Vanderbilt's Reputation?

@hebegebe

Finance, IT, operations, legal, compliance, internal audit, human resources, sales and marketing are moving to Nashville. As you would expect, portfolio management, trading, wealth management stay in NYC.

Wow, @hoosierdaddy18 – assuming you’re actually a dad – that’s a pretty harsh way to talk to a kid who just calmly explained that he’s not from the area and is asking for advice. Not everyone has your wisdom. It’s ok to share it without snark, especially with someone young enough to be your kid.

On another topic (financial industry and Nashville), I’m pretty sure the crime rate is lower in NYC, for what it’s worth.

@ChiliMom : I don’t know if that was actual harshness so much as the constant un-nuanced pride on here…most students in “the world” only seriously know of a few top ranked privates and publics in the US because those schools have a bigger impact with their research apparatus and just in general. So to say that somewhere outside of those places are “the best in the world” is really in the eye of the beholder. Regardless of how good schools outside the ones I allude to are for undergrad. within the US context, they don’t have a global reputation like the same ones I speak of, and furthermore even in the U.S. there are somewhat annoying, but understandable regional affinities.

I just wish people, when asked about this would either not address the issue of “reputation” or simply tell what oppurtunities there are at the school to help the person achieve their goals. Instead we tend to get so prideful and defensive (and I am guilty at times, but I at least try to give more info. than “some company is moving here”…okay then? How can the student best get access other than being in town?) that we just do things like say: “It is perfect, of course it is awesome” which makes no sense.

When it comes to this finance and stuff, if the school is a semi-target, folks should just say so (instead of engaging in the tiring talk about “prestige” and “reputation” and say “you can enhance your chances for access by having these characteristics, joining this club, taking these type of courses, and developing these skills. This school offers X to help you with that”…but no, that is too much effort.

I agree that a few comments were rather harsh. I don’t think a high school sophomore asking about Vanderbilt’s reputation is obnoxious; after all, that’s when many students are really starting to look at schools. My son is a graduating high school senior in Ohio, raised by parents who both have attended multiple universities, and we knew almost nothing about Vanderbilt 18 months ago. We visited based on a friend’s recommendation and all fell in love with it. We did lots of research online, talked to other folks, etc. and my DS made the decision to apply. Ironically, he is on the waiting list, so we are still . . . waiting, and it’s his first choice.

However, I do think that when a college student (who I assume has already applied to college once and knows the process) applies as a transfer student who gets accepted and THEN starts asking GENERAL questions about a school has a lot to learn about adult decision-making. I think they are setting themselves up for failure, and they are possibly taking a spot away from another student who has done their research and really wants to go to Vanderbilt. It seems similar to a high school student who applies to all eight Ivies just because they are the Ivies.

I hope the OP learns from this thread and can make an well-informed decision about his/her future.

@Choski94 : Bingo!

*However, I do wish that applicants from HS can do a little better. Some people on this forum like to go a bit too far and split hairs only based upon prestige at already prestigious places without taking much else into account. Sometimes it gets very petty and superficial where people start arguing over a some points on an SAT or irrelevant differences in selectivity that show no evidence of affecting performance and “productivity” at schools being compared. Plenty of non-sense to go around created by the HS application process. I’ve gotten over the prestige wars a bit.

And also, if your son got into some other really good private or public, start warming up to that. Definitely try to avoid going into whatever school with the “first choice” in the front of the mind. I find that it sometimes leads to folks self-sabotaging so that they can create excuses to transfer. Essentially making up negative things not unique to the school they matriculated so that they can basically say: “see that is why I belonged there”. Wait-list sucks, but hopefully he is excited for college in general.