Is Vanderbilt set to rise up the US News Rankings soon?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
21

<p>Vanderbilt doesn’t have anything like Duke basketball? C’mon now. How about a #1 ranked baseball team and a football team predicted to have 10+ wins this season in the SEC. That ain’t bad. Duke’s basketball team is widely known as the most hated team in all of sports.</p>

<p>I think you’re exaggerating the gap here. The schools are not longer very different in academics and reputation, and Vanderbilt in fact surpasses Duke in some areas. Saying Vandy is to Duke as Columbia is to Harvard is either an overstatement of Duke or an understatement of Vanderbilt… I don’t see any compelling reason to rank Vanderbilt above Duke currently but that is definitely subject to change in the next 10 years.</p>

22

<p>I think it will eventually change (as in, how these two are viewed in comparison to each other), but I feel many are putting too much stock into things such as the incoming class statistics as something that completely changes the caliber of an institution (beyond a certain point it does not). There are many places that have similar incoming class statistics to both and are still ranked lower than Duke (and some places higher). Also, this mention of the prestige of the sports team seems relatively irrelevant. That will get you name recognition and lay prestige, but will not necessarily increase the overall caliber of the institution. An increased endowment and insane research contributions will. Also, many Ivy Leagues have a lower “quality of life” than many schools ranked below them. This stuff merely attracts more students to the school, but again, seems not to really change the caliber and perhaps the culture of the institution (and many things that contribute to the USNews rankings). The administration and perhaps the students themselves have to. Seems like this change lags SAT scores, so honestly, I would give this some time. For example, if you were to compare Princeton and say, Duke, they have similar student bodies now, but the institutional caliber and intensity is viewed as very different (that’s not to say many would not like Duke better, but it’s to say you expect different academic experiences at each. For those that don’t care for the intensity, and would rather have the pure “work hard play hard” environment, you would easily choose Duke over Princeton, but if you want the more intellectually and academically intense environment and are able to still “play” in your spare time, then many will choose Princeton.) though Duke is way closer than where it was before. It’s kind of like noticing how most institutions don’t really change (or it takes a while) the caliber of academics offered despite incoming statistics constantly climbing (I would imagine that this is one of the steps to adjusting institutional caliber). Instead, with few exceptions, the level of the academics stay the same (doesn’t really matter how many renowned professors you bring in, it won’t make a difference in the rigor) so the grades just increase and I’m sure incoming students are sometimes less challenged by the cirriculum than previous classes. </p>

<p>Also, I imagine there is a reputation difference (internationally at least, nationally, I supposed it has closed a lot, but Vanderbilt I imagine has a better reputation than Rice, and I don’t really know if that makes it a better school, even if Vandy’s SAT scores are higher now), but I don’t know about academics.</p>

23

<p>

That, along with a couple of other statements you make, smells like crap to me. I am sure Duke does perform incredibly well. So does Vandy. On what do you base this statement?</p>

24

<p>Bernie, many of us are also putting stock into the school’s development and mentality (hiring new professors, outpouring of medical research, building new facilities and renovating old dorms, etc). Just saying there’s more to it than a stronger applicant pool.</p>

25

<p>Yes, but many institutions near Vanderbilt are just as successful at those things. Even Emory is and it is suffering a huge PR and admissions crisis (actually more like an identity crisis, but I feel this “crisis” is probably necessary to figure out where we want to go). I guess one thing about the research contributions is how innovative/high risk it is (as in, is it something groundbreaking that could lead to say, a nobel prize). Having an institution willing to take on a lot of faculty who engage in so called “high-risk” research and do so successfully is important (as in you can crank out a lot of it, but it needs to be cutting edge and stuff they may move a field in a new direction). Another way is to simply poach faculty who are already well-established. </p>

