<p>After staying at #17 for five long years, we have finally moved up! I hope Top 10 is not far away :)</p>
<p><a href="http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/09/usnwr-16/">http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/09/usnwr-16/</a></p>
<p>Vanderbilt is moving forward:
USNWR # 16
Niche has VU at # 10 Best Overall (the highest ranked university in the southeast) based on exceptional academics, diverse high-achieving students and faculty, affordability, and happy students.
Highest SAT scores #7
Smartest Students # 7 with Niche
Quality of life # 10 with Princeton Review
Happy students # 1 with Princeton Review</p>
<p>Next step is to pump resources into Vandy’s international reputation. I think it will be hard to move beyond #16 or #15 until Vandy makes considerable gains on lists like Times, ARWU, and QS.</p>
<p>Yes, most of the top U’s are pretty much locked in their current spot. They could disappear into a sinkhole and their rank wouldn’t change. To move up Vandy needs:
- $$$$$$. Does anyone have an extra 2-3 billion for the endowment?
- Research. The ARWU and QS are weighted toward research, both quantity and quality. While this is more of a grad level issue there is a halo effect that elevates the UG rank as well.
- STEM growth. STEM oriented U’s get more love in most rankings.
- Marketing-PR. High school GC’s only ranked Vandy at # 20. Clearly some education needs to be done with current high school GS’s or it will take the next generation of high school GC’s to move Vandy up in this area. Focus on GC’s in the northeast and CA.
- Keep on with the good work. </p>
<p>Vanderbilt has become very popular in the northeast. I agree that Vanderbilt needs to continue its focus on West Coast and Internationally. </p>
<p>USNWR is a gimmicky ranking system! Afterall their only motivation is to tweak changes to draw attention and buzz. They couldn’t give a damn about actual research regarding excellence. In fact, it is impossible to objectively rank many of these schools. Let’s just say there are the top 5 or 6 schools (same every year), and then the next 10 are pretty much in same ball park, each with some advantage in some area. Pretty subjective. Who cares. For my money, VU is preferable to Northwestern, Hopkins, Wash U, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, even Penn for undergrad. OK, that puts it in the top 10. I really don’t care for these B.S. type of arbitrary rankings. There should only be groupings of top 5, next 5, and so on. More detail than that is gimmicky.</p>
<p>^ I’d agree with oliver007 on all points. Also, Vanderbilt’s international reputation won’t change until they have top 5 graduate programs outside of education. Essentially Vanderbilt needs alot more money.</p>