<p>I have already sent my deposit to Vanderbilt but am beginning to reconsider since supposedly USC is up and coming and consistently improving. I'm also beginning to reconsider whether or not I want to live in TN or LA. I was accepted as a transfer, and I will be a junior. What is the quality of life like at both schools (dorms, difficulty of coursework, career opportunities, etc.)? I am transferring from a NYC CUNY as an economics major.</p>
<p>anyone?..</p>
<p>Vanderbilt has a ton of New Yorkers – you’ll be fine</p>
<p>Vandy is just a much better school than USC, period.</p>
<p>Personally, I would go with USC over Vandy, but that’s just me.</p>
<p>Can someone give me some reasons for their choice?</p>
<p>USC is still a couple of notches below Vanderbilt, which is actually “up and coming” in its own right. Both universities are hot (take this to mean what you will), though. </p>
<p>I would guess that most people who face this dilemma choose Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt has smarter students, a higher faculty-to-student ratio, better graduate school placement, and more prestige.</p>
<p>USC actually recently announced an ambitious plan to raise $6 billion by 2018, but it went public with the news when it was only $1 billion into its campaign. Successful fundraising usually involves raising over half of the desired sum during the event’s quiet phase, so USC is at least $2 billion behind schedule. It seems like they’re desperate, and grasping…</p>
<p>I have heard that professors/students at vandy arent really all that welcoming of transfers. They sort of look down on them. There once was a teacher assigning groups and she assigned at least one transfer to “make it fair”… </p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>
<p>My reasons: For my subjects of study, USC is better; I also prefer CA to TN; and the overall ‘feel’ of USC to Vandy.</p>
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<p>Same. Nasheville isn’t in a particularly safe area if memory serves (but neither is USC.) And i’d prefer the west coast to the south.</p>
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<p>Maybe in comparison to their own regions. Vanderbilt’s main competition in its region is probably Duke, and maybe Rice and Emory; USC has Stanford, UCLA, and Berkeley to compete with generally. But other than USNEWS, Vanderbilt doesn’t really show itself to be more prestigious than USC.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt doesn’t even make an appearance here:</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Number One University in Eyes of Public](<a href=“Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public”>Harvard Number One University in Eyes of Public)</p>
<p>Nor here:
<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/reputation-rankings.html[/url]”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/reputation-rankings.html</a></p>
<p>Where both make an appearance, it’s generally ranked a bit lower, as can be seen here:</p>
<p>USC: 55
Vanderbilt: 70</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/top-400.html[/url]”>http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2011-2012/top-400.html</a></p>
<p>and here:</p>
<p>USC: 76
Vanderbilt: 89</p>
<p>[Education</a> - Image - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Education - Image - NYTimes.com”>Education - Image - NYTimes.com)</p>
<p>So in both national and international rankings on (presumably) lay prestige, research, and reputation, USC seems to have a leg up over Vandebilt.</p>
<p>As far as USC goes OP, it has a big party culture. With the culver city stations on the expo line finally opening up, you’ll have decent access to some of LA’s west side while avoiding traffic. Might not be a bad place to spend 4 years.</p>
<p>Be wary though that, as far as rankings go, USC’s likely to remain stagnant. (the battle at the top 25 is understandably much more fierce.) If USC does surpass Vanderbilt in rankings (i.e. USNEWS) it won’t be without a big fight from Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>I know two sisters who chose between both schools - older one chose Vandy, younger chose USC. Both were happy with their decisions. Personally I’d prefer Vandy as I am not a fan of either LA or the USC campus, but that’s personal preference.</p>
<p>LOL</p>
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<p>How insightful of you Comm15. Why not offer your fund raising prowess to SC? At the ripe old age of 18 I’m sure you know more about it than the development office at USC.</p>
<p>The Vanderbilt area (and most of Nashville) is gorgeous and safe. I would choose Vanderbilt. I know several students who happily transferred to Vanderbilt and had no trouble fitting in. My son actually considered it at one point.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt>USC! Beyphy is just quoting international rankings which have no impact on undergraduate education. Vandy has a higher endowment, more accomplished students, much greater undergraduate focus, and superior graduate/professional placement.</p>
<p>^ the gallup ranking i quoted was national. My larger point was that Vanderbilt seems to have a weak showing wrt research. People can make the claim that having established researchers has no impact on undergrad education, but that doesn’t convince me. There’s something to be said about getting your classes taught with the eminent professors in the field imo.</p>
<p>As can be seen here, Vanderbilt’s rankings are fairly unimpressive outside USNEWS:</p>
<p>[Vanderbilt</a> University - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Vanderbilt University - Wikipedia”>Vanderbilt University - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>USC actually has the higher endowment, but Vanderbilt has a MUCH higher endowment per student than USC does.</p>
<p>Relevent point to the thread: you can get a fine education at either university. I’d go for it.</p>
<p>The area around Vandy is very nice and in many ways Nashville makes for a better college town than LA which is just too massive. For undergrad-Vandy.</p>
<p>@Vinceh, I’m sure that the fundraising department at USC is taking the right steps to make the campaign as successful as possible. My only point was to suggest that their goal seems rather unattainable. I’m not questioning the knowledge of the people whom USC has appointed to run the campaign at all. It’s not as if they should stop the campaign or change policies just because the goal may seem unattainable. </p>
<p>Also, I live in SoCal, and have many friends who attend USC. USC is generally thought of as a desirable college, although its “prestige” is not necessarily related to its academics. It’s not the preferred choice for anyone admitted to both USC and either Stanford, Cal, UCLA, Pomona, or Claremont McKenna. </p>
<p>Furthermore, as noted by goldenboy8784, Beyphy’s information is not directly pertinent. Dartmouth College doesn’t perform well at all on any of the rankings that Beyphy posted, but that doesn’t mean that Dartmouth is by any means an inferior undergraduate institution.
Many of the universities that perform well on Beyphy’s rankings have a lot of name recognition and are research-oriented. USC has more academic staff members than Vanderbilt, obviously leading to a higher volume of research on its part. It also has many more alumni and a world famous college football program, which obviously help its national and international exposure.
By comparison, Vanderbilt is much more of a hybrid institution. It has at least as much focus on its undergraduates as it does on its graduates, and I would actually argue that it concentrates more on undergraduate education than it does on any field of graduate education, with the potential exception of medicine. USC’s experience is much more comparable to that of a state school, as it has nearly three times as many undergraduates as does Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>I think the deal-breaker is the campus. I find the USC campus depressing and dispiriting, with a “gated community bubble” feel and few organic ties to the neighborhood.</p>
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<p>Depends what part of the country you’re in. People not in California tend to overstate what people elsewhere think of UCLA and USC.</p>
<p>My d did a summer program at Vandy. Their dorms are great and the neighborhood is very student friendly. It’s a beautiful campus! We have not visited USC. However, I have a friend whose daughter transferred from USC for several reasons (1. unsafe neighborhood and too hard to get off campus 2. culture shock and intense party scene compared to the midwest).</p>