Deciding between Georgetown vs. Vanderbilt - Fall 2023 Transfer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: Why are you posting this? Your daughter should be encouraged to make her own decision. Based on working many years with undergraduates I can tell you you are doing your daughter a grave injustice based on where you are coming from. Based on my experience, you have no capacity to understand this.
The biggest age of self discovery are the years of an undergraduate. Your daughter is clearly telling you she wants xyz and you think you are doing the best to facilitate this. It is detrimental to her happiness and success to get out from under your influence, however well intended. The best thing you can do for your child is let her go figure it out. STOP doing YOUR research and influencing your child. Time to step back. She sounds brilliant and is at a point in her life where pleasing her parents is a guarantee for failure. If you live in the DC area insist she NOT go to GU.
This is a massive turning point in her life….and yours. Encourage physical distance from home in an environment where she can discover new things. Let her grow up.

That was incredibly unhelpful.

You clearly misunderstood the point of the post. She is making her own decision.

[Anonymous]

We are a local DC family with a kid at Georgetown. We treat it like they are in a different city and never see them.

They have had a great academic and social experience thus far, zero complaints. Even the crappy dorm was a badge of honor for the dorm mates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP: Why are you posting this? Your daughter should be encouraged to make her own decision. Based on working many years with undergraduates I can tell you you are doing your daughter a grave injustice based on where you are coming from. Based on my experience, you have no capacity to understand this.
The biggest age of self discovery are the years of an undergraduate. Your daughter is clearly telling you she wants xyz and you think you are doing the best to facilitate this. It is detrimental to her happiness and success to get out from under your influence, however well intended. The best thing you can do for your child is let her go figure it out. STOP doing YOUR research and influencing your child. Time to step back. She sounds brilliant and is at a point in her life where pleasing her parents is a guarantee for failure. If you live in the DC area insist she NOT go to GU.
This is a massive turning point in her life….and yours. Encourage physical distance from home in an environment where she can discover new things. Let her grow up.

That was incredibly unhelpful.

It’s easier than doing damage control. Kids need to get away from intense parents and Parents in this area can be very intense. Can you imagine the daughters reality? I can and I feel bad for this girl. It sounds like these parents deeply care about their child but caring looks different as our kids get older. It is very hard, if not impossible, for many parents to comprehend this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are a local DC family with a kid at Georgetown. We treat it like they are in a different city and never see them.

They have had a great academic and social experience thus far, zero complaints. Even the crappy dorm was a badge of honor for the dorm mates.

Thank you. I'm glad they're having such a good experience and have found a good way to be independent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My order of preference would be Vandy then Gtown.

This has nothing to do with law school or big law - I did both just like you. All you need to get in is high grades + top LSAT - none of these schools hurt your chances. If you’re from DC, good chance she ends up at an east coast T14 and then NYC/DC big law. You know how regimented the path is, so why not take 3 yrs now to LIVE. Experience another part of the country, explore a new city. Who knows Vandy undergrad is just the kind of connection that opens up another city for her and lets her be a 6th Cir clerk one day or Nashville merely serves as her happy place in life that she travels to occasionally? As I plodded along the biglaw path and now govt, I understand how few chances one has in life to experience other cities etc - if it were my kid I’d push Vandy.

+1. Have a kid going to Vanderbilt in the fall so I may be biased but I would not make a decision based on concerns about getting into a top law school from there. I’m a biglaw partner and I think the landscape is going to be very different 6 years from now and as you note, she could change her mind altogether about law school. Most important for her to go to a school where she can thrive, get involved, and do well in school.

Also worth mentioning that there have been several posts on the Vanderbilt parents facebook page about transfers who have had good experiences transferring there. Good luck to your daughter!

[Anonymous]

If she chooses Vandy, highly rec asb alternative spring break, great way to meet ppl from random parts of campus. Re eating disorder, Greek life is fortunately not as dominant there as it was 20 yrs ago, which is a good thing—the women’s center and women’s studies programs were amazing resources back in the day (and also attracted a lot of prelaw people), no idea what they are like now but they were a lifeline back in the days when the campus was less diverse/more Greek than it is now. I knew one transfer and she did fine? I thought clubs and student orgs were fairly welcoming, but I’m guessing that’s the same at Gu, nw, etc.

For me I’d say the biggest differentiator would be, will she grow and benefit from being away from Dc? So to me, I would say Vandy or nw over Gu, just for the really new, stretching experience. Vandy is nice weather, even milder than Dc. Yeah if my kid I would encourage Vandy, and I didn’t even have the best experience there (long story, irrelevant to your situation).

Fun fact, a lot of campus “traditions” like “anchor down” were basically made up about 20 yrs ago as part of a big rebranding campaign, ha!

[Anonymous]

I am a lawyer with three kids at Ivies (not HYP). They all want to go to law school and two are currently studying for the LSAT. My gut tells me, based on what I know of the three schools, go with Georgetown. One of mine tried to transfer to Gtown and didn't get in (was WL). She is at an Ivy now. Odd how it works. But I think the curriculum lends itself to better success in law school. It is almost like a super SLAC, Georgetown is, for Arts and Sciences. Northewestern and Vandy will train well but I believe Gtown trains better critical thinking.

Note her grades have to be top top as she well knows for a t14.

Importantly, Gtown has a junior year program for law school and it is only open to it's own undergrads (unlike Harvard and Columbia) which have opened it up to all schools. That too me is the kicker/tiebreaker. It is called the Early Assurance Program at the Law School.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for all the very helpful comments.

