Vanderbilt vs Duke

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
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<p>Please. Obviously they are not <em>exactly</em> equally selective. The point of the assertion that they are equally selective is that an applicant has virtually the same chance of admittance at either school. Both universities reject qualified applicants. The difference between many of the accepted and rejected students at both Duke and Vanderbilt is often that the former group was judged to be a better fit at the university than the latter. The decision of whether to accept or reject a qualified applicant is usually not predicated on any identifiable measure of selectivity.</p>

<p>Also, 1/3 of East campus having AC does little to change the average student’s experience (especially in Durham!).</p>

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<p>Only a third of Duke’s freshman campus has A/C…? LOL </p>

<p>The newer freshman Vandy dorms have A/C with temp control that goes from 60-85 (actually it claims something like 55 to 90 but we’ve never tried that) year round… Even the older dorms have individual A/C units that work just great. Shocked to hear only a third of the freshman at Duke get A/C… what a wretched place!</p>

<p>Anyways Patriot, the SAT scores and acceptance rates are so similar that the schools are essentially equals. Business Journals named Vanderbilt the most selective school in the South over Duke, and that was last year, before the most recent freshman class and their stats.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/on-numbers/scott-thomas/2011/12/vanderbilt-duke-sit-atop-souths.html[/url]”>http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/on-numbers/scott-thomas/2011/12/vanderbilt-duke-sit-atop-souths.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p><a href=“https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArlRBr9Qvz0mdEdLNzNsRnBKT3Z1dDZ5QTFCQVV1NkE&output=html[/url]”>2012 Admission Decisions - Google Drive;

<p>Dukes acceptance rate is in the 11% range, Vandys is in the 13% range. And if you look at US News, Duke holds a nice advantage over Vandy. Not trying to fight, both schools are top notch, but to call Vandy better than Duke is a HUGE stretch.</p>

<p>And every common room has AC, 2/3 of the frosh dorms don’t but it’s easy to get a “medical slip” to get an AC unit in your room if you really want one.</p>

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<p>Patriotsfan,</p>

<p>Thanks for the correction on the AC. I forgot about the window units. Am I correct that at Vandy, the AC in the frosh dorms is built-in and not via window units?</p>

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<p>Yup. </p>

<p>Still both of these schools are schools where thousands of kids would be thrilled to attend, and both attract similar students who are into academics and a social life.</p>

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<p>To find a school more difficult to get into then Duke and Vanderbilt you need to travel to the far west coast of CA, or northeast of Princeton NJ.</p>

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<p>the only difference is that Vanderbilt is only quite recently a hair more or less selective than Duke. Duke underwent this international/national student body transformation over a decade ago.<br>
Admissions to Duke and Vanderbilt will be highly unpredictable from here on out, and deserving students in the same high school class will find a level of randomness in how things shake out among the top 5% of applicants in each school.<br>
Vanderbilt is a world class place to get an education, but personally have some bias still towards the tranformative powers of small classes on a highly functional liberal arts campus. All students applying to Ivies and Vandy/Duke/Stanford/Rice should also be targeting America’s best liberal arts or engineering or flagship public honors colleges. Once your outcomes are known and your decision is made, you will still be back on the starting line and you will still have nothing but a blessed opportunity to embrace your new alma mater and to extract the ultimate you can out of four years. Be your best version of yourself at ages 17-18 and do not neglect so called match colleges. Jobs are so few and far between for PhD academic posts that the caliber of the teachers at Furman, my alma mater, for instance will amaze you…as well as how far you can go with the support of good faculty mentors. A Virginia Tech graduate will benefit from being part of the Hokie Nation in a state with jobs in the DC burbs. Anyone from Georgia Tech engineering will have all sorts of credentials that stack up.<br>
Don’t hyperfocus on Vanderbilt. Be open hearted. Stay loose and flexible, and above all do not be a stranger in your application. You have about ten minutes to present yourself. Nothing shines more in essays than veracity and insight.</p>

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<p>This is kind of confusing to me because it seems as if the qualifications of Vandy and Duke students are now strikingly similar, it’s just the diversity and academic environment that may be different between the two. For example, I found this on last year’s class at Duke: [Duke</a> University Admissions: Class of 2015 Profile](<a href=“http://admissions.duke.edu/jump/applying/who_2015profile.html]Duke”>http://admissions.duke.edu/jump/applying/who_2015profile.html)</p>

