<p>Hey everyone</p>
<p>What is everyone's view of Vanderbilt from across the country. </p>
<p>As far as your opinions on the school based on where you live...</p>
<ul>
<li>academics</li>
<li>prestige</li>
<li>social life</li>
<li>etc</li>
</ul>
<p>Also, what schools would you compare it to?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Do a search. There have been some great summaries in the last week concerning Vanderbilt and how it's reputation is on the rise.</p>
<p>It is an excellent school with an excellent reputation. It is regarded as extremely prestigious in the south, and is gaining more recognition in the northeast.</p>
<p>It is similar to Rice but with stronger athletics (SEC) and a large frat scene. It is a notch above Tulane, in my opinion. It has an excellent medical school and law school.</p>
<p>It is named after a rich person.</p>
<p>The number of people who think of it where I live...well, they don't. It isn't on the radar screen.</p>
<p>I concur with MOWC...Vanderbilt is a great school.</p>
<p>Its' sciences programs are top notch, an excellent pre-med advisement program, and it has a terrific music school as well. Nashville is a pretty cool little city and I sometimes wish my D would have gone there. It is relatively preppy, although that is a generalization. A friend of D's went there and believes it to be a pretty tolerant place (he happens to be gay).</p>
<p>When we went there to visit, although I'd heard much about the preppiness and "girls with pearls" vibe, we certainly didn't feel that. </p>
<p>Their reputation is definitely rising, although its professional schools (med & law) have long been ranked very very high.</p>
<p>Middle Atlantic states here.
Reputation is on the way up.
Used to be a southern regional school but is expanding.
Folks over 40 who know the place associate it with frats and rich southern bells, and conservative politics. Or a rich party school. It's changing but it takes a while for everyone to catch up. Still, the southern culture is there. A neighbor reports she dresses up for football games and goes with a "date." Unheard of for us northern types.<br>
I see it as academically equivalent to Rice, Tufts, Boston College, Emory.<br>
Seems like a good balance of social life and academics. Not for intellectual, U Chicago types though...at least that's what I've heard from the kids I know who go there.</p>
<p>One son looked at Vanderbilt fairly seriously and we are from the rockies but before they sent him a pile of mail he hadn't heard of it other than the sports teams. </p>
<p>A great school with a very strong regional presence but not a real strong national presence, at least in the West. Just my take.</p>
<p>Several years ago, then President Gee, announced he was going to recruit Jews to raise the SAT scores.</p>
<p>must have worked:</p>
<p>As far as some statistics on the admitted students for the Vanderbilt class of 2012:</p>
<pre><code>* 23% overall admit rate (Regular and Early Decision I & II combined)
* SAT middle 50%: (CR & M) 1380 - 1540
* ACT middle 50%: 31-34
* 92% of all admitted students were in top 10
</code></pre>
<p>How odd of God, to choose the Jews! by Ogden Nash</p>
<p>Vandy is an excellent school. That's why I applied :)</p>
<p>Yes, mini, it was named after a rich person. So was Stanford, and about a hundred others. Your point was....what?</p>
<p>While I have no idea what rubio is getting at above (???), Vanderbilt's Hillel is a thriving organization on campus, located in a lovely facility (complete with a vegetarian kosher restaurant). Here's a link: Shalom</a> Vanderbilt!</p>
<p>And another link, about the incoming class of 2012: Vanderbilt</a> News Service Some highlights: Vandy had a 23.1 percent admit rate this year, the middle 50 percent for SAT scores was 1380-1540, and 30.2 percent of those admitted are students of color.</p>
<p>My daughter has found some outstanding academic and service opportunities at Vanderbilt, wonderful professors and mentoring, and an appreciation for another area of the US and its culture. The most apparent drawback seems to be how happily people who are uninformed about this school persist in their opinions. But whatcha gonna do?</p>
<p>Exactly what I said Frazzled 1. Gee announced about 5 or 6 years ago he was going to recruit Jews to raise the SAT scores. High SAT scores means more desirability, no? His implication was if we want higher scores, we need the Jews to get them.</p>
<p>As a Jew, I thought it was offensive, as did all the newspapers that reported it.</p>
<p>The follow up is just a little poem, quite famous.</p>
<p>I know of 4 Unies Gee has been President in the last 20 years, so I no longer know if he is still there.</p>
<p>"Yes, mini, it was named after a rich person. So was Stanford, and about a hundred others. Your point was....what?"</p>
