Vanderbilt Vs. University of Wisconsin-madison PLEASEE HELP!

College Search & Selection
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<p>I have family in Tennessee and sorry, averaging a measly 33,269 in attendance isn’t coming close to SEC excitement when it comes to FB.</p>

<p>Yeah, Vandy is excited about the new coach, but all schools are excited when they get a new FB coach (you don’t think Duke fans were excited when the school hired David Cutcliffe?).</p>

<p>And Chicago has tons of B1G alums, it’s still a pro-town 1st.</p>

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<p>While it’s no UM or UCB, UW is right behind UCL, along w/ UVA.</p>

<p>UVA has a lower admit rate and a student body w/ higher scores (due to pulling in students from the NE), but overall, UW has stronger academic depts.</p>

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<p>It IS a good state university. Why do a few of the state u grads on CC (including UCBChem for sure) have such a complex about state schools? I’m a state school grad and mine isn’t even as “good” as Wisconsin or Cal, but I don’t have a problem recognizing that the student body at a school like Vandy, Rice, Pomona, Williams, Emory etc is going to be a cut above ON THE WHOLE. Maybe the Vanderbilt student body is “richer”, but you should check out the wealth at some of the public SEC schools! Puts Vandy to shame.</p>

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<p>barrons, I not only “attended” lectures by Harvey Goldberg and George Mosse, I actually enrolled in them. But alas, I never met the esteemed professors. Never got to know them. Never was able to use them as a reference. Get the picture? I never said or implied that UW’s history department was not very good. I learned a lot, wrote a lot, thought a lot. I even won an award (with $) for being the top student one year (would you like to challenge that one, also?). To this day, I read a lot of history, and I am thankful for the exposure I got to a variety of viewpoints and a wide variety of subject matter. My point was, and it remains, that it is harder to get to know professors at large institutions; that may not be the most important factor for a lot of students, but it is not an irrelevant one.</p>

<p>As for who is teaching what: a fact that has escaped the attention of some of you is that while graduate students in the research sciences and engineering are usually funded through research grants, and often work as TAs only their first year, possibly two, graduate students in history and related fields rely on teaching assignments for their support throughout their graduate years (which unfortunately can extend for six years before it is necessary to get a waiver at many institutions). No respectable institution would put a first year grad student in the sciences or engr in charge of a course, but by the time a graduate student reaches the fourth year, they know a lot and it may well be they are better teachers for some courses than regular faculty would be. However, it does not follow that they are very useful for LOR, or recommendations to a student about her/his next moves, or that they have the kind of networking connections that are useful for students who are about to graduate.</p>

<p>I have tried to be even-handed here and in other threads. The particular student who started this thread has disappeared, which makes this thread useless, since the choice of schools, or type of school, depends entirely on the talents, needs, plans and personality of the particular student.</p>

<p>PS Barrons, I find it hard to believe that someone with your political leanings and your zero tolerance for political correctness actually has high praise for Harvey Goldberg! Like most other college students of that period, I ate that stuff up back then, but now I kick myself for not seeing through the great Goldberg. Sure, he was a great actor, they didn’t come any more entertaining. But Barrons a fan of Goldberg? Thanks for the laugh.</p>

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<p>And on the whole UW has more smart undergrads than VU. UW has about 2300 with 30+ on the ACT per entering class. VU has just 1350. So if you want to meet lots more smart people UW wins. And UW’s faculty clearly beats VU in nearly every major and much to the contrary of Midmo’s dubious memory, UW faculty are very much part of the undergrad eduation. UW facilities overall also are superior. Libraries are twice as large at UW. And so on.</p>

<p>So I see Midmo has had her memory jogged a bit and now remembers some actual profs that taught classes and seems to have backed off on the claim of grad students teaching most seminars. If she did not get close to them it’s her fault. I had no such problems and neither did 1000’s of others. It is not that hard and many do it today. I meet them on a regular basis through my service as a board member in the L&S school and the kids and faculty are quite close in many cases. Maybe that has changed since your day making your claims just as meaningless. The fact is that at least today grad students are not teaching upper level or even lower level classes. So your claims are just old news of no import today.
Unfortunately I cannot go back and lookup the teaching rosters from classes back in the 70’s. But we do have the current data and it puts your claims in the round file.
Many of us were more liberal in our youth. Most find that normal including a famous Brit.</p>

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<p>It isn’t that easy to find the smart people at the huge schools. I was horrified much of my freshman year because I met some REALLY unprepared students, to put it nicely. Things are somewhat different now, but there is still a pretty bad bottom half at many state universities- even good ones. I’ve heard the same thing about Iowa State- plenty of very bright engineers, but, oh, the bottom half. Many don’t last long, but don’t go acting like the 2300 high scorers (or whatever) are going to find themselves all together at the same kegger!</p>

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<p>Ladies who lunch? You couldn’t be more off!</p>

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<p>Barrons - that’s a silly comparison. Every state flagship has smart people. The issue is their relative concentration. For my money, Vandy has a “thicker” concentration of smart kids. UW is going to have some pretty unexceptional students. UW is a perfectly fine state school, but at least here in Chicagoland the kids who go there aren’t cream of the crop. They are perfectly nice and decent hardworking kids. The kids attracted to Vandy are kids who are top of the class and elite- school material.</p>

