Over the last few years, Vanderbilt has become one of the most desired and admired schools in the country. At a time when only 42 percent of Americans say they have a lot of confidence in higher education, and as other schools face a spate of crises — an increasingly antagonistic White House, the existential threat of AI, administrative uncertainty about how to handle student protests — the university has emerged as a bit of an apolitical fantasy land. It accepted just 2.9 percent of regular-decision applicants, and although its overall acceptance rate won’t be available until late August, a university official said it’s expected to be about 4.8 percent, which would make Vanderbilt almost as hard to get into as Yale was last year. And in about a month, the university will take over most of a city block in Chelsea, which will allow roughly 90 undergraduates to “study abroad” in New York, interning for such beloved local institutions as JPMorgan and McKinsey. “I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s on 85 percent of my students’ lists,” said Christopher Rim, a college-admissions consultant who works primarily with the ultrawealthy in Manhattan. “It’s the Ivies, MIT, Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt.” Claire Suddath reports on how Vanderbilt’s reputational makeover — making the school less fancy and southern, and considerably more selective and popular — has been in the works for decades: nymag.visitlink.me/0-qXtT