<p>I am going to be a contrarian and say that I know where the OP is coming from. Vanderbilt is a decent school and all, but isn’t the point of college to escape the shallowness and cliqueness of high school?</p>
<p>If we’re talking about Vanderbilt’s academic (anti-intellectual) environment, I can see why the OP might think that it is “overrated.” Just my humble opinion.</p>
<p>"you mean highly regarded by academia, but not in real life?</p>
<p>if so, all the LAC’s. they’re all phenomenal, and i’d be incredibly impressed if i met an amherst grad…but take that degree anywhere across the country and most of the uninformed public would have no idea what it was."</p>
<p>Fortunately, the “uninformed public” is rarely responsible for making hiring decisions at the sort of companies that Amherst grads apply for jobs at.</p>
<p>Again, speaking from the West, with a B.A., J.D., and job at a top national law firm, I had heard of Amherst, but wasn’t sure whether it was a college or a prep school, and had never heard of Emory, Rice or WashU until much later. This was several decades ago, however, so with the internet, etc today people may be more knowledgeable about these schools.</p>
<p>dimsum123, if that thread was all I knew about Vanderbilt, I would agree with you. Believe me, if I had supernatural powers, that thread and some of the posters would be sent to an alternate universe.</p>
<p>It is not representative of Vanderbilt, or at least not the students I know there. </p>
<p>I don’t peruse the college forums of a lot of schools, but I would think negatively of several schools that get big attention on CC if I believed that a few posters represented a whole school.</p>
<p>EDIT: why do you think the OP is so concerned about intellectualism?</p>
<p>Of course, I don’t believe that the thread is representative of all or even most students at Vanderbilt. However, 40% of the Vanderbilt student body is involved in Greek life; so the thread probably represents at least a significant segment of the school population. The thread has been up and running for nearly six years, so it isn’t likely the work of a just a few outliers.</p>
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<p>I do occasionally. And I haven’t seen anything like it in other school forums.</p>
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<p>I don’t know for certain. That’s why I said: “If…” S/he does seem to be hinting at fame or prestige. And for better or worse, Vanderbilt is not known for “intellectualism.”</p>
<p>Vanderbilt’s a great school with a reputation that spans pretty far because of its med school. If the OP has researched colleges at all, s/he would have heard of it. </p>
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<p>If the OP lives far from the South and attends a school where most people attend state schools, there’s no reason he would have encountered Vanderbilt just in conversation. But had he done some research about good schools, it would have come up sooner or later. Research is how I discovered UChic, Pomona, Middlebury…all great schools without much prestige in the South. Most people from my school go to Chapel Hill, and their knowledge of schools extends to our neighboring states.</p>
<p>As for “real life,” the general public I’ve found to be generally ignorant of LACs and UChic.</p>
It’s funny you say this because Greek Life is a lot less cliquey from my observations than the Chinese, Indian and Korean social communities. Members of Asian social circles judge others by their perceived intelligence, job/internship placement and grades in addition to factors such as wealth, beauty and perceived social status which are typically used as measuring sticks by fraternity/sorority members as well.</p>
<p>Is it really more stigmatizing to poke fun of someone for not being as attractive/popular like they may or may not do at Vanderbilt as supposed to mocking someone who doesn’t attend a prestigious university or doesn’t intend to be a banker/lawyer/doctor/consultant like we do here on CC?</p>
<p>lesdiables – you sorta crossed a line there. Inasmuchas Greek houses are populated by members of various religions and ethnicities, passing value judgements on the Greek system does not venture into racism/culturism. When you called out specific ethnicities, you did.</p>
<p>There is no high school student in the country with enough experience, sophistication and worldliness to talk intelligently about what schools are well known or well regarded. The lunchrooms in high schools are not bastions of knowledge. Nor do most of them know anything beyond their region of their country and what mommy and daddy have told them.</p>
<p>schools that are highly regarded on this forum but not in real life?</p>
<p>A few I never heard of until college - Washington university (I thought it was the same thing as the University of Washington lol), any of the top LACs, Rice, Emory, UChicago (well I didn’t know it was an exceptional school), Tufts… the list goes on.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean they aren’t well regarded in real life. It just means that as a high schooler, you pretty much know just your own backyard and your own “tribe,” and you don’t have the sophistication to be aware of experiences and beliefs outside your little world. I assure you every high schooler in St. Louis knows about WashU and thinks very highly of it, and few have heard of the schools that might impress you. Which means – what? It just means that it’s all regional. Too many high schoolers on CC make the assumption that their region of the country is the only region of the country that counts.</p>
<p>I would say that, in general, the large publics - particularly Michigan - get a lot more esteem here than anywhere else. To be sure, these are excellent schools, and perhaps in some sense, CC gives them what they “deserve” while the general public does not, but most people don’t give anywhere near the same level of respect to the large publics as they do to equivalently ranked privates at the undergrad level. On CC, though, these schools get talked up endlessly.</p>
<p>Again, I’m betting you are from the east coast to say that. It gets plenty of respect out here in the midwest from “most people.” </p>
<p>Look, I’m taking my (midwestern) kids to Tufts in a few weeks. A great school, but few people out here know about it. Doesn’t mean anything bad about the school, just that it’s all regional. The mistake that’s always made on here is this assumption that the familiarity levels everywhere reflect your neighborhood / area.</p>
<p>^Tufts is a good one. People think it’s a joke because of its name.</p>
<p>And I also disagree about state schools. Chapel Hill, UVA, Clemson, NC State, USC (both South Carolina and Cal) are popular choices down here, with UNC usually taking kids who don’t have the financial means away from schools like Duke, Haverford, etc.</p>
<p>It’s pretty obviously I’m from NY from my username isn’t it? But either way, I’m not trying to insult the great midwestern schools. I’m just saying that everyone in the nations has heard of most, if not all of the ivies which are all over here on the east coast. It doesn’t go the other way around so much.</p>
<p>"I would say that, in general, the large publics - particularly Michigan - get a lot more esteem here than anywhere else. </p>
<p>If anything, you have it backwards. It’s the smaller private schools, particularly WUSTL, that get a lot more esteem here than anywhere else. To be bluntly honest, if it weren’t for it’s high ranking at USNWR relatively few people would even be aware that it exists.</p>