<p>My two cents (from the SE but have lived in the Midwest and Northeast)</p>
<p>This may hurt some feelings but I have functioned as a recruiter for a large company in NYC and this is how they felt towards specific ‘prestigious schools’ (east coast). I break this out for non-engineering as the rankings are completely different for engineers. Also note this is only for undergrad</p>
<p>Private:</p>
<p>Excellent: Northwestern, Emory, John Hopkins, Tufts, University Chicago, Vanderbilt
Very Good: Ivy League, Duke
Reasoning: Though excellent schools, the students tend to be over-hyped and are par in capability with ‘lower calibar schools’. they also tend to feel more entitled coming out and thus demand more than other students (which they don’t usually get depending on position). Note that certain Ivy schools are worse than others.</p>
<p>Public:</p>
<p>Excellent: UVA, UNC
Reasoning: considered smart and capable (better schools then a large chunk of the top privates). Tougher to get into (out of state) then many of the private schools. I had friends personally that got rejected at UVA but made it into Harvard/Colombia/Dartmouth. </p>
<p>Side-note: never thought of either ND or Rice as a prestigious school though tough to get into. But hey I could be biased. I have definitely heard of Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>I got in Vandy a while back, when it was pretty easy to get in. (2002-2003 ish)
From my campus visit, it was very regional, stereotype was very true about rich and white, but I think the part that really did it for me was that the best school at vandy is the peabody college, and like almost a quarter of the undergrads were education majors, and i have heard it was ridiculously easy to get in(back then, the peabody average SAT was like 1150) and also very easy to graduate from. I know some people think it’ll turn into a duke, but I don’t think it’s likely when there are that many people training to be teachers. (and teachers are great for society, but they don’t lift a school’s reputation)</p>
<p>“stereotype was very true about rich and white”</p>
<p>I believe only 60% of the school is on some form of aid and only 40% of the school is on need-based aid. Since they cover 100% of need, that means 60% of the campus doesn’t qualify - meaning their parents make well over 100k probably 200k+ (I think you can make up to around 200k and still qualify for aid there in some situations)</p>
<p>Additionally, something like half the freshman class is from a private high school.</p>
<p>This can all be found around Vanderbilt’s site.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt and Duke are the best schools in the South. Depending where you live, some say Vandy, some say Duke. Very few people mention Emory as a powerhouse, ever. Very few people in the Southeast have even heard of Rice. So, there it is. </p>
<p>Outside of the South, well, I live in Colorado and everyone here loves it. Can’t really speak to the Northeast, but I’m guessing they think it’s pretty great too based on the fact that a lot of those kids have been flocking there in recent years. Maybe they got rejected from the Ivies, maybe they just liked Vandy better, who knows.</p>
<p>PS I would have actually guessed around 60% of Vandy would be from private schools. Question: IS that a bad thing?!?!</p>
<p>Just because you’ve rarely heard of Emory and Rice doesn’t mean others haven’t heard of them. Please refrain from categorically speaking for and standing as a representative for everyone in the South. Because you aren’t. </p>
<p>You speak from a limited Colorado perspective, which isn’t even in the South, and I have a slight hunch you do not know a vast majority of the people in the South to say that Emory and Rice are completely unknown. It all depends who you ask and where they are from.</p>
<p>Vandy and Duke are some of the best schools in the South, but Rice and Emory are also part of that powerhouse group.</p>
<p>I myself am from the Northeast and Vandy has never been referred to as a “best school” in the South. It is known to be a good school, but below Duke and Rice and akin to Emory. Again, this is from my perspective from the Mid-Atlantic (the place where I’m from is one of the most educated cities in the country as well).</p>
<p>sorry pal, I am from Alabama and quite a few relatives are academics at southern universities (and ivies too, woah!). also, please refrain from pretending that Rice is in “the South”. It’s in the Southwest and is like the ugly duckling, sometimes people forget it’s there. hey, awesome job being from one of the “most educated” cities though, keep that up</p>
<p>I’m not going to say I represent the south, by any means, but I had heard of Vanderbilt and Duke growing up in Florida, but not Rice or Emory. I hadn’t even heard of Emory until a few weeks ago.</p>
<p>That being said, I was part of Duke TIP in 7th grade and a friend’s dad told me about Vanderbilt my junior year in high school. My senior year, I had decided that private schools were expensive and I couldn’t afford one, so I researched public OOS, thinking they’d be cheaper (hahahaha)… So, for the first time in my life, I heard about Ohio State, U Mich Ann Harbor, Wisconsin-Madison, UNC Chapel Hill, etc. But no private schools…</p>
