How good is Vanderbilt?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:DC wants ED1 to Vandy next year (FCPS). How is the school like, I know it is apparently great for Quality of Life, but how does it compare to an Ivy League school? I want them to go to an Ivy like Cornell or Brown I believe that they are more well known and esteemed, and because I feel like Vandy is like a Wake Forest or Tulane. It feels very overrated, it feels like a southern NEU. Am I wrong? I feel like they can get into an Ivy, I think it would be a waste to go there over an Ivy.

It depends what you mean by “similar to an ivy”. If you mean 75% of undergraduates are in the 1500 and up group(pre-TO) , almost all stem kids took BC calc or multivariable calc in HS, large group of premed gunners, large group of finance bros, focus on liberal arts education even for stem majors, competitive clubs, good med/law/internship placements then yes it is very similar to ivy/T10. Vanderbilt is an excellent well respected school and has been for decades. Who knows why it is getting hate here.
Wake has a slightly less high-testing competitive student body but has the seminar/small classes, good placement and culture of working hard on classes—it is like William&Mary but more sporty. Definitely academic kids at both but not T10/ivy intensity because the majority are not former HS superstars/vals or sals all competing . Tulane is several notches down and is not going to provide anything close to wake or W&M level peer group, let alone Vanderbilt.

If you look at the WSJ analysis of graduates earning the highest salaries in 9 different fields, Vanderbilt only makes one of the nine lists, yet every Ivy league school makes the list for every single profession. Isn't that a more relevant comparison?

I would note, Wake, Tulane and NEU don't make any of the lists.

W&M actually does very well and makes 6 of the 9 lists.

This is inaccurate. William and Mary barely makes the lists of top 20 Public colleges, and is behind schools such as University of Washington and Rutgers. It would not rank at all on the top 20 private college list, which is dominated by the Ivies.

Rutgers is only ranked in 3 lists and is behind W&M in 2. W&M is on 6 lists. Washington does well as do California schools (UCs, Cal State). Cost of living may factor.

But it isn’t even in the top 100 when public and private schools are combined,

We don’t know that since WSJ only shows top 20 private and top 20 public.

The payscale shows the overall median for all grads…but that median is way below ($40-$50k in some instances) what the WSJ is showing for median salaries for these 9 areas.

Because the wsj is picking more lucrative professions, a school wide median is the more relevant number and William and Mary is not in top 100. They also would not be in the top 20 private school list.

A school wide median is misleading as it would not take into account mix of majors. Georgia Tech grads out earn Berkeley graduates on average (despite Berkeley being located California which has 40% higher cost of living than the national average). If you look at individual fields, though, Berkeley graduates often earn more. How can that be? Georgia Tech has an extremely high percentage of engineering graduates that go into high paying fields, considerably higher even than Berkeley.

[Anonymous]

Berkeley graduates earn considerably more than UT Austin graduates. But which one is more likely to have a higher percentage of graduates that own their own home?