<p>My point was exactly what I said. As far as reputation, that is all that 99% of the population out here knows about it (well, maybe a little more for its sports teams, and maybe a little less, if they don't know that Vanderbilt was a rich person.) Other than that, it doesn't HAVE a reputation where I live.</p>
<p>In CA where I live, it doesn't seem to be on a lot of students' radar due to distance, but that may be changing with savvy applicants knowing they have to cast a wider net. I think it would tend to attract sports-minded students at our h.s., the students looking for the Trojan (USC) experience: private college with passionate Div. 1 sports scene, hallowed (and often athletic-oriented) traditions, along with strong academics, striking architecture and gorgeous landscaping. And mild weather. I think of it as a USC with more students from the NE attending.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt was more than a rich person. He is the original robber barron, from the first Guilded Age, as opposed to our current Guilded Age.</p>
<p>I think he was also totally uneducated.</p>
<p>He has an unbelievable mansion, I think, in Va., that is now owned by the state as the family can't afford it.</p>
<p>The most famous mansion at Newport Beach is also a Vanderbilt mansion, also owned by the city or state, as the family abandoned it.</p>
<p>I would imagine the school is well endowed with excellent facilities. And, if Gee is still the President, he is an excellent fund raiser.</p>
<p>Gee is not the chancellor any more. he returned to Ohio State.</p>
<p>And there are multiple Vanderbilt Mansions scattered across the nation. Adjusted for inflation Vanderbilt was one of the top 5 richest people in American History.</p>
<p>I lived in Nashville and had 2 parents go to and work at Vanderbilt so my view of it is probably a bit higher then the average person's.</p>
<p>Interesting article in the latest issue of Vanderbilt Magazine, a publication for alumni and parents, notes the most significant family contributing to the college is not the Vanderbilts, but the Rockefellers. They have provided millions for development of one of the South's premier medical facilities and nursing training, as well as funding for other projects.
Seriously, if you want to evaluate the school's reputation, this magazine is an excellent way to note the impact of the school nationwide. One of the articles features Elyn Saks, current associate dean of the University of Southern California and author of The Center Cannot Hold, a book documenting her experience with schizophrenia. At the time of her graduation she was the recipient of The Founders Medal, Vanderbilt's highest honor, as well as a Marshall Scholar.
The other feature articles are on the impact of Vanderbilt professors and graduates on the problem of high school drop-outs (including a story featured on the national news about a professor who has provided wireless internet access and tutoring for students who have long bus rides), development of nanotechnology programs, and an article on Holocaust survivors who attended Vanderbilt which notes that Vanderbilt was the first university to feature an annual event of remembrance featuring survivor stories.
Each time this publication arrives I find that I read more articles than I skip, but this particular issue was especially compelling.
Vanderbilt</a> Magazine</p>
<p>rubio, I think you mean gilded. As in gold. Cornelius Vanderbilt probably was poorly educated, as he was entirely what is now called "a self-made man"; he started a ferry business as a teenager and went from there to make a fortune in both the shipping industry and in railroads. At some point not long after the Civil War, he was visited by a man who wanted to start a church-based college in Nashville. As the story goes, Vanderbilt had been looking for an opportunity to use a college to bridge the North-South divide, so he made an initial donation to get the college started, then followed up with another once he was convinced it was a serious effort. After the second donation, the college founders changed the name to Vanderbilt. A couple of decades later (maybe more) the religious affiliation was dropped. Vanderbilt never saw the place.</p>
<p>Do you think his idea of bridging the North/South divide with a university was successful? I'm afraid he might think not, if he witnessed the regular anti-Vanderbilt chatter on cc, which seems to be based largely on its geographic location.</p>
<p>I remember the stories about Vanderbilt's effort to diversify its campus, including getting Jewish students to consider the school. I don't remember any of the stories being negative. Most people thought it was a good idea to become more heterogeneous.</p>
<p>As for robber barons and crooked politicos who got major universities named after themselves, check out Leland Stanford's bio.</p>
<p>2VU, this issue of Vanderbilt magazine is a must-read for anyone who is really interested in the issue of meaningful school reform. There are several very interesting stories along those lines.</p>
<p>Sorry for the interruption, folks.</p>