Hi! Im looking to get information regarding the different atmospheres and reputations associated with Vanderbilt and Ivy League Schools. I am from New Jersey, so I am initially drawn to the Ivy League Schools because they are predominantly located in the NE, but I have looked into Vanderbilt and I have found that it holds similar prestige yet it is a more “social” school. First I will give my stats:
I am a female.
ACT: 34 Composite (32 Math, 34 English, 32 Reading, 36 Science)
GPA: 4.3 (as of junior year)
Will graduate with AP Chem, AP Bio, AP Calc AB, AP Calc BC, AP Physics II, AP Spanish, AP Langauge and Comp, AP Literature and Comp and AP Computer Science
Secretary of Junior Class
Rutgers Mini Medical School Program
Shadowed surgeons summer before junior year
Shadowed virologist summer before sophomore year
Volunteer at local nursing home
Founder and president of fundraising club at high school
tutor in math and biology
will be 4 year varsity athlete after graduating (lacrosse)
volunteer lacrosse coach at recreational level
I want to be challenged in college and I am leaning towards a Biomedical Engineering major and possibly going Pre-Med
Along with this I am a very social person, and I will definitely go out on the weekends, and I would love to be in a sorority. I try very hard to balance my social life and academics so I would like to look at schools that will foster both aspects of my life. Based on this, do you think the Ivy League Schools will be to cut throat and competitive for someone who also plans on maintaining a social life? Also, based on my stats, does anyone have any other college recommendations that are academically challenging but also have a large social aspect to them?
You want to know about Vandy’s rep as it compares to the eight Ivy League schools, so here’s what I think:
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Penn definitely have the upper hand over Vandy in terms of rep, both here and abroad.
I think Cornell, Brown and Dartmouth have a smaller edge – it would not be a big stretch to call Vandy a peer of those three Ivies, in my opinion. The three Ivies do still have a bit more cachet, but you wouldn’t be giving up much, if anything, in terms of quality: Vandy is a very good school. Take it from me: In grad school I worked on team projects with some Vandy grads; Vandy had prepared my teammates very well.
Abroad, Cornell does enjoy an edge in rep over Vandy, but based on what I’ve seen from rankings from the ARWU and Times Reputation Ranking, Dartmouth and Brown do not.
Your stats are strong but make sure you spend as much time thinking about and researching safeties and matches as the schools you mention are pretty much reaches for all.
In terms of universities, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Duke, Wash U, U Chicago, Stanford, Northwestern and some others have the same prestige in the real world as any Ivy. They all admit the top 1 - 2% of all students.
You can look at any metric from recruiter rankings to Forbes Power Alumni or Grateful Grad index to see that Ivy League prestige is declining in a relative sense. Only one Ivy League school makes the the top 25 in the Wall Street Journal Recruiting poll, Cornell.
I often wonder if Asian students were better distributed among the the top universities and LACs how the rankings of the Ivy League would suffer.