<p>If concerned about the undergraduate trajectory, One should also take a look at the curriculum of various entities and see what can be done to enhance them. Lots of elite institutions seem to believe they already have the educational part right (as in, what we’re doing now is just perfect. Needless to say, the better ones keep re-evaluating and even changing it. I think Duke may be one of these places based upon some things I’ve read. Vandy may be also, but Duke publicizes changes in its curriculum via their website and stuff), and just need to build better facilities and hire better faculty and in the case of Research 1 universities, make great research contributions. Unfortunately, it takes more than hiring new faculty and having new buildings to do this (often new faculty members will just fall in line with the status quo of academics at the place. </p>

<p>As for Ph.D success. Duke has been getting a lot of success in placing its graduates in Ph.D programs at a similar level to top 10 undergraduate research institutions. I think this is somewhat representative of the environment there. I don’t know how truly intellectual it is, but I know that an institution can easily, for example, change or re-evaluate its STEM curriculum so that it is more appealing for students to pursue grad. school instead of med, nursing, or public health. As in, the STEM curriculum is manipulable in such a way that it can inspire students to want to know more about the area of interest instead of using it for convenience (a lot of pre-health students are biology or neuroscience majors out of some level of interest, but also because of its convenience). And I think an interesting, rigorous, and innovative curriculum can do the trick there (Let’s assume most top 20s have a solid level of rigor and that how it’s manifested is different among them. I could describe this in detail, but I don’t think it’s worth it). I feel as if non-STEM majors are automatically more likely to produce Ph.Ds, but whether or not these depts inspire a lot of students pursuing doctorates is dependent on mentorship in and out of the class room; as in, how much do the professors in these departments engage students, even in non-formal ways (I think Vanderbilt’s Commons freshman complex really helps with this, and I would hope the interactions and engagement persist throughout the students’ UG careers). I know at my school, it was a lot (especially humanities courses, and even many social sciences. Even as a STEM major, I loved these courses) from what I remember so I wouldn’t be surprised to find that most of those pursuing doctorates are from non-STEM depts (I imagine many may be wooed away from MBA programs or law school). I know plenty pursuing them in STEM and I will hopefully be one of them, but most of these students and I followed a different track from most STEM majors who are pre-health (most of us started with a notorious freshman organic professor and its associated special lab sections, and a research based freshman seminar that explored several disciplines and its research methods. We even had to do a signficant research paper and presentation of our choosing and these were usually like 40-50 pages in length, so many of us got to Emory and hit the ground running in terms of rigor and exposure to non pre-health type experiences), and because of this, were kind of “lucky” in terms of being mentored and inspired to pursue science as a career. In general, many STEM faculty are enthusiastic, but are somewhat jaded by the pre-health culture so do limited mentoring outside of class. Given this, simply changing or revamping the curriculum can go a long way so as to change faculty and student culture in this area (and getting more STEM majors to go to grad. school is a way to boost the Ph.D production numbers).</p>

26

<p>"That, along with a couple of other statements you make, smells like crap to me. I am sure Duke does perform incredibly well. So does Vandy. On what do you base this statement? "- Right on.</p>

27

<p>I don’t know about quality of graduate programs that Vanderbilt and Duke send students to, but I’m sure they are excellent at placing people in high places. I just think Duke has much more graduates going on to pursue doctorates, especially in STEM. Unfortunately, the NSF hasn’t conducted another study (the last one, released in 2008 surveyed between 1997 and 2006 and Duke came in 30/50 then. Vandy, along with many other Research 1 institutions were not in top 10). I imagine many selective institutions have made up some ground in the area, but I don’t know if they would enter the top 50 list if another study between say, 2007 and 2012 is done. One can argue that this is because of the pre-professional flavor of the other Research 1 institutions, but Johns Hopkins ranked very high, Duke was there, and so was Cornell (which would be considered a very pre-prof. oriented environment in general). Instead of trying to figure out or disputing whether or not one has more going on to pursue doctorates (especially in STEM areas), I think it’s more interesting to speculate why. How are they balancing what seems like a pre-professional dominated environment while keeping certain people interested in doctoral work at the same time. Sometimes recruitment plays a role. I know that, here, a significant number of the Emory Scholars go on to pursue doctorates and you have some MDPh.Ds as well. Attracting students with similar qualities plays a role. Others also have high scores/stats but would not consider doctorates unless something significant occurs during their UG experience. So, for those who weren’t recruited because because of their tendency toward intellectualism (or those who changed their mind), what happened? Did something/someone within their dept. of interest influence them? Is the phenomenon common at said institution, etc? Doing doctorate work is risky to say the least, especially if economic stability is heavily factored in. What makes students at some places confident enough and passionate enough about their field of interest to take that risk (especially if they did not come in with such a passion)? My question, as a STEM major, is what would make a significant bunch of non-engineering STEM majors step out of the pre-health line while those at other seemingly similar caliber places, in general stay in line with the pre-health crowd. </p>

