UVA places 43% in DC+the south (minus TX). NU places 49% in the midwest. NU seems to place a bit more out west, while UVA seems to place more in the NE.

I don't see the huge differences...

thank you! who in the world puts Vandy on the list and leaves NYU and Boalt off? Preposterous.

And people say I hate on NYU! lol I do agree that Cornell shouldn't be on the national list though.

This thread turned out about as I was expecting it when i created it in my sleep deprived induced rage last night.

This thread is about as empirically-driven as my lay prestige thread.

Yes, I'd put Vandy as entirely regional. I am not even sure you could call it East Coast regional, more likely Southern regional. It's unhead of in the West and pushed out by better schools and Notre Dame in the midwest.

+1 to all of this. I'm from Maryland and hadn't heard of it until my best friend decided to go there after rejected from his first choice. And if you've spent anytime at Vandy for UG, you know thats a common pattern you hear about all. the. time.

Cooley...everyone knows it so its definitely national.

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. Possibly meritorious ITE (where *anything* is possible, given the dearth of data), but what data exists not only fails to support your statement, it contradicts it.


You people not having heard of Vanderbilt is irrelevant. UChicago has virtually no rep, as do most of the top Midwestern schools (NU, Michigan); how is this germane?

Uh..."you people?"

NU and Michigan get plenty of respect over here (says the Northeasterner)

I really only knew Vanderbilt existed because one of my friends went there after not getting into a better school.

Lol. +1.

There were plural addressees (there have been multiple references now to not having heard of Vandy). I wasn't trying to generalize anything about you. Apologies.

Is this seriously true? Do you mean for LS or UG? I just can't imagine getting through UG without having heard of Vandy.

I guess regional bias cuts both ways, b/c I've still never heard of the vast majority those northeastern "liberal arts colleges". Even the few I've vaguely heard before (Swathmore, Williams, Tufts, Vassar... that's about it) , I couldn't tell you where the hell they are or what they do. To be fair, there are a gazillion shitty little colleges in the NE, whereas you only have to remember two names (maybe three if you include Emory) in the South.

Exactly. And yes, I dated someone at Vandy for a few years, so I knew about it in UG...but not until senior year of high school.

It is often the first choice for those, like myself, who grew up in the great state of Tennessee.

The South is not really an education-centric region of the country, I'm afraid.

Its a great school...all of my friends who headed there loved it. It was just that they had all applied ED somewhere else first, so it was like a running joke that I heard pop up a lot at Vandy too.

Vanderbilt is in the Southeastern Conference. ie it plays sports at the national level (even made the NCAA basketball tourney a couple times and went to a bowl game recently).

Vanderbilt is a top 25 school in just about everything.

If you have not/had not heard of Vanderbilt then you are an idiot or have been living under a rock. It doesn't matter where you are from.

Not knowing about Vanderbilt is equivalent to not knowing about Duke or Stanford.

Dumbest comment ever. You think Vanderbilt is on the same level of lay OR professional prestige of Duke and Stanford? I understand this news is very surprising to people within Vandy's regional influence. It's much like trying to explain to people from California that UCLA is not the be all, end all elsewhere. But it is completely true.

Edited to add: I don't get the personal offense people take to this. I am UCLA UG and think highly of the school, but I don't take it personally when someone says it won't get me a law job in New York.

Oh, southern anger, how loud you are.

I like how this has turned into the "Lay Prestige Thread Version 2.0" - as if we needed another one.

You gotta give Vandy props for having a very social, attractive student body for its academic rank. I can respect a school like that (for all the grief I air about Cornell LS and their complete lack of CSO flexibility, they're in the same boat on that one).

For example, I bet your aforesaid SO was far cooler and better looking than anyone you could find on the (easy target) UChicago campus.


I was far more polite, but, yeah, I was kinda thinking the same thing. (...the bolded hyperbole notwithstanding)

Loves.

Not really. Vanderbilt has a pretty strong legal reputation in the Southwest. It places well in Phoenix and Denver, and I'd imagine in Salt Lake as well.

This is all assuming you don't think the West = only California.

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I'd typically consider the West and Southwest as distinct regions. They tend to favor different schools at the regional level.