Vibe on campus: Vanderbilt versus Wake Forest versus Davidson versus Washington & Lee

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not clear as to which school--between Davidson College & U Richmond--has better professors. The University of Richmond has a larger endowment than Davidson, so U Richmond may have better professors.

On a per student basis, their endowments are pretty close considering that Davidson is about half the size of Richmond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not clear as to which school--between Davidson College & U Richmond--has better professors. The University of Richmond has a larger endowment than Davidson, so U Richmond may have better professors.

Definitely not the case. Davidson is known for undergraduate teaching quality: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/undergraduate-teaching

Unfortunately, this is a purely subjective ranking of LAC teaching "quality". I don't buy it as Williams College is ranked at #23 among LACs, yet has the highest endowment per student among all LACs.

[Anonymous]

For what it is worth, Davidson is a tougher admit (17% acceptance rate) than Univ of Richmond (29%).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not clear as to which school--between Davidson College & U Richmond--has better professors. The University of Richmond has a larger endowment than Davidson, so U Richmond may have better professors.

Definitely not the case. Davidson is known for undergraduate teaching quality: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/undergraduate-teaching

Unfortunately, this is a purely subjective ranking of LAC teaching "quality". I don't buy it as Williams College is ranked at #23 among LACs, yet has the highest endowment per student among all LACs.

News flash: a higher endowment doesn't guarantee higher teaching quality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not clear as to which school--between Davidson College & U Richmond--has better professors. The University of Richmond has a larger endowment than Davidson, so U Richmond may have better professors.

Definitely not the case. Davidson is known for undergraduate teaching quality: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/undergraduate-teaching

Unfortunately, this is a purely subjective ranking of LAC teaching "quality". I don't buy it as Williams College is ranked at #23 among LACs, yet has the highest endowment per student among all LACs.

News flash: a higher endowment doesn't guarantee higher teaching quality.

News flash: A lower endowment doesn't guarantee higher teaching quality.

At least schools with higher endowments can pay more to get the profs that they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not clear as to which school--between Davidson College & U Richmond--has better professors. The University of Richmond has a larger endowment than Davidson, so U Richmond may have better professors.

Definitely not the case. Davidson is known for undergraduate teaching quality: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/undergraduate-teaching

Unfortunately, this is a purely subjective ranking of LAC teaching "quality". I don't buy it as Williams College is ranked at #23 among LACs, yet has the highest endowment per student among all LACs.

News flash: a higher endowment doesn't guarantee higher teaching quality.

THIS! +1

[Anonymous]

Vandy campus tour was such a disappointment. Bland campus, even blander environs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fiske Guide To Colleges also gives awards up to 5 points for "social life".

Vanderbilt social life = 4/5.

WFU, Davidson, & Wash & Lee social life = 3/5.

5/5 is a bad rating for social life as it indicates that such a college or university is a party school.

The ranking below used Princeton Review for student happiness ratings, and also includes diversity and classroom experience in its calculations. It's one of the few I've found that includes universities and LACs on the same list.

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/blog/6/


Vandy is #13.

Wake 64.

Davidson 70.

W+L not on list--I think b/c they don't publicize their common data sets, which always seems kind of shady to me.

Princeton Review is interesting, but easily manipulated. My understanding is that Princeton Review rankings are the result of random student surveys.

I'm not sure how you could manipulate hundreds of random students at any given college to give higher ratings.

Besides, USNWR rankings are based on random surveys of college administrators, who only rate their competitors.

Which would you rather put your trust in?

[Anonymous]

Previous posters are splitting hairs. Both URichmond and Davidson are wealthy schools. Davidson's endowment is $1.3 billion with a student body of about 1900 students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not clear as to which school--between Davidson College & U Richmond--has better professors. The University of Richmond has a larger endowment than Davidson, so U Richmond may have better professors.

On a per student basis, their endowments are pretty close considering that Davidson is about half the size of Richmond.

Per student, 683k Richmond and 446k Davidson. Washington & Lee is 947k. https://www.collegeraptor.com/college-rankings/details/EndowmentPerStudent/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Previous posters are splitting hairs. Both URichmond and Davidson are wealthy schools. Davidson's endowment is $1.3 billion with a student body of about 1900 students.

FWIW, 99% of Richmond's classes are under 30 students, while only 87% of Davidson's are.

[Anonymous]

USNews has W&L and Davidson ranked a lot higher than Richmond. Personally, I'd pick Vandy out of these schools if choosing for my kid though would be happy to pay for W&L or Davidson.

[Anonymous]

I loved Davidson when visiting with my D18. She enjoyed where she went but hubby and I would have loved to have been Davidson parents. The August day we visited the campus was literally roaring and so lively in the midst of their freshman Cake Race.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Greek life is the primary social life at all three but not Vandy (probably because it is the only urban school of the four). If your kid is not so inclined, I would look elsewhere or be ok with having to actively seek out other social opportunities.

I currently have a child at Davidson who does not agree with you.

That’s fine, but thirty percent of male students and fifty percent of female students are Greek at Davidson. That’s a large percentage.

It's actually not a large percentage. I would have thought it to be higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vany is very hard to get into. If you want a shot there going to need to ED.

This year was crazy. I know many outright rejections of top (Ivy caliber) students.
I think the odds at the other two schools are much higher.

Agree, no one got in early this year at any of the private schools in our city (not DC), which is very atypical, and I know some of the students were Ivy caliber.

My "Ivy caliber" DS was admitted last year. He reports that the freshmen are a very, very serious group.

The whole 'SEC greek party school' thing is definitely dying on the vine, it seems.