I am sure I am quite late being just started planning for this big day and I would appreciate some advice. The commencement is 5/11 Friday from 9am to noon. What activities are there afterwards? When do the graduates move out of the dorm? I am asking for the purpose of booking hotel. How many nights of hotel should I book? We will be driving (8hr) to Nashville a day before so need to book for the night of 5/10. I would also think we will stay 5/11. How about 5/12? Do we need to move out of dorm on 5/12?
It looks like many hotels next to campus are either booked or very costly. If we book hotel rooms further out (airport? Brentwood?), what would be parking situation like around campus? Will there be shuttle buses running from the parking lots like during Family weekends? If parking will be difficult then I wonder if we should go with option B - stay somewhat close (3-5miles) and take Uber?
I just read further and noticed that the school events are 5/9 Wed, 5/10 Thur, and 5/11 Friday. Do most families attend Wed and Thur events? If so, we will need to leave on Tue.
It also looks like there will be parking garages available and shuttle buses running. Just not sure how much the parking fill up.
My family and I are planning on attending all events starting from Wednesday night’s Commons party! So we’re staying Wednesday and Thursday night and leaving late Friday afternoon, with the graduation dinner on Thursday. It depends on your preferences, but Vandy plans Commencement very well so I would recommend staying longer. I suggest Ubering if you’re staying away from campus. I would also recommend using Air BnB to explore more options (even my Econ professor said he rents rooms for Commencement using Air BnB!) and finding something close to West End or Edgehill.
@Sophie1295, thank you for sharing your plans. If you are leaving Nashville late Friday afternoon, when will you move out of your dorm? When do most students move out of the dorm? Friday after Commencement? Saturday morning? My understanding is that the dorm closes on Sat at 1pm.
There is a week between the end of finals and commencement, so some students can do most of move out prior to commencement activities if they aren’t doing beach week.
For S’s graduation year, the Wednesday night party on the Peabody lawn was fun until the rains came. I can’t even remember the main act since they were rained out before performance. However, the med school faculty cover band was awesome. I skipped Wednesday night for D’s undergrad commencement, but can’t remember why. My favorite day of the week for both kids was Thursday with Senior Day speakers, receptions with major related faculty, and dinners with kids’ friends & their families.
I found that rates were slightly less expensive downtown for D’s graduation than at the hotels near to campus, but I booked twelve months out. No shuttles provided for any of the four Vandy graduations I attended, so I suggest you wear comfortable walking shoes.
@Sophie1295 is correct that Vandy does commencement very well. That said, for each of the four I have attended, there has been rain during some of the week that affected scheduling. It might be worth a little extra $$ to stay close and not have to scramble with transportation if the skies open up.
@2VU0609, thank you. The dinners with kids’ friends and their families - I assume they are independent from the school events, right? If so, I will need to start reach out to S friends’ parents.
Yes, meals with friends & families were independent. D planned a dinner for 6-7 families of her sorority sisters at a restaurant with private space (no longer open or I would name it for you). I think that depending on size of group, it might be good to book that before the holiday break or shortly into the new year. When D was married in 2016, it was a real effort to find restaurants with private spaces for the rehearsal dinner. Despite all the wonderful restaurants, private dining space is somewhat limited. We were really lucky with S that his best friend is from Nashville and both his parents are on med school faculty. They hosted us for a bbq at their house after graduation for that one.
If your child’s school or department has a reception for their graduates, do make sure to go. I really enjoyed speaking to one of D’s art history professors when she graduated and the professor kindly provided her with a graduate school rec a few years later. S did honors program in one of his majors (econ) and the faculty member who coordinated that hosted the 6 honors students and their families for a reception where each student’s honors thesis was discussed briefly and then they had a wonderful wine/beer/appetizers reception. A reception for all econ grads blended into that immediately following. Econ is a huge major (around 200 grads his year, if I remember correctly), so it was nice that they made the effort to recognize the kids who chose to pursue the honors track and do more work.
IMO, it’s just nice to hear the professors interact with the students and to take satisfaction in the bonds they built academically. I went to a large state school and I’m sure that not one of my professors would have known me on the street outside of the classroom. Of course, some of that falls on me, but a big part of that has to do with the size of the school and the value placed on undergraduate teaching.
Thank you, @2VU0609, for your detailed description. It sounds like a great commencement for your family.
I will need to find out if A&S has any department reception.
D graduated in 2011, A&S. We did not arrive in town until Friday, and we didn’t go to any events other than Commencement (which was indoors due to the weather). We booked a year in advance and stayed at the Holiday Inn - it was really convenient to the rain-venue! My in law stayed at Hampton in Green Hills - they didn’t book until closer to the event, and the price was reasonable. They got stuck in traffic, though, so I would recommend leaving really early if you have to drive in. Friday night, we went to dinner with D and S - the kids went to the movies and spent the night with D’s roommate & her sister; H and I listened to the great local talent singing in the hotel bar. After Commencement, we spent some time with D’s roommate & her family. Later, D/S/H & I went to dinner with my in laws. D had no interest in any activities other than the Commencement ceremony, and we felt that it was all we needed to attend.
D was invited to apply for Phi Beta Kappa, but she chose not to - had she done that, we would surely have wanted to attend the reception they had for PBK during the week. We really didn’t want/feel the need to go to anything else. The idea of battling crowds to get some champagne & strawberries just didn’t interest us.
We live 25 minutes outside the city, so hotels were not an issue. Staying at the airport/mt. juliet, brentwood area will save you a bunch of money and plenty of Lyft and Uber drivers available if needed. Both of our girls moved out Sat. morning. Since we are local, some was taken prior to move-out. However, I can say without a doubt, MANY MANY students waited until Saturday morning to do everything. Lots of hungover, painful trips up and down the elevators and stairs, LOL. I loved the party on Wednesday night, my girls enjoyed the speakers on Thursday. One did beach week, the other didn’t. Graduation is amazing, and the strawberries and champagne celebration is PERFECTION, but not food. My crew was hungry for real food. We ate at a restaurant out of downtown and away from crowds both times. They open several of the parking garages free to families and have shuttles available, however they were few and far between. I parked in the lot across from the dorm and just put a sign in it that said “moving out tomorrow” and left my SUV there for daughter to get started on. There was a smiley face “ticket” on my car the next day that said “congratulations”. Because most kids are gone, getting dollys and carts wasn’t too hard, but we did barely make the 1;00 cut-off. I second going VERY early to commencement on Friday a.m. because Nashville traffic is awful, and there is a large private K-12 school right on 21st, which gums up in the morning as well.