<p>how do u guys think vanderbilt stacks up against the ivies. vanderbilt vs hyp (hyp obviously), but what about vandy v penn, v dartmouth, cornell, etc.</p>
<p>I turned down lower-Ivies for Vanderbilt (Cornell, UPenn) because the school was a better social fit. However, I think 'HYP' are in a league of their own.</p>
<p>They are all great schools. You can't go wrong with any of them. Go visit, do some due diligence, and just pick the one you like best.</p>
<p>I've always thought of Vandy, Duke, Emory & Tulane as "Southern Ivies"</p>
<p>The Southern Ivy League is generally thought of as Duke, Emory, Rice, Vandy, UVA, UNC, Wake Forest, and W&M.</p>
<p>This chart made by someone on another thread might give you some help in this regard. It's for common graduate programs as assessed by USNWR (I believe), so might not accurately reflect an undergrad focused institution. Still, gives you some idea of overall institutional value when comparing apples to apples. Good luck in your decision!</p>
<p>No. of programs in top 10 (1-10)/top 20(11-20)/top 30(21-30)
Stanford 14-0-0 (14)
Harvard 13-0-1 (14)
Berkeley 13-0-0 (13)
Yale 9-4-0 (13)
Chicago 9-3-1 (13)
Princeton 8-3-0 (11)
MIT 8-1-0 (9)
Michigan 7-7-0 (14)
Columbia 6-7-1 (14)
UCLA 6-7-0 (13)
Penn 6-5-3 (14)
Caltech 5-0-0 (5)
Cornell 4-10-0 (14)
Northwestern 4-6-4 (14)
Illinois 4-2-5 (11)
Johns Hopkins 4-1-5 (10)
Wisconsin 3-8-2 (13)
Duke 2-6-4 (12)
WUSTL 2-2-1 (5)
NYU 2-1-3 (6)
Virginia 1-3-3 (7)
UNC 1-6-4 (11)
USC 1-1-1 (3)
Texas 0-9-3 (12)
Vanderbilt 0-2-2 (4)
Emory 0-1-5 (6)
Georgetown 0-1-1 (2)
Rice 0-0-4 (4)
Notre Dame 0-0-1 (1)</p>
<p>applejack, those numbers are inaccurate. Vanderbilt has many departments that are in the top 5 (education, audiology, etc). Nevertheless, there are big differences between graduate school rankings and undergraduate rankings. Graduate programs are way more specialized, and you shouldn't penalize universities that cater more to undergraduates. For instance, LACs like Williams and Amherst don't offer many graduate programs but they are still among the best undergraduate programs in the world. Similarly, universities like Rice, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, etc. are also more focused on their undergrads.</p>
<p>Also, for graduate school if you want to be a dentist do you really care if your school has a top-notch law school? Probably not. At the graduate level, you should judge them on your interests and not from aggregate data.</p>
<p>I don't think Vandy is quite on par with any in the IL, but still it's obviously a great institution on its own.</p>
<p>i, personally usually put hyp and stanford as top. than penn and columbia, than dartmouth on its own. (brown is a little quirky but up there with dartmouth. than uof chicago vandy and cornell. (im not counting specifiuc programs like engineering, like cal tech or mit)</p>
<p>Vanderbilt is no worse than any of the Ivies. It is certainly equal to HYP, in its own right. What's wrong with Vanderbilt? Nothing – it has similar academic strength and just as much regional prestige. It might not have as large endowments, but that's not really very relevant...</p>
<p>NewEngSocSciMan, you are a minority of one.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt fits in nice with many of the HYP type schools and can actually be better depending on what field you're getting into and WHERE you're going to be working. Some people may have never heard of a Columbia or think that Dartmouth is just UMASS Dartmouth or think that UPENN means Penn State. Vanderbilt is one of the top schools in the South. In the South, a Vanderbilt grad could probably mean more than an Ivy grad because of name recognition. Name recognition and reputation is everything my friends.</p>
<p>Okay, a minority of at least two.</p>
<p>danas,</p>
<p>I've counted more than two so far.</p>
<p>Personally, in the NE, I've never heard of vanderbilt until I was a senior in high school... Ivies are much better known there...</p>
<p>GoNavyXC...
Didn't I say at least two? I think I did.
Anyway, I have a bias. I'm a Florida grad who is tired of beating Vandy at football for decades. And when has Vandy been basketball national champs? Never.
HYP get a pass on that stuff. Their students are just flat out smart.</p>
<p>^^
You must not know very many HYP graduates if you think they're all just "flat out smart". Not all that glitters is gold.</p>
<p>TheOC89 - I stated flat out the bias in that list to avoid the predictable "you can't compare undergrad and grad" response. That list was of select programs that are pretty common between all of the schools listed. So, obviously it didn't include all.</p>
<p>I think if you choose to go to Vanderbilt, you should do so if you plan on staying in the South. Perhaps due to regional pride or networks, the South has a whole different hierarchy of schools that do not necessarily correlate with general worldwide reputations and rankings. In the Midwest / Northeast, I think most people associate Vanderbilt with football and not its high quality academics. If you're looking for name recognition, I'm not sure it would raise too many eyebrows outside of, perhaps, academia. It's certainly not going to be considered on par with the Ivies (whether it is or not is immaterial).</p>
<p>Don't attack me - I'm just stating a cultural reality.</p>
<p>I gotta agree with applejack... I think part of the reason that the responses haven't been overwhelmingly similar is that many don't consider "vanderbilt vs ivy league" to be much of a competitive comparison. I think there's only a few schools that can compare: MIT, Caltech, & Stanford are on par with Duke & UChicago close behind.</p>
<p>Danas, what does Vanderbilt’s academics have to do with their football team? Also, congratulations on Florida’s recent basketball success but historically Vanderbilt has the upper-hand in the all-time head-to-head record. Also, very few academically orientated schools perform well in football (Duke, Rice, UNC, etc.) all struggle. </p>
<p>Applejack, the data in the chart is still inaccurate. Vanderbilt has several top programs ranked by USNews that fail to show up in the chart. The second part of your statement is completely ludicrous. I’m from New York and I interned at a top investment bank my junior year. Everyone there was very familiar with Vanderbilt. I’m graduating in a few weeks and I have several offers at top companies while most of my friends from lesser schools are struggling to find finance jobs. Similar to other top schools in south (Duke, Emory, etc.), New York is one of the heaviest represented states at Vanderbilt. If you go to Dore2Dore.net you will see tons of Vanderbilt Alumni from the NYC area. Many of them work for elite companies – Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, McKinsey, Deloitte, Accenture, IBM, etc. are all well-represented at NEW YORK CITY locations.</p>
<p>The fact that the Vandy grads are fairly well represented in the East Coast doesn't mean that its prestige level is on par with the ivies. I think that prestige-wise, only Duke, Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, and maybe JHU are roughly on par with ivies.</p>