<p>How does Vanderbilt compare ( academics, dorms, food, college life, friendliness, ect.) with other top schools?</p>
<p>well, for academics, its up there with the ivies and like stanford/duke etc...</p>
<p>its curriculum is rigorous, but i heard that the people are friendly....</p>
<p>Friendly if you're rich and white. If you like southern aristocracy and conservatism, go to Vandy, you'll have a blast. I saw a thing last year in Newsweek that rated Vandy as the #2 least friendly school to minorities, topped only by the University of Alabama.</p>
<p>Oh, come now, blindc1rca. Are you speaking from personal experience, or is this just part of the rich, white stereotype that people have about Vanderbilt? There may be some rich, stuck-up kids at Vanderbilt, but you're going to find them at every so-called prestigious school in the country, unfortunately. I feel like some sort of Vanderbilt freak (and I'm not even a student there), posting responses to threads in which people express their dislike of Vanderbilt, but I think it's unfair to say that Vanderbilt as a whole is a place for the rich/conservative/"minority-unfriendly."</p>
<p>And I've yet to find anything online about a Newsweek article citing Vanderbilt as the second least-friendly-to-minorities college. How would it even be possible to accurately quantify something like that?.. maybe it is, but I don't see how.</p>
<p>Something I feel I should add: I am not a crazy Southern conservative, nor am I from a wealthy family. Though I just barely missed age eligibility for voting this year, I campaigned for Kerry and do not look at another four years of George W. with happiness (it's not like Kerry's the posterchild for the poor and huddled masses, though). I am from the South yet cannot understand how every state around me has become completely and unabashedly "red." Sorry, that was me going off on a tangent.. but I just felt like I should reiterate that I'm not some rich, conservative kid who got all huffy because you're talking about my "kind" or something.</p>
<p>what the hell are you talking about?</p>
<p>vanderbilt has been pretty active in trying to get minorities at the school though, so i think they are certainly trying to get a more diverse student body. my friend was offered a full ride there last year.</p>
<p>it seems like a great school. . .and i hear the girls there are nice.</p>
<p>I would apply if i didn't hate tennessee</p>
<p>Vandy has aspirations to join the elite schools, but neither by reputation nor by quality is it very close at this time. It has a couple of strong professional schools, such as medicine and law, but if you take a hard look at their academic departments in sciences, social sciences, and humanities they are not even in the same league as the elites.</p>
<p>What they've been trying to do in the last few years is take an Emory/WashU approach of making themselves attractive to "easterners," by vigorous self-promotion and recruiting. They want to be a "prestige" name for undergraduates to apply to (after all, who doesn't think the name "Vanderbilt" is old money establishment?). They've been taking steps to diversify their cultural surroundings, which includes, btw, building up Hillel and other organizational networks.</p>
<p>They may succeed in this, because the numbers are in their favor, and the "methodology" has proven itself out in the case of WashU. But how much they will invest in improving the fundamental quality of their academic programs so that they are at a level of the best universities remains to be seen. It's easier and far cheaper to mount an active undergrad promotion and recruitment campaign than it is to build strong faculty in all major fields.</p>
<p>Is there any minority who's familiar with Vandy who can speak from personal experience about the atmosphere?</p>
<p>I am black, and my son, a junior, is considering applying there next year.
I know a couple of Vandy grads -- a middle aged black man, and a middle aged white woman -- who both are nice people who enjoyed their Vandy experiences. I also have met the Vandy newspaper advisor, a white man, who was very nice, and who also went out of his way to support a diversity effort that I was involved in.</p>
<p>I also am aware that the Vandy president, Dr. Gee, wrote a book about learning at midlife that he has black ancestors. While he looks white, and was raised as white, apparently he had a grandparent or great grandparent who was black. I have noticed that since he has been Vandy pres, it seems that Vandy has been doing much more to diversify, including reaching out to Jewish students and setting up merit scholarships for black students.</p>
<p>I am, though, curious about the comments made earlier on this thread that the campus is not welcoming to minorities.</p>
<p>I am not qualified to say where Vanderbilt lies in terms of droms, food, college life and student friendliness...but I hear great things. </p>
<p>As far as academics and reputation, I would say that Vanderbilt is not quite up there with the Ivies and the other elite universities but it certainly is up there with the likes of Boston College, Tufts, Notre Dame, Emory, Washington University, Rice, Georgetown and NYU.</p>
<p>" . . . it certainly is up there with the likes of Boston College, Tufts, Notre Dame, Emory, Washington University, Rice, Georgetown and NYU."</p>
<p>I'd like to see you produce some evidence to support this claim.</p>
