<p>I’m not sure if mpalab is a Duke lover. But it appears true that some Dukies are saying quite negative things about Vandy all over cc. Sometimes it seems to me they’ve become extremely jealous. I wonder if Vandy lovers do the same to Duke. Duke and Vandy are two top schools in the South, so couldn’t we expect more civility in their rivalry?</p>
<p>My son’s COA was $64k with first year engineering fees. It would also be true for someone with higher travel expenses.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t worry about rivalries. It’s actually kind of “cute”. The schools are similar in admissions (okay, most top 20s are now, but these 2 are in the south), but probably still have some major atmospheric differences (because of demographics, administrative differences, and structure) and similarities (Greek life and sports success contribute well to social culture, freshman villages/res. areas, stuff like that. Similar enough such that it’s still the biggest competition in terms of cross-admission and perhaps enrollment) that make things ripe for rivalries. It may honestly kind of be like Yale and Harvard when you think about it (accept that they also have or had an intense sports rivalry too). Although, outside of caliber, these two seem to differ quite a bit (honestly seems like Princeton and Yale are perhaps more similar atmosphere wise, though all 3 are quite intense academically). </p>
<p>At least you guys will get to have a legit rivalry (or will eventually develop one, especially since it’s kind of clear that the schools are similar). It’s not like it’s always a bad thing.</p>
<p>Rivalries could build up tradition and become mutually beneficial. My feeling is that many Dukies became very jealous because Vandy was not its rival in a real sense, say, ten or fifteen years ago, but its reputation and prestige have skyrocketed to the point of threatening Duke’s. I wonder Duke still has the upper hand in terms of cross admission/enrollment. I am just curious.</p>
<p>I don’t think Duke is threatened to be honest (I don’t really much care for it and couldn’t imagine having attended there, but I definitely respect it, it’s damned good), even if its undergrads may think so (I don’t know why undergrads freak out when admissions trends change. No one seems to think about whether or not the changes result in the schools doing things differently academically, which they should, if they think the higher caliber students can handle it.) One has to be careful to not confuse the undergraduate admissions with the overall caliber of the institution. For example, many places are now similar in caliber with Harvard admissions (includes Vandy, Duke, WashU, lots of places) wise for undergrad, but in terms of academic caliber and reputation, many can’t really hold candles to it. Caliber and true prestige are more driven by research impact and strength of graduate programs. Duke, Vandy,and even Emory actually have several graduate programs which are dead even (especially in the biological sciences. Rice kicks blows us all away in chemistry and many engineering and technology related areas), but Duke is performing better (perhaps much better. They do extremely well in world-wide rankings) overall (it has nobel prize winners and the like on staff). It’s often to easy to look at admissions and say “they’re catching up”. Maybe, but admissions can’t really tell us this because a lot of development in “prestige” has to do with administrative factors that lead to the hiring of higher caliber faculty, stronger non-prof grad. programs (prof. schools at most top 20s are already really strong) and the like. </p>
<p>For example, Berkeley is honestly more similar to Harvard in terms of prestige than are most top 20 private schools, and this can’t be denied. The same can be said for places like Chicago (which also remains unusually solid at the undergraduate level. As in, the caliber of the academics matches the students). What seems to be happening a lot is that admissions caliber is outpacing the actual caliber of the institution (though there are some cases where it was “catching up” like Chicago and JHU). </p>
<p>I would just watch and see for Vandy if there will be any shifts in ways that things are done at the UG, grad level, and faculty level that may indeed pose a threat to the other high caliber schools. Simply admitting amazing students doesn’t do it (the question is, once you start getting more statistical talent, what to do with it other than the things that will obviously result such as better grad/prof. school admissions success. Having better test takers will automatically yield this result no matter what the school does). Lots of places have that. The “hot” thing now is adjusting science curricula and pedagogy in highered (likely catalyzed by the changes coming to the MCAT) and places like Harvard (has its whole integrated science curriculum which appears amazing…but they of course have a lot of money), Yale, and Princeton (and many top publics I think) are on the move (actually these 3 have been on the move for a while). I don’t really know how Vandy does in this particular arena, but I’ve seen some of Duke’s course materials and can say that, especially for biology, it’s really, really good (very comparable in level to many of the schools up there in the top 10). It is possible that this pattern (science and non-science. I’ve heard UG and G econ. at Duke is excellent) persists throughout other departments, and thus Duke could be different academically from many schools that appear similar on paper (admissions). It’s hard to tell with limited to no coursework comparison, but if it does exist, it can explain any edge they have over many other schools.</p>