<p>In terms of accepted students it appears Vandy may actually be doing slightly better. However, this doesn’t tell much. The difference I can see is that I would imagine that Duke can easily yield students with the stats. that it accepts, whereas Vandy may have a little more trouble, so when enrollment comes around, the stats. of Vandy students are just a little lower. As for this internationalization thing at Duke, this is overstated and perhaps unfair. Would you say that Emory for example has completed this process? It is as about geographically diverse as Duke and it has more ethnic diversity and more international students. No one in their right mind is going to claim that Emory is better than Duke or even similar to it because of that. I don’t know if its appropriate to measure progress in such a term. Emory has this internationalization and is yet, less selective than both of these schools. If the 3 schools were being applied to by a student, and say they don’t get into Duke, but gain admission to the other two, then the decision lies upon the values of the student. If you want Duke like diversity atmosphere and don’t mind the lower rank, you go to Emory. If this doesn’t matter, and you like the atmosphere of Vandy, you go there. As far as I know, it seems that Vandy is preferable for many cross-applicants (this could be for various reasons), so I don’t know if internationalization helps all that much. I think having a higher rank, great education, and a more stereotypical college atmosphere (D-1 sports mainly) helps get prestige and recognition. Also, instead of thinking in terms of incoming students, I would think of outgoing students and the opportunities offered to them (job, grad./prof. school prospects, start-ups? Inventions, National fellowship or scholarships). Again, looking at things like selectivity does not tell us outcomes of receiving an education at a top school because all of them are starting to look the same; all having overly qualified students who test well. At a certain threshold they don’t measure the success of the institution. I would care more about what students do when they get there. Once you are there, you will care less if you and your peers all have 1400+ scores and will begin think about your social life and oppurtunities that the institutions offer, along with the more intangible benefits of being with a highly qualified and driven student body. I really doubt a student body with 1400 average will be intrinsically less driven than one with a 1450 or even 1500. It’s more about how the institution and its environment and education channel and perhaps enhance that talent. I would rather be at a school with a 1400 average (I’m thinking of interesting places like Harvey Mudd, Reed, and many liberal arts colleges) that has students that start-up companies/organizations/service outlets, invent things, are very into the arts, and do well in debate and mathematics/science competitions and engage seriously in coursework, than a school with a 1450-1500 where the student body passively tend to coursework and lack the innovative/entrepreneuria/intellectual spirit. This comparison works if we reverse the scores as well. Not every school with similar scores is created equally, so it is pretty hard to judge which is actually better. One student may like the things I value, whereas one student may like a more relaxed, intellectually toned down atmosphere where most people are engaged in more standard ECs (football games, greeklife, resume fillers, etc.) and are not as intense about engagement in coursework (as in, they want to make an A, but like most, don’t necessarily seek enlightenment). For some the former can feel overwhelming and awfully competitive whereas the latter does not have as much pressure to match the ridiculous successes of students surrounding them. This “which school is better” does not work when they are statistically alike. It would be more useful to comment on atmosphere than entrance stats. Once you get there, they won’t matter (unless you find out something crazy like, 15+% of students have business start-ups. I discovered this about Emory b-school students this year and quite shocked. That can be intimidating being around that many people with the tenacity and money to have a start-up).</p>

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<p>The reason why Vandy’s SAT score range is similar to Duke’s is that Vandy accepts pretty much every applicant with a 34+ ACT score or a 2250+ SAT score. Duke used to be like that maybe 5 years ago but its so selective enough that it rejects the vast majority of the applicants with these kids of test scores.</p>

<p>Duke has a much higher endowment than Vanderbilt, its students enjoy much greater campus recruiting for jobs than Vandy students as well as greater success in graduate/professional school admissions, and it has much academic/lay prestige.</p>

<p>Duke’s test scores are in Stanford’s range but I would never say that Duke is a peer of Stanford’s. In the same vein, Vanderbilt is only a peer school of Duke’s at the regional level due to the lack of truly great universities in the South. It is not seen as a peer of Duke’s in the North. Its reputation in NYC is probably similar to UVA, Wash U, Emory, USC, and is probably a bit higher than Michigan and GWU while Duke is a peer of the Ivies.</p>