<p>Mackinaw, I have no reason to praise Vanderbilt. I am neither a student, alum or fan of that university. But Vanderbilt is a fine university. The students and faculty are gifted and the resources are certainly availlable. In such fields as Economics, History, Biology, Chemistry and English, Vanderbilt is highly regarded. They are also decent in Engineering.</p>
<p>" . . . it certainly is up there with the likes of Boston College, Tufts, Notre Dame, Emory, Washington University, Rice, Georgetown and NYU."</p>
<p>"I'd like to see you produce some evidence to support this claim."</p>
<p>According to US News and World report
National Universities Rankings
11) Washington University
17) Rice
18) Notre Dame
18) Vanderbilt
20) Emory
25) Georgetown
28) Tufts
32) NYU
37) Boston College</p>
<p>Looks like, Vanderbilt is right in the middle of this pack.</p>
<p>mackinaw, as a student, I'm confused at why you think so terribly of Vanderbilt. Certainly it is similar in quality and prestige to the schools Alexandre listed and there is really no reason to not believe this. As vm00 said, it's rankings speak for themselves. Many other factors such as grad school placement, median starting salary, etc., indicate Vanderbilt is very similar to schools such as Emory, Georgetown, and Rice.</p>
<p>My father went to Vanderbilt, and (as I am white) it wasn't the lack of minorities that made him leave (although he did note it as a weakness), it was the atmosphere. He felt as though the students were cold and he to this day has no friends from his freshman year at vandy. He transferred to Duke and has many friends to date from there. I think that the Vandy atmosphere is kind of unwelcoming, at least from my conversations with him. And also he has told me that racism isn't as much of a problem for minorities as division, whites there are uneasy in dealing with minorities because they arent used to them. Don't shoot the messenger, but that was his interpretation of the situation (keep in mind he went there in the mid 70's so things probably have changed alot)</p>
<p>I understand your father's position, but trust me, things have changed tremendously. When I was just visiting Vanderbilt, one of the main things I noticed was the extreme friendliness of the faculty and students. As my family and I walked throughout the campus with our map, students would randomly stop us and ask us if there was anything we need help finding. Also, every faculty member we spoke to happily explained to us anything we asked. My first week as a student, upperclassmen went out of their way to show us around and explain various Vanderbilt policies and events. From my semester experience, everyone is extremely nice and it is a great place to go to school.</p>
<p>One of my friend's sons went there and majored in Engineering. This was a very smart kid who noted that there was some fierce competition. He eventually got into Columbia Grad school. He also had a good time and made many friends. He also is from the east coast but noted that most kids are from the south.</p>
<p>Regarding Economics, History, Biology, Chemistry and English, the fields mentioned as some of Vandy's strengths . . . .</p>
<p>Of course the only systematic rankings that we have for fields such as this are graduate rankings, such as by USNews. (The NRC rankings are now more than 11 years old -- from 1993 -- and an update won't be out for at least two more years, since they're just moving into data collection.)</p>
<p>But as far as USNews reports for these fields go (doctoral program reputation, which captures mainly the reputation/quality of the faculty), here's a bit of information. </p>
<p>My main point is that Vandy isn't "elite." Where are its "top 10" programs, or even "top 20"? When you move away from the general "halo" effect of the Vandy name and take a look at concrete rankings of programs (even if these, too, are "reputational"), Vandy has a long way to go.</p>
<p>Economics: Vandy is ranked tied for 40th, nationally, a decidedly mediocre ranking.</p>
<p>History: Vandy tied for 32nd.</p>
<p>Biology: Vandy tied for 29th.</p>
<p>Chemistry: Vandy tied for 67th.</p>
<p>English: Vandy tied for 27th.</p>
<p>I cannot agree with your assessment. A program does not have to be in the top 10 or top 20 to be good. UVA is considered excellent in Economics, and yet, they do not have a top 25 Economics department. Brown is not ranked better than Vanderbilt in Biology or Chemistry. Does that mean Brown isn't elite?</p>
<p>Besides, I never said Vanderbilt was an elite university. I already pointed out that Vanderbilt is not on par with the Ivies, or with other top national universities like Chicago, MIT, Stanford, Cal, Michigan, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern or CalTech. </p>
<p>But it is up there with the likes of Rice, Wash U, BC, NYU, Georgetown etc... look at the rankings and you will see that Vanderbilt is ranked no worse than those fine universities.</p>
<p>If you look at some of the professional areas, you may get a better evaluation, as I mentioned in my first post on this thread.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>Education, Vandy ranked tied for 4th.</p>
<p>Law, Vandy ranked 17th.</p>
<p>Medicine, Vandy ranked tied for 15th in medical research (not ranked in top 50 in Primary Care).</p>
<p>But also:</p>
<p>Business, Vandy tied for 39th.</p>
<p>Engineering, Vandy tied for 53rd.</p>