<p>BTW, the source for this dated study about STEM Ph.Ds is here:
[nsf.gov</a> - NCSES Baccalaureate Origins of S&E Doctorate Recipients - US National Science Foundation (NSF)](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/?govDel=USNSF_178http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/?govDel=USNSF_178]nsf.gov”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/?govDel=USNSF_178http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/?govDel=USNSF_178)</p>

28

<p>Sorry, I made a typo, I meant top 50*, not 10.</p>

29

<p>Fallenchemist, I’m not in the business of making things up. A website called Poets and Quants has compiled lists of the top feeders into elite B-schools. Duke is in the top 3 for Chicago’s Booth school of business, Dartmouth’s Tuck school of business and Columbia’s business school. It also figures in the top 10 feeders to other highly regarded B-schools look it up. Same with HMS, JHU Med and Harvard Law. All this data is publicly available. The WSJ ranked Duke as the 6th best feeder school in the nation to elite graduate schools. I don’t think Vanderbilt made the list. Is Vanderbilt an absolutely spectacular school? Yes, I believe that it is. But it isn’t Duke, and I don’t see it becoming Duke in the foreseeable future.</p>

30

<p>Also, let’s not forget that Duke’s own grad schools are more highly regarded than Vanderbilt’s grad schools.</p>

31

<p>Aaaanyways, Duke aside, there is reason to place Vanderbilt above schools like Notre Dame, Rice, Cornell, John Hopkins, Northwestern, etc. Not saying Vandy should/will be placed above them, but a good argument could be made for the move, and it may happen in the next few years. Some of these schools have been pretty stagnant relative to Vanderbilt in terms of their internal development.</p>

32

<p>For the past several decades Duke had the most academically gifted students in the southeast and they have been successful. But today’s Vanderbilt is not your daddy’s Vanderbilt. Today, in 2013, Vanderbilt has the most academically gifted students in the southeast. It will be interesting to see how they perform.
There are several schools ranked ahead of Vanderbilt that are a bit “long in the tooth”, hanging on by a vine from reputations developed when our grandfathers attended. Today only a handful of universities can get away with only offering academics to students. Today, high school students want everything. They want elite academics, research, social life, school spirit, financial aid, D1 sports, quality of life, a great base city, food, dorms, and a date on Friday night. The schools that can offer everything (AND KEEP COSTS LOW) will flourish.</p>

33

<p>I actually don’t think those places have been stagnant, just saying (I think, maybe in terms of admissions sure, but everything else that makes an institution great, heck no. Many of their strides are perhaps just less noticeable because some are already so well established and have long ago gone through their major boom so to speak). I’ll give another anecdote. Giftedness gets you but so far. I remember a couple of years ago (I’m thinking class of 2011), I was interested in comparing the Emory and Vanderbilt (I was curious at how the peer institution did) in terms of the number of fullbright scholars and other common awards gained junior or senior year (I guess I looked at things like Goldwater and Marshalls as well). I’m pretty sure the incoming stats of Vandy students, just like now, were significantly higher (especially when you take into account our actual numbers). What I found was, the schools were tied (not even essentially, but flat out tied). Along with giftedness, institutional culture has to move with it. Vandy can eclipse many schools in terms of what is considered giftedness, but the question is, when will the performance catch up if ever. Washington University has an extremely gifted student body for example, and has indeed moved up in rankings, but it indeed looks similar to many lower ranked schools in terms of student body accomplishment (though pre-meds that come from there are amazing, I was surprised to find that we apparently sent slightly more students to top law schools in the very recent past. This shouldn’t happen given the statistical gap in the incoming student body. The GPAs and LSATs of our students should be quite a bit lower if you assume SATs and ACTs predict how well students will test in the future for grad. admissions. Somehow the gap closed. How?). I wouldn’t bank on “giftedness” (defined as the incoming stats and the resumes of incoming students) as what will often make the move. Again, I feel the institution plays a role as well in determining how it hone the talent of all the gifted students. It seems some places are indeed better at this. What is Vandy doing now that is different from what it was doing before in terms of honing this talent? And if one is worried about rank, what is it doing that’s so much different from its near peers (in this elite school arms race, it seems all the schools are essentially doing the same thing. At some places, it’s just more noticeable.)? Can one absolutely prove that the schools above it have been stagnant outside of anything other than admissions and “giftedness”?</p>

