
<p>Davidson
Washington & Lee</p>
<p>Public Research</p>
<p>UVirginia
UNorth Carolina</p>
<p>@alam1:
That’s why Stanford is the “Rice of the West,” Yale the “Rice of the Northeast”, and WashU “Rice of the Midwest” :)</p>
<p>There’s a shirt that was being sold for some time at the Rice bookstore (it may still be there) that I absolutely hated. It said, “HARVARD: 'cause everyone can’t go to Rice!”</p>
<p>Now, there are a few things wrong with this shirt. First, it has the aforementioned problem of elevating Harvard more than it does Rice. But beyond that, it is a grammatical atrocity. It should say, “HARVARD: because NOT everyone CAN go to Rice!” Its current statement says that absolutely nobody can go to Rice, which is obviously not true, because I’m here.</p>
<p>lol swish, that is the worst ranking of the Southern Private schools I have seen… I know we’re on the Rice forums but I think its safe to say Duke is the best school in the South… and that Emory/ Vandy and Rice are pretty close to one another and making a significant distinction between them is pointless… actually I could make the argument that Emory surpasses Vandy and Rice and Rice students could make the argument that Rice surpasses Vandy and Emory… and so on and so on… the three are peers… and LOL, W & M is not better than Emory… I mean cmon, lets at the very least, try to be somewhat non delusional. Unless its your personal preference, which you did not make clear, then those rankings are quite inaccurate and misleading. </p>
<p>lol NYSkins… I dislike shirts like that too… In Mcgill, apparently they have shirts saying “Harvard of the North”… I mean Mcgills great and all… but really? people need to stop with the inferiority complex.</p>
<p>Yeah I agree with alam1.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Rice being such a great school many people haven’t heard of it.
At my school this girl on my track team got a questionaire from Rice asking her to send in her info for recruiting purposes and when she was looking at the envelope she said</p>
<p>“Rice. What’s Rice?”
I was like “You’ve never heard of Rice before?”
And she was like “Nope”</p>
<p>Whereas most people know Duke just because, many don’t know Rice… unless they’re interested in top colleges and/or have taken the time to do some research.</p>
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<p>^^^ haha, we have a similar thing at Emory, but a bit different. A shirt I see commonly on Emory’s Campus is:</p>
<p>“WashU was my safety school”.</p>
<p>Duke is probably more well-known than Rice, Emory, and Vanderbilt because of the following:
- Basketball team and an excellent D1 athletics program
- World-renowned professional schools (Duke Medical and Duke Law)
- Duke is twice the size of Rice
- Duke is still close to the East Coast… Vanderbilt, Emory, and Rice, not so much.</p>
<p>Academically, I think they are all equal, although I believe Duke’s academics are slightly better than any of the other southern schools because of the access to greater resources</p>
<p>alam1-</p>
<p>I think you are the one who has drunk the kool-aid. First I didnt say they were rankings. I grouped the schools as peers. Duke/Rice standout and Emory, Vanderbilt, Wake, and W&M are so similar the difference are negligible. </p>
<p>Upon review, I didnt make this clear but even so, to split those schools apart is truly splitting hairs.</p>
<p>One aspect of respect is the respect of the local population. In Houston, the population was overwhelming respectful and supportive toward Rice students in my time. The sometimes embarrassing reaction to people finding that you are a Rice student is literally, “Wow, you go to Rice? You must be smart”. Parents with several kids through high school often will know the unusually talented kids that did manage to go and how many valedictorians couldn’t. </p>
<p>Duke is a wealthy and elite school. I visited Duke and Durham with my student several years ago seriously looking at schools. I can’t say that my impression of local support and relations in Durham was quite as strong. Based on the extended reaction of the many of the locals and faculty in Durham during the unfortunate 2006 lacrosse episode, some months before we visited, I have more doubt about that local respect and support factor.</p>
<p>swish, if you group Duke as peers with Rice, then Emory and Vandy have to automatically be included because Rice= Emory= Vandy… at the very least, they are really, really close. Duke, IMO, is a bit better academically than the other schools. Are you a Rice student? Saying Rice and Duke are on the same level while not including Emory and Vandy is a quite biased ranking. But, as long as its your opinion, it doesnt matter. Just don’t try to pass it off as fact because most objective measures show Duke>Emory=Rice=Vandy in terms of undergrad.</p>
<p>FWIW, I turned down Duke for Rice, and I know of many others who did the same. Emory and Vanderbilt are not generally regarded as part of the same tier, but this is obviously subject to regional bias.</p>
<p>@alam01: From those that I talked to who really know colleges (my private college counselor, family friends who are professors or involved in academia work, college guidebooks, and all the rankings besides USNWR I have looked while I was researching schools), Rice, in my opinion, is SLIGHTLY more regarded than Emory or Vanderbilt based on this information I gathered. I visited all of these “Southern Ivies” (Duke, Rice, Emory, and Vandy) and got into three of them (didn’t apply to Vandy), so I have some experience with these schools. Bias aside, I’m not surprised that Swish ranks Rice on the same level as Duke, even though I still personally believe Duke offers the best academics in the South (with the Rice and the others I listed previously only slightly behind). If you wanted to really get nit-picky, I would say: Duke > Rice/Davidson> Emory=Vanderbilt. Overlooking these details, Duke, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt, and Davidson are all peer schools, and all of these schools have strengths and weaknesses like any other college in the country. They all offer an excellent education, and you can’t go wrong with any of them.</p>
<p>Emory was my dream school for the longest time, and I was very fortunate to get in. It has a beautiful campus and is in an excellent location. Emory also seems to offer a lot of resources to its undergraduates as well. So, I highly respect Emory.</p>
<p>Oye vey, guys. These are all great schools, and they all have some great professors and some not so great professors. They do have different atmospheres and feel to them, but student academic levels are fairly similar.</p>
<p>stanford can’t join the ivy league. it’s already in the pac 10 :-)</p>
<p>@slik nik… I see where you are coming from but please remember that as tennisfan said, opinions are filtered and are subject to regional bias. If I were using my regional bias, I could easily make the assertion that Emory is regarded as highly as Duke with Rice third and Vandy fourth. But, I will not. This is because in texas, Rice would be most highly regarded. In NC, Duke. In Georgia, Emory. In Tennesse, Vandy… and so on, and so on. That is why, I choose, unlike some other students, to assert that all of them are somewhat peers (as you mentioned, Duke edges out the others). Also, Emory is my dream school and I will be attending next year so I’m happy in the regard. I think Emory would have been a good fit for you but good luck at Rice. </p>
<p>@tennisfan… Emory and Vandy would not be regarded as the same tier because you go to Rice. I’m sure people at Emory like to think that they are above Rice and Vandy. Like I said, it is all regional. Also, I am turning down some great schools to go to Emory (such as Notre Dame, some good LACs)… also, I know one person who turned down Columbia to attend Emory. Does that automatically mean that Emory and Columbia are the same tier? No, it does not.</p>