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<p>Re post 81 - Madison is a nice college town, but from a charm perspective, UVA >> UWM.</p>

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Same reason why people recommend Vandy to the OP who wants to be a pharmarist.</p>

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<p>Barrons, I never said “most”. I said “many”, which is an overstatement. “Some” would be more accurate. But ‘some’ it was, not none.</p>

<p>You are correct that it was at least partly my fault that I did not get to know profs better. That is exactly why I said in an earlier post that large public unis, UW included, are better suited for students who are independent, self-confident and have a good idea about how universities operate and what the pecking order among instructors is. I was independent, but fell short on the other two. </p>

<p>One thing I do not fall short on is memory. I have a very good one. I remember both the good and the bad about my lengthy undergraduate career. My glasses are not rose-tinted.</p>

<p>I am pleased to read that you actively pay back your university with service as a board member. Wonderful. Perhaps I will eventually forgive you for your gratuitous and misplaced insults.</p>

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<p>At many universities today, both public and private, the experienced graduate students have been replaced by adjunct/ non-tenure track/ teaching assistant professor (i.e. not on the tenure track)/whatever you want to call it, instructor. That is the new news, as opposed to my old news. Marginally better for LOR than graduate students, but not enough better to get excited about.</p>

<p>But that is not an argument either way for UW vs Vanderbilt. I think it is pretty universal, but I haven’t seen a breakdown that compares public flagships vs private universities.</p>

<p>I have not, by the way, recommended Vanderbilt to the OP of this thread. Until he returns and states exactly what he is trying to get out of his undergraduate education, there is no way to recommend one over the other. If indeed he is interested in pharmacy or education (bachelors), UW is probably the better choice, depending on final cost. For graduate education, Vanderbilt, but that isn’t the question here.</p>

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Okay. Please enlighten me.</p>

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<p>Wealthy Southern families with generations who have attended Ole Miss or some other SEC school, of course. Shouldn’t be a surprise to people who recognize the presence of wealth in plaes other than Wall St or Silicon Valley.</p>

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<p>This caught my eye while looking at UWM wikipedia page:</p>

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<p>[University</a> of Wisconsin?Madison - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Wisconsin–Madison]University”>University of Wisconsin–Madison - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>HAHAHA did Barron add this?</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, why do you assume that people you argue with on CC haven’t gotten out of California or the Northeast? I know there are many wealthy families in all parts of our country. I was curious which southern public schools MOWC was referring that “would put Vandy to shame”. If it was in reference to big time football boosters I could understand that too.</p>

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<p>Peer assessment score:</p>

<p>Wisconsin: 4.1
Vanderbilt: 4.0</p>

<p>At least those in the know seem to think those two universities are of comparable quality, regardless of how different they are from each other. As always, I will defer judgement to the experts, not to our resident couch coaches/backseat drivers!</p>

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<p>All is settled. In the PA we trust. </p>

<p>I hope you realize that PA and Wisconsin should hardly be used in the same sentence after the academic bandits who made a mockery of the system were exposed. </p>

<p>Those are YOUR experts? Seriously? Aaron Brower?</p>

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<p>xiggi, we have debated the validity of the PA in the past and we will not resolve our difference of opinion anytime soon, but as always, thank you for mocking me.</p>

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<p>I was not mocking you, but as long as you will throw that slow PA pitch over the plate, I will keep on hitting it over of the fence. </p>

<p>Fwiw, you’d be equally dismissive of someone’s efforts to point out to the vast differences in admission rates between Wisconsin and Vanderbilt, or obvious differences in average SAT scores. </p>

<p>As it as amply be demonstrated, the PA, despite pretending to poll the opinion of experts, really compiles the idle speculation of a few abouit hundreds of schools they know little to nothing about, except what was made available in the past surveys. Clueless and circular … what a tool that PA is. </p>

<p>But yes, we will never bridge our differences. Although the surest way to stop me from commenting on the cronyism and lack of integrity of the PA is to stop peppering its selective results in about every thread posted by someone asking for … guidance.</p>

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<p>UW hardly needs the PA score to demonstrate the faculty quality. It is higher than most schools in any numerical indicator you choose to use. Memberships in major academic academies, winning research grants, winning major national and international academic awards and so on.
The only thing you hit over the plate is ignorance that there are some great public universities in this country. Something most internationals understand better than you.</p>

<p>Well, at least Midmo has moved her comments into the current century. Yes, adjuncts are doing some of the teaching at most schools from Harvard/Yale on down. Most have a quality PhD and would have been on the tenure track 30 years ago. The economics of higher education have changed. But they are not used much in programs like Pharmacy. Looking through the current History course timetable I saw few adjuncts teaching classes in History. Both intro classes are taught by tenure-track profs. </p>

<p><a href=“https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/groups/History/web/syllabi_archive/history101/history101_fall2011.pdf[/url]”>https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/groups/History/web/syllabi_archive/history101/history101_fall2011.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/groups/History/web/syllabi_archive/history102/history102_fall2011.pdf[/url]”>https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/groups/History/web/syllabi_archive/history102/history102_fall2011.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;