<p>As for yield battles, I imagine Duke may still easily win (maybe by nowhere near as much with certain demographics) if only because of its rank. However, they apparently have lots of cross-“admits”. </p>
<p>Regardless, always interesting to monitor what the south’s Big 4 privates are up to (unfortunately mines screwed up in the admissions arena, but has much more going for it. Actually quite an exciting place to be in terms of growth and change, though some of the departmental cut issues are strange in my opinion. Rice always has cool things happening). They all seem to be doing relatively well, especially considering how much residential education in highered is being critiqued now-a-days.</p>
<p>It’s not hard to see why there are so many cross-apps/admits between Duke and Vandy as they are 2 of the worlds best universities. They offer their students a more balanced college experience than most of the other top 20’s. But I must admit it is fun to poke the Dukies from time to time.</p>
<p>Well, it’s admits. It makes since because both are in the south and are similar. As posted in another thread, the cross-admit thing may just indicate that places just like to admit the same students now. For example, it said that Yale and Vanderbilt now have many cross-admits between them. However, these two are different. As grade inflated as Yale is, it’s still more about academic intensity. And regardless of this, many students (probably a majority) will still choose Yale, because many students with the types of credentials to be admitted there actually enjoy that sort of intensity and expect the “balance” to fall in place. I expect more cross-apps between Duke and Vandy than I do between Vandy and Harvard/Yale (though most students of high quality and want to these types of ivy league are smart enough to apply to the others). Yet, as statistics show, I expect all 3 of them to admit the same students from those cross-applicants. Again, while I think they are all getting applicants with similar SAT scores, I think Harvard and them are just getting different types of these students apply that more so reflect the unusually strong points in their undergraduate program (the sciences for Harvard, especially chemistry, biology and physics which explains why they grab huge amounts of the international sciences/math olympiad winners. Yale is excellent too, just probably not as great as Harvard here, but is great in the humanities and social sciences and will attract people very into their English and economics program for example). Those types of places just tend to attract people really serious about particular subject areas (I mean how else can you be Yale and get enough students in a physical chemistry course as freshmen, and Harvard get 10 or more freshman basically taking a freshman math course higher than graduate courses at most universities) that the schools excel at whereas places who often consider the southern institutions apply for the “overall experience” more so than anything else. If you switched many students in these environments, they would probably think the other was insane.</p>
<p>Although I wonder if these differences come from the fact that places like Harvard and Yale require SAT II subject tests (I believe like most Ivies, they require 2). It’s basically another opportunity to “strut their talents” beyond AP exams in their potential area of concentration.</p>
<p>Some schools have a reputation of being intellectual, some have a reputation of being party schools, some schools have a reputation of being stoner schools … but every school has many different types of students, and the majority of students will eventually find a niche to settle into. Even if Vandy is not “intellectual” - not saying it is or isn’t, though - you would certainly be able to find others who are into what you are into. It’s a big enough school that there are lots of different interests among its students.</p>
<p>My D never felt Vandy was her perfect fit, but she got an excellent education, was involved in some great leadership activities, had a radio show, interned at a record label and a music management firm, and had a group of friends who were interested in the things she was interested in. All in all, she is glad she went to school at Vandy. She was especially glad when she got a great job!</p>
<p>Bernie, I wonder how long the “grade inflation” universities will be able to maintain the facade of academic intensity, rigor, and intellectualism. At some point reputation will give way to reality.</p>
