<p>I agree with Pizzagirl with one caveat, if you end up applying for a job overseas, there are only a very few US universities that will carry any cachet at all. There’s no question (because my boss told me so) that my Harvard undergrad degree got me a job in Germany even though, that’s not where I studied architecture.</p>
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<p>JHS - in your world, you could see kids turning down Harvard for Duke, Stanford, etc. but you can’t see them turning it down for Vanderbilt. I think that’s because, as you’ve noted in the past, Vanderbilt isn’t as much on radar screens in the Philadelphia area. You’re going to have to trust that in other parts of the country, Vanderbilt would absolutely be seen as a top contender. The group of “top contenders” varies considerably by region of the country; the “Ivies + MIT + Stanford as the top and everyone else appreciably below” is not a national phenomenon, at all.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I’m not making a judgment on Vanderbilt at all, and I don’t really have an opinion on Vanderbilt vs. Duke, or anything like that. My own kid came within a whisker of deciding to go to graduate school at Vanderbilt, and honestly I was looking forward to bar-hopping on Broadway with him. All I am saying is that the numbers aren’t there for any general phenomenon of kids turning down Harvard for Vanderbilt. There simply aren’t enough kids who turn Harvard down for anywhere, and there’s lots of evidence that the lion’s share of such kids go to a veritable handful of colleges, not including Vanderbilt OR Duke, or for that matter Chicago, Michigan, or any other place I happen to like.</p>
<p>(I should have added that the very few who do turn down H. for BYU are almost always scholar-athletes. Around here, H. doesn’t seem to accept much of anyone but athletes.)</p>
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<p>Vanderbilt isn’t as much on radar screens on the West Coast, either. Most people here, even if they have heard of Vanderbilt, probably don’t know what state it is located in (other than the South) or how good of a college it is. This is not a knock on the quality of education offered at Vanderbilt, and only matters if you care whether employers/people you meet outside of Vanderbilt’s <em>contender</em> area will know much about your alma mater.</p>
<p>My daughter turned down Yale for Northwestern and has never looked back. Still kills my husband though. Get over it; it’s not your life.</p>
<p>Bugalooshrimp’s profile says he/she is 21 yo, which would make him neither a parent of a high school student, nor a 2012 high school graduate.</p>
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<p>The data that would help in answering this question is - what is the geographic distribution of those who apply to Harvard / get in and go versus the geographic distribution of those who apply to Harvard / get in and decide to go elsewhere. That would tell you a lot about which competitive sets these students were considering. In other words, is Harvard more of a “if admitted, can’t turn it down” in certain parts of the country compared to others. I don’t know, of course - I’m just hypothesizing. And if that is the case, is it driven by pure prestige or is it also linked to proximity to home. </p>
<p>Actually I wish I also had for the elite schools a distribution of where their applicant pool comes from, corrected / adjusted for population density.</p>
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<p>The stories and pictures that could have resulted would have been enough to have forced your kid to go there. What’s wrong with you, JHS? Sheesh. </p>
<p>Sample of one - the young adult who I know who has the absolute best job (esp in this economy) is a young Vanderbilt grad who is currently working in DC. She’s one of those whom we’ll all be working for one day. She’s like a Hillary Clinton mover-and-shaker type with tremendous potential.</p>
<p>S found kids who had turned down Harvard for Williams. In fact D of Harvard’s prez was one. Williams’ prez D was at Harvard. Guess they exchanged D’s.</p>
<p>Given the OP’s son’s accomplishments, it probably won’t make any difference at all to his future, and it does sound like he’d enjoy Vandy more than Harvard so I think he made the right choice for himself.</p>
<p>I do think it was an idiosyncratic choice that most students would not have made.</p>
<p>But so what?</p>
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<p>Perhaps a case of familiarity breeding contempt (even if undeserved)? Looks kind of like the students in NJ who want to go anywhere but Rutgers (but with respect to more selective schools).</p>
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<p>They probably mostly hear of Vanderbilt as a weak SEC football team that the good SEC football teams play to run up their win-loss records.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus: Hi. Not that it really matters, but that second quote isn’t mine.</p>
<p>I have no idea of what other people around here have heard of, but I certainly have heard of Vanderbilt. </p>
<p>People here are pretty savvy, even though we’re a suburban NE community. Rice was one student’s number one choice. On the other hand, ivy fever is pretty awful.</p>
<p>At my NYC public magnet, Vanderbilt was considered an elite school for those who want a more social atmosphere(Greek and otherwise) in a southern locale. All going there would mean is that someone wanted an elite school experience in the south…much like going to UVA, College of William and Mary, UNC-Chapel Hill, Rice, etc. </p>
<p>Duke is one exception for 2 reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>In the early-mid '90s, Duke vaulted up to the top 5 in USNWR rankings so plenty of folks who were admitted to HYPSMC schools were flat out rejected by Duke. </p></li>
<li><p>Nearly everyone who attended Duke or who’s from the area remarked it’s a “Northern elite school located in North Carolina”.</p></li>
</ol>