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<p>We don’t know who they reject (as much as we would like to put down a school by making such claims, we really don’t know. We just know that it appears that Duke accepts a slightly broader range of students as of now. For all we know, Vandy could be getting lots of 34+, rejecting a decent portion, and then accepting the other half. Or Vandy could have stricter cutoffs at the bottom. Who knows?), we only know who they accept. They accept a similar type of student body and then, and then students with such stats. enroll. However, I will agree that the characteristics of the student bodies’ accomplishments are indeed different which is what I was hinting at. Duke just has a much different atmosphere and that atmosphere facilitates certain types of achievements (for example, Duke students participate in and win national math competitions and have a higher tendency to enter Ph.D programs than a place like Emory or Vandy, which means they have some agressive intellectual strains among undergrads, though perhaps not as rich as a lot of the Ivies. Irregardless of this, they fare well against the Ivies in other categories). As for the truly great university comment. I detect some snobbishness. I think the big 4 in the south could all be considered great, even if some perform better in certain areas than others. Greatness is greatness (I don’t think you need to be a reputational peer of the Ivies to be considered great) whether “the north” chooses to recognize it or not. “The north” is hardly representative of who received an education at these places and should not be the only speaker on their qualities. I would say that about all the top 20s are great even though they could use improvement (as a truly “great” institution would recognize). Also endowment isn’t a great measure. Duke appears to have one of the lower endowments (as in way lower) among its peers and is doing extremely well. Ours is very similar and we don’t do as well (and then the endowment per capita has declined because the enrollment in both undergrad. and grad. divisions has increased 600 a piece in a four year period)</p>

<p>As for Duke vs. Stanford. I bet the social environment is very similar (both great at sports for example), but the academic environments are way different. Duke should be compared to the Ivies and Stanford seems more like MIT to me (just not as difficult, but still a Tech type of environment). Duke is getting to the point of being a reputational peer, but other than that Stanford is just a lot different from other, non-engineering intensive top 20s (in that it is engineering/tech. intensive). This is actually another good example of what I was saying. You have two similarly qualified student bodies doing completely different things because of the history and atmosphere of the school. Same could be said if you compared Harvard and Stanford.</p>

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<p>Goldenboy

  • Duke selectivity is 12%, Vanderbilt is 13%.
  • “News Flash” they both like high test scoring and high class rank students who are leaders and involved in their communities.
  • They both reject many qualified students.
  • They are both top 1% ers in the world of college endowments.
  • There are many excellent schools outside the northeast and CA.
  • The “Best” school for one student may not be the best for another.
  • Both do well with jobs and grad schools.
  • There are even graduates from LAC’s and state schools with jobs and in grad school.
  • A degree from an elite school and $2.00 will get you a ticket on the Metro.
  • Both Duke and Vanderbilt are becoming more popular as well rounded students want a well rounded college experience.
  • Yes Duke, The University of New Jersey at Durham, has a good reputation in NYC as does Vanderbilt.
  • No AC in the freshman dorms and freshman need to a bus to get to class???
  • 4 years in Nashville or lovely Durham</p>
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<p>I don’t understand how you can make this claim. You must work for admissions because there is no public data about who Vanderbilt rejects.</p>

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<p>Why do Vanderbilt students fare so much worse in law school, medical school, or MBA admissions then? I could break out the statistics if you’d like but they would honestly make Vanderbilt look pretty bad in comparison.</p>

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<p>Historically, Vanderbilt has had more southerners (who wanted to stay in the south) and many of the feeder statistics are outdated and biased – they would only classify grad schools in the northeast as elite. </p>

<p>In terms of student quality, the gap between Duke and Vanderbilt has closed and any difference in selectivity is negligible.</p>

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<p>Who cares if one is more selective or not? I got rejected from Barnard but I’m going here.</p>

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<p>goldenboy8784, one thing that you should consider is that Vanderbilt has only recently caught up with Duke in terms of student body quality. Placement at top grad schools and firms won’t fully reflect this fact until Vanderbilt’s more recent classes graduate. </p>

<p>Also, Vanderbilt places more emphasis than other schools on both scores AND grades. Something like 97% of the students in the last two incoming classes was ranked within the top 10% of their graduating high school classes, and the average class rank in high school of a student in either of these two classes was top 3%. Personally, I respect Vanderbilt’s admissions process more than those of peer schools for this reason because the subjective criteria that other schools weigh more heavily are potentially fabricable. Anyone with the money can have a professional writer review their college application essays, and anyone with the gall can misrepresent extracurricular pursuits on a resume.</p>