<p>Well, as you know, all of the institutions we attend do it. I come from a STEM perspective (I rather speak from that perspective since the humanities and some social sciences have gone so far beyond repair) so the differences in grading between institutions is actually kind of annoying. I wrote a post on that conference (on Harvard’s inflation) on the main page concerning this issue. Unfortunately, if I were to compare either us (Emory) or Vandy to say,…Yale or Brown, the difference is even more ridiculous (these are the schools that curve difficult classes to B+/A-). If we are to have a grade inflated model, I think I agree moreso with Harvard (grades about the same as Duke, Northwestern, WashU, Rice, etc. Us, Vandy, and JHU, Cornell, and MIT often grade a little lower). Based on what I’ve seen from course websites and the like, Harvard has very high rigor in the STEM (content/workload wise) category for the most part; as in probably significantly higher than either us, Vandy, or like at least 1/2 of the top 20 institutions (it honestly isn’t too much different from MIT to be blunt, just more lenient grading), so I can maybe see Harvard curving to “B” for most difficult courses whereas we will curve to “B-” for courses that challenge our (either Emory or Vanderbilt) students (not going to lie, and I hate this reality, but in general, most of the courses do not have the same expectations, especially at the introductory level. Like I said, the only thing I know of that is for sure comparable or greater than a Harvard course is our organic chemistry sequence. There may be some physics, biology, or neuroscience courses that teach at a similar level, but in general it just isn’t. Based upon what I’ve seen reading syllabi and the course websites I stumbled across, Vandy seems to be of similar caliber to places like Emory overall with each of us edging each other out in some fields, but in general not anywhere near as intense as HPYS and them content/expectation. And this is okay, because it’s still at a very challenging level comparable to most high caliber institutions and at least the grading is more realistic. It’s just not like those places. We may compare better with Cornell for example). </p>
<p>The problem comes when you have places like Georgetown and Brown, which are probably only as rigorous as we are deciding that they want to award an average of B+/A- in classes that are either lower or of the same rigor as say, the Vandy, Rice, Emory, or ND counterparts. It’s all very arbitrary to some point and it’s clear that some institutions like Brown, Yale, Georgetown, and Stanford (I believe that their STEM education is around the same level as Harvard or Princeton’s, but they grade inflate far more than either of these) are cheating. I see how Stanford and Yale get away with it, but Brown (grades like Stanford and Yale…yea, because the level of coursework and intensity of the students is even close to either) and Georgetown…come on. </p>
<p>We can get away with what happens in humanities with the “they’re just so smart” argument because students are indeed very smart and grading is subjective. It’s difficult to give “real” grades in the humanities when you have a bunch of students aiming for law, med, and MBA programs who have been told up until then that they were writing at the level of an A college paper in high school (somewhere, but not necessarily in context of the standards you would expect at a selective institution). I imagine a significant portion of those taking humanities courses at selective institutions write exactly the same as they did in HS and get either the same or even higher grades. I’ve had some lenient teachers where I got good grades on stuff I know I would have done poorly on in HS. Grading in some of these depts clearly seemed “political”. I actually wanted to improve my writing so I started taking instructors known for higher standards (or at least those who gave substantive feedback. Often the teachers that give A’s like water usually do not give good feedback, which tells you something). But in general, grading is so fake in those depts. and students can easily predict who gives A’s like nothing. There are, for example, some English courses that get nothing but pre-meds trying to fullfill general requirements because those are the pre-meds that “don’t like writing” and know that the instructor is easy (weirdly enough, in our English department, these types of instructors are not as common. Many of the courses are extremely rigorous, and if you think you’re a great writer, will serve to humble you. I have a UG friend who is a creative writing major going through this right now). Anyway, as much as we love to deny it (students and even some faculty), inflation exists, no matter how “smart” we all are. </p>