[Anonymous]

Retired Biglaw partner here. Whether OP’s daughter goes to Georgetown, Vanderbilt or Northwestern will have zero - zero - bearing on her acceptance to a top law school and absolutely no influence on whether she lands a job with Biglaw either. Anyone suggesting anything to the contrary is out of their mind. This thread is the poster child for college admissions and planning going completely off the rails.

As an aside, when I was a Biglaw partner I distinctly remember another partner bragging over lunch about her kid just graduating from a top law school and getting ready to start in Biglaw and I honestly felt sorry for them both. If I had a kid who was as focused as OP’s kid seems to be on landing a job in Biglaw I’d wonder why and worry that I’d done something wrong. What’s the appeal beyond the money?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a lawyer with three kids at Ivies (not HYP). They all want to go to law school and two are currently studying for the LSAT. My gut tells me, based on what I know of the three schools, go with Georgetown. One of mine tried to transfer to Gtown and didn't get in (was WL). She is at an Ivy now. Odd how it works. But I think the curriculum lends itself to better success in law school. It is almost like a super SLAC, Georgetown is, for Arts and Sciences. Northewestern and Vandy will train well but I believe Gtown trains better critical thinking.

Note her grades have to be top top as she well knows for a t14.

Importantly, Gtown has a junior year program for law school and it is only open to it's own undergrads (unlike Harvard and Columbia) which have opened it up to all schools. That too me is the kicker/tiebreaker. It is called the Early Assurance Program at the Law School.

The above poster wrote: Georgetown "is almost like a super SLAC..I believe Gtown trains better critical thinking."

Hard to take this post seriously. Among the three, Georgetown is the least "like a super SLAC" due to larger class sizes than those at either of the other two universities under consideration. Northwestern is most like a super SLAC due to its high number of classes with fewer than 20 students.

Georgetown's endowment is small compared to that of Northwestern and compared to its peer schools.

As of June 30, 2022:

Northwestern University endowment = $14.1 Billion;

Vanderbilt University endowment = $10.2 Billion;

Georgetown University endowment = $3.21 Billion.

A possible reason that the above poster's child was rejected as a transfer student to Georgetown may have been due to a request for need based financial aid. Georgetown has the lowest endowment among the top 20 schools, while Northwestern's endowment ranks among the top 10 among all 800 US colleges and universities which report their endowments.

Georgetown's prestige comes from its Wash DC location and its School of Foreign Service.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you.

Yes. she's fortunate to have great choices and is a very good student. To put it into context, she got into only one school when she applied her senior year in HS. It's just cruelly competitive for kids applying from the DMV area in the regular applicant pools.

Yes. It’s been horribly competitive. Which school is she transferring from?

[Anonymous]

Congrats to your daughter.
Can't go wrong here. All just fit.
Would be nice to try something out of DC. I wouldn't rule out NU. People love that school.
The south is more appearance focused. That's just reality. But lived in Nashville for a year and it's a fun scene.

[Anonymous]

I would rule out Vanderbilt. She joined a sorority for a reason and that is not the reason she is transferring out of her current school. Will be tough to go to a school with a big Greek presence she won’t be participating in. I also think that the pressure to dress and look a certain way at Vanderbilt cannot be ignored or rug swept. For some kids, it wouldn’t matter but if your DD is the type who is going to care then it would be a big turn off socially. I also would consider the politics and environment. Davidson County is a blue dot in a Red Sea in Tennessee. She hasn’t visited Nashville but it’s a bit like Vegas (drink freely and puking at the honky Tonk bars). The good ole boy network is alive and well with churches every mile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am a lawyer with three kids at Ivies (not HYP). They all want to go to law school and two are currently studying for the LSAT. My gut tells me, based on what I know of the three schools, go with Georgetown. One of mine tried to transfer to Gtown and didn't get in (was WL). She is at an Ivy now. Odd how it works. But I think the curriculum lends itself to better success in law school. It is almost like a super SLAC, Georgetown is, for Arts and Sciences. Northewestern and Vandy will train well but I believe Gtown trains better critical thinking.

Note her grades have to be top top as she well knows for a t14.

Importantly, Gtown has a junior year program for law school and it is only open to it's own undergrads (unlike Harvard and Columbia) which have opened it up to all schools. That too me is the kicker/tiebreaker. It is called the Early Assurance Program at the Law School.

The above poster wrote: Georgetown "is almost like a super SLAC..I believe Gtown trains better critical thinking."

Hard to take this post seriously. Among the three, Georgetown is the least "like a super SLAC" due to larger class sizes than those at either of the other two universities under consideration. Northwestern is most like a super SLAC due to its high number of classes with fewer than 20 students.

Georgetown's endowment is small compared to that of Northwestern and compared to its peer schools.

As of June 30, 2022:

Northwestern University endowment = $14.1 Billion;

Vanderbilt University endowment = $10.2 Billion;

Georgetown University endowment = $3.21 Billion.

A possible reason that the above poster's child was rejected as a transfer student to Georgetown may have been due to a request for need based financial aid. Georgetown has the lowest endowment among the top 20 schools, while Northwestern's endowment ranks among the top 10 among all 800 US colleges and universities which report their endowments.

Georgetown's prestige comes from its Wash DC location and its School of Foreign Service.

Wrong thread. We are not talking endowments or Googled information, we are talking personal experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Congrats to your daughter.
Can't go wrong here. All just fit.
Would be nice to try something out of DC. I wouldn't rule out NU. People love that school.
The south is more appearance focused. That's just reality. But lived in Nashville for a year and it's a fun scene.

Thanks for this and the other very helpful comments above. I'd rather not disclose the specific school. It's a well-regarded, but large state school.