Vanderbilt's Reputation?

I was accepted to Vanderbilt and I want to get a better sense of this school (I dont know much about it as i don’t live in the south).

My questions are:
-Is Vanderbilt a good/prestigious school?
-What is the reputation of this school? Is it only popular in the south or nationwide/international?
-Is this school recruitable? Do employers like Vanderbilt or no?
-What schools is vanderbilt comparable to? Is it comparable to the likes of NYU?

I understand that some of these questions are vague and can be subjective but im open to anyone’s opinion of this school.
Thanks.

You post this 3 hours before the deadline to accept the admissions offer?

Are you international?

Vanderbilt is very prestigious. It is comparable to Northwestern and Notre Dame.

@TomSrOfBoston
no, I am a transfer student.
Do you think employers like this school?
Also how does it compare with NYU (another school that I was accepted to and am considering)?

This depends on your major and what is your future plan.

I am planning to major in economics at Vandy. Do top firms recruit here?

My understanding is that for IB, Vandy is only semi target, so if IB is your goal, you would want to go to NYU. But if you are into consulting. It seems Vandy is pretty good. Of course, i am not the expert and my kid is in CS premed.

@SincererLove
Thanks for the feedback. The only problem with NYU is the financial aid (I would still have to pay 40k/yr). Vandy, on the other hand, gave me a full ride, which is why I am considering it. Do you think the better recruiting at NYU justifies the $120,000 difference?

No.

You applied to the Hotel school at Cornell. Your career interests seem to be all over the place.

@TomSrOfBoston Right now I’m still a freshman so I don’t have everything exactly planned out yet.
I do, however, know that I will likely go into some form of business, and hotel administration is also considered business in some respects (plus admission is more likely than applying to Cornell AEM)

  1. Yes, it's an excellent school with a wonderful reputation.
  2. It has a national reputation and their international reputation is growing.
  3. It is a target school for employees. Not as high as P,H,Y,S,C,MIT but similar to most other top 20 universities.
  4. For Peer universities VU is ranked # 14 so just add and subtract 7 or 8 spots on the USNWR rankings.

Specifics on careers in Finance: 182 employed in Finance from the Vanderbilt Class of 2017, the #1 industry for Vanderbilt grads.
Even a breakdown by state to demonstrate the national employer reputational breadth - 2017 Vanderbilt grads working in New York (157) - can be found here:
https://www.vanderbilt.edu/career/career-outcomes/
Note: We won’t know how many in the Class of 2017 receive MBAs for a decade, because the Top 15, or so, MBA programs pretty much require a minimum of 4 years work experience.

AllianceBernstein Finance just announced it will move its headquarters, and 1050 well paid jobs, from New York to Nashville. Great news for VU grads looking for work in the finance industry!

I work in finance. The AllianceBernstein move is good for Vanderbilt grads, but not yet clear whether it is good for AllianceBernstein.

There are a few major finance centers in the US. NYC dominates of course, but others include Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and LA (I am ignoring specific industry specialists like Houston). Someone at the top of their game in NYC might be convinced to move to Chicago or San Francisco for a great opportunity. But I think most would be resistant to moving to Nashville, despite it being an up and coming southern city.

Is this annoying conversation about the reputation of elite schools really happening? VU (like every other highly selective school) is fine! It has a strong reputation enough such that if one wants to go into a hyper competitive field, they can more easily than at a school that isn’t highly selective. Hardly nowhere is HYPSM (and then and Duke I guess…I am only including places without top business schools for UGs), but if you do what you need to do at these other highly selective schools, you stand a solid chance. Regardless, it is more than the prestige of those 5 that places them. Most of them have students from far more connected families, a lot of raw giftedness in areas like math (I mean far beyond SAT, AP, and SAT2 schools), and have location advantages. Being a highly selective school closer to the cities hosting firms and banks confers an obvious recruiting advantage regardless of the caliber of the school. It hurts to be far away from except for Duke. Also, some student bodies are more finance and WS centric than others, so will be over-represented at firms regardless of success rate on a per application basis and there seems to be little info. regarding that (how many apply versus who get an offer).

People shouldn’t be expecting the prestige of a highly selective school to carry them anyway. People should ask what specific opps they offer students to achieve those goals (finance, consulting, tech, w/e) beyond just a good reputation. They all have great reputations. Then what? Question should be how one leverages and how does one take advantage of the opps. People act as if they will just matriculate at the most prestigious place they can and then be expected to be sort of instantly recruited or picked up by some prestigious employer simply for being a student. I’d rather know the qualities of the successful recruits and aim to achieve it.

hebegbe, Some will resist change. Others will be excited about lower taxes, a cost of living at 58% of NYC, San Fran, & LA, more disposable income, a home twice as large, a yard, shorter commute to/from work, more time at home with family, the music scene, better weather, newer infrastructure, less crime, and less expensive private schools.
If the numbers work for the financial firms they will keep moving to places like Nashville, Austin, Jacksonville, and Salt Lake City and keep a smaller satellite office in NYC.

We are diverging a bit from the original topic so this will be my last comment on this diversion.

Great investors make typically make seven digit incomes. Good ones make upper six digit incomes. They can already afford the cost of living of NYC, SFO, LA, and Boston.

Unless these investors really like Nashville (for the reasons you mentioned, besides cost), most people at the top will resist moving to Nashville because if the job doesn’t work out, it means moving again. Switching jobs in NYC often just means taking the same subway stop, but turning left rather than right to get to the new office.

This is a situation similar to tech centers. Silicon Valley is really expensive. Yet people flock there, or to a few secondary tech centers, because of the abundance of jobs.

It baffles me that someone who still needs to ask these questions applied and was admitted to Vanderbilt over thousands of other qualified applicants. Your questions would be obnoxious if posted by a sophomore in high school, let alone a transfer student. Seriously, if you can’t do your own research better than this you will not succeed in college.

@BooBooBear As suggested in my OP, although I’m familiar with Vanderbilt as a school, I’m not really familiar with it in terms of its reputation in business, job placement, etc. Where I live, I don’t hear much about Vandy, which is why I ask these questions to begin with. My OP was not meant to brag about my admission into Vandy. College, especially when the school is hundreds of miles away from your home, is not something that should be solely taken at face value (rankings, etc).
If you don’t actually understand my intentions, you shouldn’t start assuming things.

Are you kidding me? Vandy is one of the best schools on this planet. They should rescind your acceptance just for asking such a stupid question.