<p>Some depts (and even whole schools) goal is not to really make us better by telling the truth and helping us improve more so than to attract us and keep us happy. Apparently, that’s even more important than making us even better at things we may have the potential to become great at. Some schools take this approach to the next level by saying “if you come here, and are not as great as your credentials said, we’ll protect you more than that other school”. Basically, they just assume that the students are already great and not much should be done beyond that unless the student themselves seek out further betterment. It’s a lovely model! Apparently it’s been working. I mean, prof. schools just up their admissions standards such that students are more encouraged to “play it safe” and take the intellectual low-ground. This has all worked together to create environments ripe for fulfilling undergraduate educations (especially at less inflated institions). No need to wonder why ECs are the absolute priority of most when you are basically forced into avoiding academic challenge as much as possible.</p>
<p>I would disagree that Vanderbilt is not an academically stimulating environment. I would argue that we have the best social scene in the top 20; we absolutely party more than any of the Ivies. However, most people here genuinely want to learn. Just this weekend I was at a party where we went from shouting and doing shots to a conversation about anthropology and similarly evolved traits in humans and chimpanzees. On Commons (the freshman housing), the Dean hosts dinners several times a week with guest speakers from the university and beyond about any topic you can imagine. I went to one with David Maraniss last year where we discussed conflict in the Middle East as well as the effect of the Tea Party on Republican politics. Right after Thanksgiving break I went to a lecture by Joe Scarborough about how to correct the trajectory of the Republican Party. My best friend and I flip between conversations about Lady Gaga and discussions of English Literature. The desire to learn and to discuss is well laced into our culture.</p>
<p>One of the other things I love about Vandy is that students are not terribly competitive with each other. The types of horror stories about keeping assigned books or destroying them so others cannot use them that occur at other universities just don’t happen here. We all want to do well, but nobody cares who has the highest GPA. As long as we’re all passing, it’s basically shots and intellectual discussion. </p>
<p>Overall, I’d say that Vandy has the best of both worlds (Sorry, Miley jokes are inevitable as I’ve spent too much time with the Melodores after their Melocyrus concert). We have the academia of the top 20, and the social scene of the big state schools. If you only want one or the other, you can still have a great experience here. If you aren’t sure, or you want a taste of everything, Vanderbilt is certainly the best place to be.</p>
<p>Those things don’t actually happen at most (if any) of the other top universities (those are mainly myths that perhaps just allude to the intensity of the academics and perhaps some of the students there. I think it’s more like a “one-up” culture moreso than “bring other people down”). Though business schools (BBAs) can be quite competitive because most curve (as in, not curve after a low exam score, just a fixed grading distribution, so course grades can be curved down). They’re probably just more competitive by nature of the types of students they have and the fact that academics in some fields at many of these places is very hard from an objective point of view (as in, even if you feel challenged by the curriculum at your current school, you would look at theirs and go Whoa!). </p>
<p>As for parties, there is Yale and Cornell (Cornell is known to be “depressing”, but is also known to have a fairly intense stereotypical social scene). Also, amazing how “social scene” caliber is defined by parties at some schools. Places like Harvard and those on the more organized “house systems” have very intense social scenes (like the houses are known for holding different types of parties/events that give each place its own flavor. One is known for it’s bathfoam parties…) that aren’t really stereotypical in that context and yet would be considered very fun (especially in light of the intensity of many such places). In addition, since those schools just tend to be more “nerdy”, some interesting elements can be added to the social scene (Harvard and MIT have their housing day/week events. MIT is known for the “hacking” that led to getting a fire truck on a building. Many Ivies and LACs are known to have the almost spontaneous plays and performances that take place in a courtyard. All of these are student generated traditions. In addition, I think these places may be known for higher attendance of UG’s at events like seminars and the like if you wanna talk academics) that are less stereotypical (like that stuff going down at a party is very common at any school with lots of smart people). It just gets much more creative at some institutions than others, especially outside of the party scene. It just depends on what you’re looking for. Some places just have much more intellectualism and a shameless “nerdiness” or “quirkiness”, interwoven into their social scene. I wouldn’t bash them for it or say that they are less robust or “worse”, it’s just different (I doubt you’ll go to HYPS and be more bored than you would elsewhere, though you would likely be more stressed out). To each their own. As you suggest, the scenes at such schools could simply be “too much” especially if they seek a more stereotypical experience. But again, that’s just it, I would call them “less stereotypical” social scenes (if they are being calibrated vs. public schools, which isn’t even fair considering that Greeklife and sports at some public schools is much more visible/influential than the academics. What top 20 can or should be claiming that? None!), not less good or intense.</p>