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<p>Vanderbilt’s incoming GPAs are still lower than many peers (which could suggest that they go to schools with less inflation). One can also claim that anyone from a relatively esteemed background can afford to use test prep coaching and classes to get what is already expected to be a far above average test score even higher. SAT scores and grades are not the most objective criteria now-a-days. And honestly, once the student is over 1300-1350, I would be more interested in them as a person and the uniqueness they can offer, or else a bunch of look-a-like drones with great test taking skills and hoop-jumping ability will be recruited. I mean, reality is, a person with a 1200 and an uninflated 3.5 is probably qualified to do the work at most top 20s. Once, 1300-1400 range students with ridiculous GPAs are rejected because they did not make a safe landing on the moon before graduating HS as one of their ECs, the goal is no longer to be objective so much as to cherrypick statistics and thus appear selective to outsiders (and thus get the rank up. And all top 20s are guilty of it to a huge degree). Recruiting a bunch of perfect standardized test takers (hopefully, if a top 20 is doing its job, this will be trivial as the exams should not be standardized, predictable, and easy to prep for) and people great at doing just enough to get an A does not really add much to a school other than the reassurance to the student body that everyone is surrounded by over-achievers, which gets old after a while (I mean, what if these people are the same as in high school where achievement becomes a hoop-jumping contest and not a reflection of actual passions. Soft factors make invite more of the latter). People who are academically qualified with soft factors are what create unique social and academic environments that you see at some schools. If LACs and places like Chicago recruited the way many top 20 nationals did, they would become quite boring in this context (and indeed Chicago’s admissions is swaying toward everyone else’s methodology). These schools have to possess something more in their student bodies than the fact that everyone did extremely well in high school. I can somewhat respect an objective approach, but I just don’t care for what it can yield in the longrun.</p>

<p>As for student body quality governing that type of placement. Not sure. Reed, for example, is really solid but perhaps not as selective as Duke or Vandy (It is about as selective as we are) and has amazing placement into post-graduate programs, especially Ph.Ds. It is possible to see statistical increases in student body quality, but if the atmosphere or educational environment is not conducive to dramatically increased success in such areas, then it will be a while. Again, incoming stats don’t matter so much as what students choose to do when they get there. For example, you can’t expect Vandy to become a Ph.D powerhouse (I guess Duke kind of is) because selectivity has increased. Environment, student-body state of mind, and educational philosophy play huge roles in this arena, and SATs and GPA increases don’t usually change this when they were already ridiculous in the first place. Will Duke eventually turn into Stanford or Harvard? Probably not. Will have similar scores, and will likely remain completely different in some measurable and non-measurable respects.</p>

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<p>

[Class</a> of 2014 Profile](<a href=“http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/class14.htm]Class”>http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/class14.htm)
[Class</a> of 2013 Profile](<a href=“http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/class13.htm]Class”>http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/class13.htm)
[Class</a> of 2012 Profile](<a href=“http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/class12.htm]Class”>http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospectives/class12.htm)</p>

<p>Duke has 27 alums enrolled in UVA Law while while there are anywhere from 6-14 alums from Vandy there currently. That’s a pretty significant difference. UVA is the most prestigious Southern law school.</p>

<p>[Another</a> Take on Target Schools: Representation at America’s Elite B-Schools | Wall Street Oasis](<a href=“http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/another-take-on-target-schools-representation-at-americas-elite-b-schools]Another”>Another Take on Target Schools: Representation at America's Elite B-Schools | Wall Street Oasis)</p>

<p>As far as b-school goes, there are 9 Vanderbilt alums estimated at the M7 business schools vs. 95 from Duke. The only schools that place better than Duke are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and Penn (mostly because of Wharton).</p>

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<p>This assumes that most people from certain schools tend to pursue MBAs (perhaps not all top schools have the “business” types. For example, Chicago is certainly on par or better than Duke academically, and only had 12 placed at such places. Hmmm, I wonder why. Maybe because more people major in econ. and then go on to pursue Ph.Ds). As a commenter suggested, schools with BBA programs may have students who simply don’t need or want the MBA. This list may really only be telling about the character of some top schools, not the quality. Again, you would have to assume that a significant chunk of people at all elite schools want to get an MBA. Many have an atmosphere less likely to produce the popularity of such a career path. To have 95+ placed at such schools, the interest in an MBA had to be really strong at the alma mater. This can be construed as good or bad depending on the person.</p>

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<p>Commodore15 hit the nail on the head. Vanderbilt is in the middle of a big rise in prestige/selectivity that Duke experienced several years ago. The students graduating from Vanderbilt right now obviously fare much better than those graduating in the past few years. Just 10 years ago, (class of 2006), 9500 applied and 47% were accepted. Average SAT was 1360. Ten years later the class of 2016 has 28,500 applicants, 13% acceptance, and an average SAT 1530. It’s not even fair to compare the two.</p>

<p>Duke WAS significantly more selective in the past, so they’re more represented in elite grad schools. The grad school stats will soon catch up with Vanderbilt’s growing reputation.</p>