<p>Looking at this school. OPINIONS?</p>
<p>Up and coming city, very smart undergrad population, improving school spirit, very good chancellor focused on undergrad education, work hard at financial aid, highly selective.</p>
<p>I went through this last year. Frankly, it’s an awesome school which doesn’t seem to get the recognition it deserves. Sad !!!</p>
<p>Strangely enough Vanderbilt was my safety school years ago (behind the usual southern schools: Duke, UVa, Rice) - what an improvement Vanderbilt has made. Seems like a much higher academic reputation now. I don’t think many people would pick it as a safety school these days.</p>
<p>What happened with the anti-religious rules they created two years ago?
<a href=“http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-04-01/vanderbilt-bias-catholic-group/53935512/1”>http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-04-01/vanderbilt-bias-catholic-group/53935512/1</a></p>
<p>Were they repealed or is it still a problem?</p>
<p>Vanderbilt also is one of the more “National Merit Finalist” friendly schools - more National Merit Scholarships (194) were given to incoming freshmen there than any but University of Chicago and similarly more National Merit Scholars enroll there.</p>
<p>@2018RiceParent , the rule was “anti-discrimination”, not “anti-religious.” All it said was that organizations cannot use religion in their criteria when selecting members or leaders. It had literally no impact on student organizations. It’s not like an atheist was going to run for office in a Christian-based club, nor were they going to get elected, regardless if this rule was in place or not.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what happened to the very few organizations that were violating the policy – perhaps they realized that their polices were discriminatory and changed them, or perhaps they unaffiliated with Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>Problem with the policy is not with membership- most religious groups are fine with those of other faiths joining it and being active - but forbidding Christian groups from requiring that leaders be Christian is ridiculous. The possibility for pranks and abuse alone (these are college kids after all and not all are unbiased toward Christians or Muslims or Jews for that matter) by ganging up on unpopular religions by taking over the leadership is significant. That the Catholic church at Vanderbilt can’t use the word Vanderbilt (and had to change their name) because leaders and priests have to be Catholic is also ridiculous. There were a wide variety of complaints from different organizations about the policy - most complied reluctantly but apparently at least 15 or 20 just gave up and moved.</p>
<p>Let’s not debate the policy, my comment is merely that it had literally impact on Vanderbilt organizations and that it was not an anti-religious policy. Any groups who decided to leave (I did not hear of any-- not sure what this “15 or 20” figure is from?) were purely for philosophical reasons. As I mentioned, an atheist prankster would not get elected to leadership in a religious organization with or without this policy. This should come as no surprise.</p>
<p>The number of organizations affected came from CNN I think. <a href=“http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/20/vanderbilts-policy-change-confronting-discrimination-or-infringing-on-religious-freedom/”>http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/20/vanderbilts-policy-change-confronting-discrimination-or-infringing-on-religious-freedom/</a> . Carol Swain, one of the Law Professors at Vanderbilt who complained most vocally about the new policy was quoted saying 14 Christian organizations were disallowed by the Spring of 2012 rule change. They also refused to let those 14 Christian groups post notices, fliers on campus and were forbidden from co-sponsoring any events and they were banned from participating in student fairs. The Catholic student group was one of the largest on campus apparently, but I don’t think that professor quoted worked with that group but one of the others.</p>
<p>natiajoy, When considering reputation there are only 12 universities that are ranked in the USNWR top 20, Global Academic World Ranking top 50, and the College Preeminence Admission Index (measures the yield/acceptance # to determine desirability and selectivity) top 15. These super 12 universities are: H,P,Y,S,MIT, CalTech, CU, UC, VU, UPenn, Cornell and Duke.<br>
Why Vanderbilt? The Princeton Review looks at the best 378 U’s and ranks them in different categories based on surveys from CURRENT STUDENTS to create top 20 lists. When looking at the above 12 universities the students say…
Happiest students: VU
Best quality of life: VU
Best run U: P, VU, and S
Students love U: S, Y
Great base city: C, VU
Elite athletic conference: VU, S, D</p>
<p>The take home message when considering these elite 12 universities is Vandy has the happiest students with the best quality of life, in a great city with top D1 athletics. Stanford, Yale, and Princeton scored well in several areas and Columbia students like NYC. The rest of these top U’s failed to make the top 20 in any of the above categories.</p>
<p>Top 30. All this talk of “improvement” is completely unfounded.</p>
<p>Chicago and Vanderbilt sponsor National Merit Scholars privately. You can’t compare schools that sponsor scholars to schools that don’t.</p>