<p>I do not believe the place of college education really matters, and I honestly do not think that there is much difference between Harvard undergraduate education and that of a respectful public school in terms of their impact on students’ intelligence and talent. I may be wrong, but I am increasingly convinced that people come to have a successful career primarily because they are smart and talented regardless of college education. Many Harvard graduates have been successful, not particularly because of the education they received in Cambridge, MA, but rather because they were smart from the beginning. Of course, there are many other contributing factors to success, like family backgroud, college resources and prestige, alum network to name some, but I think they are marginal compared to fundamental intelligence and talent. Top colleges do not and cannot monopolize talent. That is why there are super smart and super talented kids at “lesser” colleges and they can still have an extremely successful career. </p>
<p>Vanderbilt has very recently become one of the “smartest” colleges in the nation. The profile of Vanderbilt’s Class of 2017 is as good as, if not better than, Duke and some of the higher ranked colleges. This means that Vanderbilt’s future graduates will be as successful as, if not more than, Duke’s, not particulary because of Vanderbilt’s improved education or reputation, but because they are fundamentally as smart and talented as the Dukies. So I believe that the single most important thing for a college’s success is to recruit smart and talented students. Some eilte colleges have not been as successful as Vanderbilt in terms of attracting top students. Emory, for instance, has, for whatever reason, had difficulty with undergraduate admissions. I am sure that Emory’s education and resources are as good as Vanderbilt. But if Emory continues to fail to attract top undergraduate students as Vanderbilt does, it will not be able to compete with Vanderbilt in terms of reputation and prestige very soon. The problem in undergraduate admissions will be a lot more harmful in smaller private colleges than large public colleges that can maintain their reputation by world-class graduate programs.</p>
<p>Emory was never good at marketing (still isn’t I don’t think) and has almost always trailed the other schools (it also plays it safe in admissions instead going for the absolute best students. I guess it’s too focused on protecting its yield). Yet a 1400 median (what we have now) isn’t bad, and I don’t think it matters that much (and it shouldn’t, because beyond like 1300, you should be competent, and the curriculum should be made such that students with higher scores shouldn’t have much of an advantage. As in, there should not be much regurgitation/algorithmic type of exams and assignments that benefit great multiple choice test takers overwhelmingly. Ideally, you want even many of the very top students sweating, which is what some places are great at), so much as how interesting the students are (do they jump through hoops or do they “go big”. For a school with the lower SAT scores, many Emory students “go big” and we have a history of doing so. It’s not usual to get non-premed students to go on and start billion dollar biotech companies, or a whole film festival done at many US colleges. Many other great ideas and inventions have come from undergrads. The b-school apparently gets UG classes where 1/4 of the incoming class has done some start-up or something. There is a good history that basically says that it doesn’t really matter if the range is 13-1500 or 14-1600 as long as they have ambition and the environment is conducive to driving it. We perform well at debate, and case competitions, etc. I mean, many top LACs are not as selective as top R-1 universities and churn out amazing students because of the educational environment and mentoring they get while attending). </p>
<p>I don’t know if it’s that bad because we shouldn’t be competing directly with y’all anyway. It makes more sense for Emory to compete with the types of students that say Rice or Chicago gets (that’s if we were to get high stats. students) as we are more like those schools. It doesn’t make sense to try to grab the students that want to go to Vanderbilt or Duke which are completely different structurally and environment wise (yet I think that’s who we get now; why we are attracting these students, I don’t know). Almost all of the schools except Emory and Georgetown have the same stats, but I don’t think it (particularly, the SAT, a multiple choice test) quantitifies “smartness”. For example, I’d rather be MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton which attract high scoring students that are extremely intellectual and already really good or strongly interested in particular fields than just attract the standard high scoring student with very strong ECs. As in, it would be nice to have a range of 1400-1600 with students who maybe are winners of International competitions and olympiads already, Putnam participators. Those types of students. Unfortunately, you don’t get those students unless your education in those fields is amazing (as it is at some very elite schools who have put lots of money and effort to keep these places both strong in graduate and undergrad. education). </p>
