Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Columbia and Brown have much more in common.

How? Brown is open curriculum. Columbia has strict core curriculum. What thye overlap most is probably over-representation of private school kids from NYC.

They’ll likely claim protests, but it’s not accurate. Lots of old stereotypes stick to Brown and get repeated places like here as facts. Same is true for other schools, current families can only do so much to correct narrative's when others enjoy stirring things up.

[Anonymous]

Please see below. Vanderbilt has always been ranked below both Duke and UChicago. This yea (2026) is not shown, nut I beleive Chicago is now 6th again and Duke is lower. It depends on the methodology for US News and World Report. When they deemphasized small class sizes and nobel laureates, and emphasized Pell Grant recipients Chicago fell in the rankings. Also, Chicago has many who do not graduate in 4 years because it is too hard, which also hurts their rankings.

https://www.aronfrishberg.com/projects/usnews.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are you talking about. Come back when Columbia or U Chicago don't have single digit acceptance rates or expect near perfect candidates.

Exactly!

[Anonymous]

Overwhelming percentage of Duke grads and current Duke students have zero interest in Columbia and Brown. Extremely different vibes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Overwhelming percentage of Duke grads and current Duke students have zero interest in Columbia and Brown. Extremely different vibes.

Not true for my kid and their private, lots of Duke and Brown crossover with those being top choices along with Yale. Obviously it varies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke is the gold standard of collegiate experience

Not for my kid. She visited the campus and thought it was definitely not a place for her.

My kid too, he was turned off. Hilly, mix of old and new buildings, etc. Prefers the cold and more intellectual vibe of a UChicago, Northwestern, etc. Some kids don't like to sweat climbing up hills in humidity. Hot weather is not ideal for all.

Since when is Duke “hilly”?? 😂

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One looks for introverts and one looks for extroverts.

Certain kids want a quintessential college experience complete with sports!

That’s right. Despite what DCUM boards will tell you, sports do A LOT for universities. Vanderbilt is a great case study in this. Awful sports for many (most) years. Finally they’ve invested in them. With that, comes more eyeballs. The school has leaned into it with better branding, uniforms, apparel, and all of the things that put eyes on their logo. Incredibly smart. Duke has had great basketball for years, and been great in some other smaller market sports, too. But, they picked it up in football the last few years and have leaned into that opportunity, too.

The new Vandy logo sucks. Bring back the V Star or donations will suffer.

lol. I agree!!!

We visited campus a few months ago. The plain V is disappointingly dull and does little for the brand.

I much prefer the V Star to the current logo … but thankfully they retired the oak leaf / acorn thing. That was straight-up embarrassing!!

[Anonymous]

Duke has more in common with Notre Dame than Brown or Columbia. Only Ivy with Duke like vibe would be Dartmouth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke has more in common with Notre Dame than Brown or Columbia. Only Ivy with Duke like vibe would be Dartmouth.

It goes both ways my Columbia student had no interest in Vandy and thought Duke, because of Durham, would be boring after a couple of semesters. Different strokes for different folks. . .

[Anonymous]

Columbia now has a reputation of having many unattractive, brainy, wealthy protestors. If that's a student's preference for dating and social life, then go to Columbia.

[Anonymous]

Duke is so far far different than Columbia and Brown. Fortunately!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Columbia now has a reputation of having many unattractive, brainy, wealthy protestors. If that's a student's preference for dating and social life, then go to Columbia.

Apparently it is a lot of students' preference given that Columbia still receives more applications than Duke and Vanderbilt.

I think posters' children are aiming for Columbia and UChicago. Otherwise, these every-other-day factually incorrect threads make no sense. It is really weird to start thread after thread on this subject.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Duke is the gold standard of collegiate experience

Not for my kid. She visited the campus and thought it was definitely not a place for her.

My kid too, he was turned off. Hilly, mix of old and new buildings, etc. Prefers the cold and more intellectual vibe of a UChicago, Northwestern, etc. Some kids don't like to sweat climbing up hills in humidity. Hot weather is not ideal for all.

Since when is Duke “hilly”?? 😂

+1
lol. Duke is not hilly and is pretty nerdy- insufferably so at times.
But enjoy your 1980s faux generalizations!

[Anonymous]

For class of 2029 Columbia had 18% international students for class of over 1800 kids. Duke had 11% international students for class size of 1750. Columbia also enrolled higher percentage of first generation kids. Very close total app numbers Columbia had 900 more applications with both schools reporting 58-59k applications totals. Very different demographic profiles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please see below. Vanderbilt has always been ranked below both Duke and UChicago. This yea (2026) is not shown, nut I beleive Chicago is now 6th again and Duke is lower. It depends on the methodology for US News and World Report. When they deemphasized small class sizes and nobel laureates, and emphasized Pell Grant recipients Chicago fell in the rankings. Also, Chicago has many who do not graduate in 4 years because it is too hard, which also hurts their rankings.

https://www.aronfrishberg.com/projects/usnews.html

Do you know anything about current UChicago post 2018? Obviously not. The median grade is a B+ in many classes, A- in some and B in some, overall around a 3.7. Less inflation than half the ivy league but on par with the half that does not over-inflate(Princeton, Penn, Cornell, Columbia).
There is no issue graduating in 4 years. Some choose to do an extra year for masters programs, that is what makes the grad numbers lower. There are very very few who have any trouble completing a bachelors in 4 years. Come off it. Stop spreading false narratives.