34

<p>curvyteen - It would be useful if you actually provided links to these sources. Also, b-school alone is not representative of all grad school activity.</p>

35

<p>Unfortunately, I don’t care enough to hunt down each of those links. Maybe goldenboy would be so kind as to oblige you, I’m pretty sure he has them bookmarked somewhere. Alternatively, you could just google it. Eh, what the heck, here’s some thing for you guys to chew on. </p>

<p>NY Times world ranking of colleges based on the input of global CEOs.
<a href=“Education - Image - NYTimes.com”>Education - Image - NYTimes.com;

<p>Duke is 13th.
Vanderbilt is 89th. </p>

<p>Wall Street Journal best feeder schools to elite graduate programs. [Wall</a> Street Journal College Rankings: The Full List and Rating Criteria](<a href=“http://anayambaker.hubpages.com/hub/Wall-Street-Journal-College-Rankings-The-Full-List-and-Rating-Criteria]Wall”>http://anayambaker.hubpages.com/hub/Wall-Street-Journal-College-Rankings-The-Full-List-and-Rating-Criteria)</p>

<p>The elite graduate schools are: Columbia (med and law), Harvard (med, business and law), JHU Med, UCSF Med, Chicago (business and law), Dartmouth (business), MIT (business), Penn (business) and Michigan (law). </p>

<p>Duke ranked 6th in the country.
Vanderbilt was unranked. </p>

<p>Poets and Quants ranking of top feeder colleges to elite B-schools. </p>

<p>For Columbia’s business school: <a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/09/07/top-feeder-schools-to-columbia-business-school/2/[/url]”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/09/07/top-feeder-schools-to-columbia-business-school/2/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Duke is ranked 3rd.
Vanderbilt is unranked. </p>

<p>For Tuck (at Dartmouth): <a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/09/14/top-feeder-colleges-to-dartmouths-tuck-school/2/[/url]”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/09/14/top-feeder-colleges-to-dartmouths-tuck-school/2/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Duke is 2nd.
Vanderbilt is unranked. </p>

<p>For Booth at the University of Chicago: <a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/10/06/top-feeder-colleges-to-chicago-booth/2/[/url]”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/10/06/top-feeder-colleges-to-chicago-booth/2/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Duke 2nd
Vanderbilt 11th (not unranked!)</p>

<p>For HBS:
<a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/15/top-feeder-colleges-to-harvard-business-school/2/[/url]”>http://poetsandquants.com/2011/08/15/top-feeder-colleges-to-harvard-business-school/2/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Duke is 8th.
Vanderbilt is unranked. </p>

<p>Stanford GSB:
<a href=“http://poetsandquants.com/2012/05/30/top-feeder-colleges-to-stanford-b-school/2/[/url]”>http://poetsandquants.com/2012/05/30/top-feeder-colleges-to-stanford-b-school/2/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Duke is 9th (missed 6th by one student)
Vanderbilt is unranked</p>

<p>You get the point. </p>

<p>Let’s take a look at Med school placement data shall we?</p>

<p>JHU School of Medicine 2010-2011:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/som/students/academics/catalog/SOMCtlg1011.pdf[/url]”>http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/som/students/academics/catalog/SOMCtlg1011.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>16 Duke graduates went to JHU for Med school.
0 Vanderbilt graduates made the cut. </p>