<p>I never watched sports growing up so I didn’t know about Division I schools or anything…So I’m a pretty ignorant/faulty data point.</p>
<p>Yup, that ugly duckling is ranked higher than Vanderbilt because people forget it’s there and has a -8% acceptance rate than Vanderbilt, not to mention has higher SAT scores and a greater number of strong programs (read: more than one strong program, with all due respect to Vanderbilt’s Peabody School, of course).</p>
<p>Please keep being proud of yourself for having relatives at southern universities and Ivies (yes, I did gasp), I am turning green with envy this very second. </p>
<p>Not. </p>
<p>Technically Rice is in the Southwest, but sometimes people simply clump it together with the rest of the Southern schools.</p>
<p>This “which school is better” debate occurs with great frequency on cc in different combinations and permuations. It is subject to everyone’s personal perceptions/individual biases. All of these universities (Duke, Emory, Rice, Tulane, Vandy, UNC-Ch Hill) are great schools, with their individual strengths and weaknesses. Whether or not someone has or has not heard of a school has no bearing on the quality of the school.</p>
<p>One can’t go wrong with any of these schools.</p>
<p>hotasice, rice is more selective than vandy/emory. if it’s not well known everywhere, it’s because Duke/Vandy/Emory all have more than twice as many undergrads as Rice. The size factor is why a lot of people don’t know about Caltech but everybody knows about Ohio State. and some posters are going to bash your school just to provoke a reaction, so think about whether you want to respond to transparent instigation.</p>
<p>To those who have the benefit of knowledge of/familiarity with schools like Rice, Emory, Harvey Mudd, etc, and also schools like Reed, Davidson, Carleton (as examples of other small, lesser known but good schools) it is their gain, and the loss to those who focus on “big name” or “general knowledge”. A little research opens ones eyes to many great schools, but to those who don’t do the research, they loose out on some great options, which is to the benefit of those who have done their homework and have the advantage and priviledge of applying with perhaps a little less competiton. I dont mean to say that the competition isnt steep at these schools-- of course it is, as the accetance rates show. But if many dont apply because they havent heard of these great schools, its their loss.</p>
<p>Coming from Texas, I’ve obviously grown up hearing about Rice (especially since my aunt and uncle live in Houston, and they’ve wanted me to go there since forever–got waitlisted), but I literally had never heard of Emory in my life until I came on CC. And if you ask anyone I know, I’m pretty sure very very few will have, either. And this is from a pretty competitive public hs, where we send 5-10 people to HYPS/Top Tier schools every year.</p>
<p>I’m going to Vandy, but that’s a moot point.</p>
<p>hey, congratulations. i would have guessed it was 25, but hey, looks like it just wasn’t important enough to recognize. i’m one of those people that wishes vandy would stop changing, but it’s pretty obvious that in about 5 years vandy will a) be ranked higher b) have better stats than the schools that match those stats. what was the name of that school you were bragging about again?</p>
<p>read dshinka’s and kareebe’s posts. as you can see, that is the stereotypical southern knowledge of elite schools growing up. duke (TIP program), vandy, eventually emory, then learns of all the ducklings too like davidson, etc…</p>
<p>ps i really am sure it’s a super school. just doesn’t attract the same type of person huh? vandy is more comparable to SMU when looking at texas schools, or maybe baylor, albeit with much more academic prestige.</p>
<p>To be honest, if it werent for USNews and Legally Blonde, i would have never known about Vanderbilt. But thats just in terms of prestige. I think Vandy’s recognition is def growing. I’m in the northern midwest, if that gives you any perspective.</p>
<p>Oh and just as a side note, although Duke has amazing academics, i think Duke owes the majority of its prestige to its basketball team. College sports and academic prestige combo are tricky that way.</p>
<p>Maybe US News should add a category to their ratings-- the “how many people have ever heard of this school” rating, LOL, since it’d probably be about as useful as the college president’s peer review ratings (read the thread on the UF president’s peer review ratings where he ranks UF as a “5”, on par with Harvard, and ranks schools like Brown and Dartmouth a “3” )</p>
<p>Oh, I like it! We should start a new thread to discuss what to call it and how to measure it.</p>
<p>I’m for calling it “The HuMPleHOTS Metric”, and I say we need to adjust for school size, school age, and its distance as the crow flies from Cambridge, MA. Just to be fair.</p>
<p>So, we could start talking not just about Ivies and LACs and CTCLs but also about “The HumpleHotsie Schools”. Obscure but good!</p>
<p>My kid’s the son of a Feminazi,
Just matriculated at a HumpleHotsie,
Got No Sports! Got No Greeks!
Yaaay, Geeks!</p>