<p>As for the education, I hate to say it, but it is different, at least in the science heavy fields. Harvard and them are actually quite insane and you can go look for yourself. I would agree that other departments are much less about rigor and basic quality (as maybe only as good as the best state schools) and probably enjoy success because of the connections and the quality of the student body, but it’s really hard to deny that if you went to some of those places for a science training before say, grad. school or an MDPhD, you would have ridiculously high level training that pushed you to heights that you may not have achieved without it. Those institutions tend to “size their talent up”. As in, you’ll find out how good you really are in the depts at some of these places. The additional rigor on top of the crazy nobel prize winning connections is going to help get you in a position you may not be otherwise. Many state schools can’t replicate that as easily (and the thing is, very high rigor is the norm for even less talented students in such depts at places like Harvard). </p>
<p>Point is: I’d rather Emory work on the quality of its education to make sure it offers any “talent” something than to simply grab the talent and let them come and “enjoy Emory” for 4 years and then get a nice job or prof. school opp. You want to say that you got something unusual. I think we’re going in the right direction in terms of this, because we’re at least reflecting on what can be done better. Hopefully things like that will end up closing admissions gaps in the future, and we get students that fit the environment nicely. The new chemistry building and curriculum we have coming shouldn’t hurt attracting some strong science students (the new quantitative methods dept./program should attract or create more interesting social science majors and programs like these are not common, even at elites). In addition, I don’t think Emory has to worry that much, because it’s prof. schools are doing quite well (seriously, how many divinity schools do you see expanding. The public health school?) and the grad. school has actually seen increased enrollment (pretty impressive considering the generally declining enrollment of Ph.D seeking candidates). The b-school is of course doing well (both UG and G, in fact the improvements in G attracted quite a bit of attention). Like everywhere, it’s the college that can use work. There’s a plan in place, and I’m curious to see how it will work. Some pretty neat new programs have already been implemented (at the UG level), but I just want to see how the other changes will pan out. </p>
<p>You also have places like JHU that do not ride on UG admissions to retain their prestige (I should honestly lump them with us and Georgetown in this context) and yet do really well (as in better than more selective institutions) because they have strong grad and prof. schools and very strong UG programs regardless of “incoming talent”. So I think creating and selling (marketing) a more unique educational environment is more important for Emory’s success for undergrad. than improving its SAT scores. Basically, we can’t just have any and everybody attending simply because it “looks good like the other schools”. Right now we probably try too hard to make ourselves look like some of these other places. Like again, on paper, we should should not appear similar to Vandy or Duke to prospective students. The difference should be obvious. Nor should we market in a way that makes it seem as if we’re trying to compete directly with you guys in fields that we shouldn’t. Like we should not try too hard to market “perfect balance and work, hard, play hard” because in reality, the social scene and academic balance is likely more similar to Ivies. We’re a very “academic” and “service oriented” school. People work a lot and find some project to do more so than have stereotypical social lives that may involve more partying or relaxing. Though there is still plenty of it, it’s just probably not near as much as places like Stanford, Vandy, ND, Duke that can genuinely sell balance…nothing wrong with that, but trying to sell otherwise kicks us in the butt. We should sell our strengths that are more unique and see who it attracts (nothing is more annoying than this type of thing attracting the student who then wishes they went to the “party school” such as Tulane school because they expected that sort of balance at Emory). This is my honest assessment of what’s wrong with recruiting at Emory. Acts as if it’s afraid to sell itself as what it really is. We have wonderful social oriented traditions, but to hype them up to make it seem like we’re Vandy or Duke is kind of stupid.</p>