<p>Sorry boys. There is a long, long way to go before you get to Duke’s level. Fortunately, you’re looking good to beat Dartmouth in a couple of years! Just take a look at the threads on their forum!</p>

36

<p>I dont see the point of using JHU med as a sole measure as many students often would like to go to Yale, Stanford, Harvard, and even WashU more, despite JHU’s name and it technically being harder to get into. I’m sure that Vandy sends plenty of people to those other places. Also, I would consider how extensive the ranking is. Is it looking at top 50 or only like top 15. It makes a difference. Also, is Vandy a school that has lots of students interested in MBAs. I know Vandy has lots of pre-health and pre-law people, but they also have things like peabody which has an education school. Maybe those at Vandy would rather do things like that for their graduate prof. education? I don’t know. Looking at b-school placement just assumes that a huge portion of all elite colleges want MBAs. I don’t know if this is true or not. Maybe it is, but still…</p>

<p>I mean when you look at the JHU list, that phenomenon could explain why Caltech, for example, only had 1 person there. They probably weren’t sending that many applications (MIT on the other hand, had as many as Duke. Impressive giving their more engineering oriented and extremely intense academic environment).</p>

<p>Also, Vanderbilt had 7 for JHU (candidates for doctorate of medicine. candidate means you got into the program. You are not an MD until you earn it). I don’t know how you got 0. BTW, Northwestern only got 5, and Oxford in England 4. Are Duke and Vandy just vastly better than these places? I mean, I think the JHU thing is irrelevant if you produced the overall rankings already. You can’t assume that students from everywhere who think they’ll qualify for an elite school will want to apply to JHU. They don’t deserve special treatment.</p>

37

<p>Bernie I agree the university must work with the talent it has but as coach K and coach Saban will say, it sure helps to have the best talent. Today 68% of Vandy students attend their first choice (not someone else’s) grad school. My comments are not based on the past. In the past Duke had the best talent and did a great job with it. My comments are based on today’s students and the future.</p>

38

<p>Well then that’s good enough. Unfortunately, some people (curvy teen), would claim that those first choices aren’t good enough. I guess they would claim the same thing for Stanford (which doesn’t rank at the top or even the middle of most of those b-school rankings reported. Reports which appear to use a facebook count as a baseline by the way…). It’s like saying, “if your student body doesn’t apply to and get in these specific places in droves, it’s not as good as X”. Makes no sense as I’m pretty sure places like Stanford and Princeton are generally regarded as better UG institutions than Duke. Seems that Duke students really just love elite professional schools (especially business) more than some other places. I don’t know if that is a good thing BTW. And yeah, I know what you mean, seems that for the most part, the talent is pretty much split among many of the top 20s. It looks like whether or not they end up or even want to go to the places that curvyteen cites for post-graduate studies is a matter of institutional culture. Some places send more people to doctoral programs, places like public health school, decent paying jobs, things like the peacecore, teach for America, etc (and they still go on to become leaders of their interest without going to HBS or “x top school”). Appears some elite schools have much more diverse post-grad interests and aren’t really focused on crowding these elite institutions. I would actually be concerned more about how many people apply to their post-graduate choice of interest and then get in, as opposed to whether it is JHU, Harvard, etc. </p>

<p>I find the definition of elite in the case of the b and med schools is too restrictive. I could understand such restrictions for law as many big law firms will not recruit from places with a certain rank, but a wider range of schools will get you where you want to go in the world of business and healthcare. Heck you need not really even have an MBA or MB to be influential in these areas. There are other avenues to develop talents or effect change in such areas. Would be nice if UG’s knew this. It would lead to more creativity in terms of paths chosen to pursue those interests and likely more interesting accomplishments than “went on to become investment banker” or “went on to become physician”. It would be more like, used business and communication skills to “start biotech company” or used skills in public health and science to “go abroad and help eradicate outbreak and lower cost of treatment for disease in that area”. Seems as if these things were more common among say healthcare and business oriented students of the past. Now it’s more often a quick and safe path. Nothing particularly interesting or mission oriented. Regardless, it appears some schools are better fitted to foster pursuit of the more interesting accomplishments. I would think Vanderbilt having Peabody and a public health school helps it to be one of these places. As nice as Duke’s accomplishments in the “placement” area seem, I would really take such substance into account. If you can have students that go on to more or less change the world without them having to go to such places, then why not? I think this is why places like Princeton and Stanford don’t have to always be at the top of those placement rankings to be understood as amazing institutions.</p>

