Reply to How prestigious is Vanderbilt?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "How prestigious is Vanderbilt? "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No one is doubting that Vanderbilt is a great school. However, many people (even highly educated people) are not aware of how good it is.  
My kids just visited and I've talked about it with about a dozen DC friends over the past week or two.  All of them were shocked at how hard it is to get into Vanderbilt in 2024.  No one had ANY idea that it has a 6% acceptance rate.  These are all highly educated DC professionals who are hiring managers for good jobs at top companies--not people who are off the turnip truck in middle America.

I'm telling you, if you don't have a senior or you're not in academia you very likely think of Vanderbilt as being a very good but not elite school.

Remember, the Vanderbilt acceptance rate even in the early 90s was 65%!  I'm 49 and I graduated from high school in 1992. [b]So people who are now in their late 40s likely viewed Vanderbilt as a pretty sure bet when they applied to college. Not an elite school.[/b]  Unless you've had a kid apply to college since there, you likely don't know (or have given any thought) to much things have changed with Vanderbilt admissions. And MANY hiring managers are in their late 40s.  So I'm sure many will not be as bowled over by a Vanderbilt degree like they would by say a Yale degree (although Vanderbilt is now just as difficult to get into as Yale.)[/quote]

Just to be clear, in 1990, UChicago and UPenn had acceptance rates near 50%, yet they were - and still are - great schools. Admissions for ALL schools used to be much more regional than they are today, though schools even today pull most strongly from their region. But, within their region, Vanderbilt and UChicago were always considered top schools. [/quote]

this, plus Northwestern.

It's 1990, Kansas City. Affluent white suburb that looks like Falls Church or Potomac. Doctors' kids and the like.

The genuinely bright, hard-working handful of kids in my Class of '90 were easily admitted to Northwestern. Also Grinnell, Marquette, and SMU.  These full-pay kids all applied to this list of schools and got into all of them, NBD.  Nobody thought Northwestern was "tippy top elite" compared to SMU or Marquette. None of the Northwestern-bound kids in my school -- and there were many -- had "national level ECs" or legacy or football recruit status.  Just regular, bright kids with a 32 ACT and full pay parents.

The crazy-accomplished few kids targeted Georgetown

[/quote]

Huh. I graduated HS in the '90s in suburban PA, close-ish to NYC, and Northwestern was certainly a known quantity back then. Definitely on par with the lower Ivies, maybe a half notch down, but still considered "elite." Husband is from Minnesota, and his perception of Northwestern was similar - definitely attracted more "crazy accomplished" kids than Georgetown, at least.

Vanderbilt was a bit of a non-entity, on the other hand, although I understand that has changed a bit in recent years.[/quote]

Grew up in Michigan, graduated high school in 1997, and Northwestern was as good as Ivy back then. Certainly more impressive than someone trudging off to Dartmouth at least.[/quote]

Umm. I graduated high school in 93 and graduated Northwestern in 1997. Dartmouth and Georgetown were considered peers if not better schools in 1993.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics