Anonymous
03/10/2026 00:35
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
Duke by far!
Anonymous
03/10/2026 00:12
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
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.
Anonymous
03/09/2026 23:49
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
DD liked Duke a lot when she toured. I pointed out that it felt comfortable bc it felt familiar— as in a college version of her high school experience and peers. I want her to go to college where she doesn’t encounter only people just like her. But I get it; often we go where we feel comfortable, and it has always been a great school. So I would be proud to see her there, regardless.
Anonymous
03/09/2026 23:41
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
For well-rounded extroverts, Duke is The destination. Columbia and Cihicago have absolutely nothing in common with Duke fortunately.
Anonymous
03/09/2026 23:27
Subject: Re:Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
Anonymous wrote:What do you mean Duke ascending? I went in the 90s and it was ranked 3-5 in USNWR while I was there. I am not a huge Rah Rah Duke person but among that list, Duke was usually ranked higher. But who cares, they are all great schools. No one is going to hire a Duke v. UChicago grad just based on the name of the undergrad. All of those schools buy the same ticket.
Could have written this post. I don't understand why people say stuff like the OP. Where were you in the 90s? I'm also an alum that's not super into it, but what is it? Just blind hatred? You just are pretending Duke never dominated the rankings? Even the last few years- it's been 6-7, now you want to act like it's "coming up like Vandy"? Lol. just why?
Anonymous
03/09/2026 23:22
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
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.
Anonymous
03/09/2026 23:21
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
High schools got increasingly grindy and hs students got increasingly competitive among peers. Four years of that is fine I guess, but 8 years is too much. I think a lot of hs seniors just don’t want to fight peers for grades and success constantly and many ivies have that reputation. Michigan has been trending up at the same time that their promotional materials are touting collaboration in learning environments —-and their hiring rates are also still showing strong. So that’s two important positives today’s applicants really care about. A school like Michigan just seems like a simultaneously more human/supportive and more successful place to be.
Also, side note, I have recently heard employers in both business & engineering say they don’t want the “social injustice” politics that accompanies some Ivy grads today. It’s not inherently bad to hold these views, it’s just professionally risky. They just want to hire a competent person to do the job, no political stance required.
Also, side note, I have recently heard employers in both business & engineering say they don’t want the “social injustice” politics that accompanies some Ivy grads today. It’s not inherently bad to hold these views, it’s just professionally risky. They just want to hire a competent person to do the job, no political stance required.
Anonymous
03/09/2026 22:54
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
Anonymous wrote:Duke is the gold standard of collegiate experience
So are many schools with great combination of academics and athletics. Stanford, UCLA, USC, Umich, Northwestern, UNC, etc.
Anonymous
03/09/2026 22:47
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Couldn't be just about a protest, weather or basketball, could it? The protest was shortlived, and the weather and basketball were always there, so why they suddenly more popular now?
None of that is a valid assessment of the quality of the students.
Duke is a stable T10 no rise or decline: solidly in the T10, only one year in the last 10 has been outside of it, and has the SAT scores (pre-TO) that rival the top-4 ivies and MIT.
Columbia is in a decline: falsified data led to a fake "T3" spot, and never reported SAT scores on the CDS, due to lower than the top 4 ivies with the large pool of GS students, then they had the extensive issues with the protests and now a gated campus. It remains a top school T11-15, it could go back up to T10 (And bump down JHU with its 2 rounds of ED) but not likely in the next 5 years.
UChicago: Stable but not really a T10, though not declining fro those that understand where it really sits. Like Columbia they never reported CDS, and have been TO for a while. Furthermore they have ED1 ED2 and EA and RD, now an ED0. They game the system too much to be T10, period. They are a stable T15 That gets ranked USN T10 due to gimmicks.
Vanderbilt: used to have one of the Top-7 SAT ranges in the country, now they take tons of TO, take hundreds in sophomore transfers, all TO and many quite low (1350s). They are not ascending they are moving from what used to be T12-15 to T18-22. Their fit over the USN rankings drop was illustrative. Act like you belong, don't whine. WashU has become more prestigious as far as talent of the student body than Vanderbilt.
This is just odd, why would they take all those TOs/transfers with low scores when they have plenty of high stats kids to choose from? Legacy? Athletics?
Anonymous
03/09/2026 22:25
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
Anonymous wrote:I don't thinks it's an issue of prestige but rather an issue of desirability and fit. Duke and Vanderbilt tick a lot of boxes for super smart, social kids who want a fun collegiate experience with academics, sports, greek and mild weather. Unfortunately, too many top kids at our private think the same. So instead, my kid applied early to any ivy which is pretty social and had better predicted ed results vs duke/vandy. Funny enough, I went to columbia and dh went to chicago. My kid had absolutely no interest in those schools. I do think columbia's protest campus disruptions turned them off and they didn't like the restrictive core curriculum. Regarding chicago, they were turned off by the quarter system and grind reputation. Fit is equally or more important than prestige.
Which Ivy is social and has more predicted ED results? Cornell?
Anonymous
03/09/2026 22:24
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
Duke is the gold standard of collegiate experience
Anonymous
03/09/2026 21:46
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
I don't thinks it's an issue of prestige but rather an issue of desirability and fit. Duke and Vanderbilt tick a lot of boxes for super smart, social kids who want a fun collegiate experience with academics, sports, greek and mild weather. Unfortunately, too many top kids at our private think the same. So instead, my kid applied early to any ivy which is pretty social and had better predicted ed results vs duke/vandy. Funny enough, I went to columbia and dh went to chicago. My kid had absolutely no interest in those schools. I do think columbia's protest campus disruptions turned them off and they didn't like the restrictive core curriculum. Regarding chicago, they were turned off by the quarter system and grind reputation. Fit is equally or more important than prestige.
Anonymous
03/09/2026 21:15
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Couldn't be just about a protest, weather or basketball, could it? The protest was shortlived, and the weather and basketball were always there, so why they suddenly more popular now?
Chicago used to be a central hub for railroads, industrial manufacturing, and trade. The region has declined significantly.
The marketing materials we received from Chicago include comic drawings. The brand identity has changed from an academic behemoth to something else.
Who asked? And who are you to draw conclusions about an entire university based on comics and mail?
It’s a weird pathetic bored mom who starts all these new conversations daily. Someone needs to get on a different platform because this is not the right place for her attention seeking behavior.
I would try the plethora of Facebook college counseling groups. There’s so much of this, she would never get bored.
Anonymous
03/09/2026 21:03
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
I believe Duke had slightly fewer ED applications this year than last year.
Anonymous
03/09/2026 20:36
Subject: Why are schools like Columbia and UChicago descending in prestige while schools like Duke and Vanderbilt ascending?
From TIME magazine. Everybody has their own opinion.
1 University of Oxford
2 Yale University
3 Stanford University
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5 The University of Chicago
6 Harvard University
7 University of Cambridge
8 Imperial College London
9 University of Michigan
10 University of Pennsylvania
11 Princeton University
12 Johns Hopkins University
13 California Institute of Technology
14 Duke University
15 Cornell University
16 The University of Edinburgh
17 The University of Hong Kong
18 ETH Zurich
19 University of Zurich
20 University of Wisconsin–Madison
21 The Chinese University of Hong Kong
22 Emory University
23 University of Geneva
24 Rice University
25 Vanderbilt University
26 University of Toronto
27 Case Western Reserve University
28 University of California, Berkeley
29 University of California, Los Angeles
30 The University of Queensland
31 University College London
32 University of Bern
33 Ohio State University
34 The University of British Columbia
35 University of Bristol
36 LMU Munich
37 University of Texas at Austin
38 Carnegie Mellon University
39 University of Southampton
40 The University of Melbourne
41 Boston University
42 Tsinghua University
43 Dartmouth College
44 Brown University
45 University of Southern California
46 University of California, Davis
47 University of Virginia
48 University of Basel
49 University of Glasgow
50 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
51 University of Tokyo
52 École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
53 King’s College London
54 University of Sheffield
55 Columbia University
56 University of Leeds
57 University of Lausanne
58 Tufts University
59 The University of Sydney
60 Kyoto University
61 The University of Western Australia
62 Georgia Institute of Technology
63 University of Birmingham
64 University of California, Irvine
65 Seoul National University
66 University of Liverpool
67 University of New South Wales
68 The Australian National University
69 The University of Manchester
70 Shanghai Jiao Tong University
71 The University of Adelaide
72 Technical University of Munich
73 Nanyang Technological University
74 London School of Economics and Political Science
75 University of Alberta
76 University of California, San Diego
77 Technical University of Denmark
78 University of Nottingham
79 National University of Singapore
80 University of Washington
81 Pennsylvania State University
82 University of Göttingen
83 University of Warwick
84 Lund University
85 Michigan State University
86 New York University
87 The University of Utah
88 University of Auckland
89 Newcastle University
90 Monash University
91 Arizona State University
92 McMaster University
93 Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
94 Delft University of Technology
95 University of Maryland
96 University of Vienna
97 University of Calgary
98 Northwestern University
99 Yonsei University
100 University of Miami
1 University of Oxford
2 Yale University
3 Stanford University
4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
5 The University of Chicago
6 Harvard University
7 University of Cambridge
8 Imperial College London
9 University of Michigan
10 University of Pennsylvania
11 Princeton University
12 Johns Hopkins University
13 California Institute of Technology
14 Duke University
15 Cornell University
16 The University of Edinburgh
17 The University of Hong Kong
18 ETH Zurich
19 University of Zurich
20 University of Wisconsin–Madison
21 The Chinese University of Hong Kong
22 Emory University
23 University of Geneva
24 Rice University
25 Vanderbilt University
26 University of Toronto
27 Case Western Reserve University
28 University of California, Berkeley
29 University of California, Los Angeles
30 The University of Queensland
31 University College London
32 University of Bern
33 Ohio State University
34 The University of British Columbia
35 University of Bristol
36 LMU Munich
37 University of Texas at Austin
38 Carnegie Mellon University
39 University of Southampton
40 The University of Melbourne
41 Boston University
42 Tsinghua University
43 Dartmouth College
44 Brown University
45 University of Southern California
46 University of California, Davis
47 University of Virginia
48 University of Basel
49 University of Glasgow
50 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
51 University of Tokyo
52 École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne
53 King’s College London
54 University of Sheffield
55 Columbia University
56 University of Leeds
57 University of Lausanne
58 Tufts University
59 The University of Sydney
60 Kyoto University
61 The University of Western Australia
62 Georgia Institute of Technology
63 University of Birmingham
64 University of California, Irvine
65 Seoul National University
66 University of Liverpool
67 University of New South Wales
68 The Australian National University
69 The University of Manchester
70 Shanghai Jiao Tong University
71 The University of Adelaide
72 Technical University of Munich
73 Nanyang Technological University
74 London School of Economics and Political Science
75 University of Alberta
76 University of California, San Diego
77 Technical University of Denmark
78 University of Nottingham
79 National University of Singapore
80 University of Washington
81 Pennsylvania State University
82 University of Göttingen
83 University of Warwick
84 Lund University
85 Michigan State University
86 New York University
87 The University of Utah
88 University of Auckland
89 Newcastle University
90 Monash University
91 Arizona State University
92 McMaster University
93 Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin
94 Delft University of Technology
95 University of Maryland
96 University of Vienna
97 University of Calgary
98 Northwestern University
99 Yonsei University
100 University of Miami