39

<p>I agree with the Duke fans on this thread that Duke currently maintains a more prominent national reputation than Vanderbilt. I also agree with the Vandy fans that Vanderbilt is a hot, up and coming school, doing all the right things.</p>

<p>I believe the ONLY way for Vanderbilt to move ahead of Duke is to beat them at their own game. (pardon the pun). Both Duke and Vanderbilt have built credible, prodigious academic offerings and reputations, equipping and supplying students with credentials to rival most any elite school in the country. I would argue though that without Basketball, the Cameron Crazies, Coach K, ESPN, Dickie V etc etc, Duke would have been a great, great regional/national school. Not the great National school it is today. </p>

<p>What Vanderbilt has that Duke will never have is SEC football. Saturdays down South. If I were the powers that be at Vandy, I would invest every available penny in ensuring that The recent success at Vandy is a stepping stone to a nationally prominent program. Success in football in the SEC will have multiples of the effect that success in basketball in the ACC had for Duke. If Vanderbilt can become the Duke of College Football they will come…the money, the people, the rankings…build that and they will come.</p>

40

<p>That propels you to a certain level of prestige and popularity, but then you have the issue that Duke has. “How come we have students with ridiculous high stats, comparable with the top league Ivies, but lag these places in terms of intellectual vitality?”. An overly intense sports scene can help or hinder an institution in this regard. I would look at the academics/academic environment first and then figure that out. I mean, one can argue that students don’t really want that much of what is considered traditional intellectual vitality, but the fact that a place like Duke has been adressing the issue means that the institution does view it as a concern, and believes that it is worth improving giving the level of the student body and academics there. They were wondering why the students seeking a more intellectual experience are not matriculating Duke. I also do not really invite the argument that Duke or Vandy students just have a more realistic stance on the role of academic and intellectual life in their future than highly talented students at other places, because to do so would be to claim that the hordes of successful students at such places are simply not as realistic (and they are as successful, if not more than most “fun” peers upon graduation). Somehow students at these place high value on intellectual vitality while also balancing a flourishing social and EC life, even if it is not as “rah rah” as football or basketball. To these students, fun is considered a mixture of quirky types of fun perhaps associated with campus traditions (Housing day at Harvard comes to mind. Also, MIT’s annual celebrations of its housing system appears to be very fun while also being a display of the students’ ingenuity and quirkyness) and general “nerd-like” culture along with more traditional venues. It seems like campuses really flourish and offer something more interesting when they have a very nice mixture of these two types of students. Biasing the social culture toward one or the other through certain means can ruin the chance of striking this balance (Chicago and many engineering type schools are such examples in the more intellectual/nerdy direction. I guess Duke and Vandy would worry about the opposite direction) and actually make for a rather uniform type of student (all seeking a good time and good teachers, and great career prospects. Students at all top schools seek at very least these 2 things, but many also seek a bit more. “Balance” is a very vague term). Places like Duke, for example, seem to be re-evaluating what it actually means to be a “work hard, play hard” school and are wondering if it, in its traditional sense may leave things left to be desired. </p>

<p>Regardless, there is no magic ticket to the top at this point. Everything must be optimized to the fullest if you want to be up there. One can’t concede that one single thing is holding the school back from achieving a dramatic increase in the ranking. Vandy’s doing an amazing job at raising its prestige and reputation. Again though, knowing USNWR, I don’t know what it will do for the rankings. And as always, I wonder what the next step is beyond achieving an extremely talented student body, hiring new faculty, and building facilities.</p>