<p>I am a rising senior and Vanderbilt University is currently one of my top choices, but I am not sure I would get in. Any feedback or knowledge about the admissions process and my chances (or how to increase them) would be very much appreciated.</p>
<p>GPA
Unweighted: 3.98
Weighted: 4.33</p>
<p>COURSES
I have taken all Honors courses in every core class except for Biology freshman year. This past year (junior year) however I took Pre Calculus instead of IB Math Studies I. I also took English 11 Honors instead of IB English. But I was enrolled in IB History of the Americas and IB Chemistry. This year I will also take IB Spanish V. Junior year I did take Accounting which was unweighted. This year I will take Physics which is weighted, but I do not know if it is considered an honors course.</p>
<p>Extra Curricular Activities:
Varsity Cross Country- all four years (Co-Captain Senior year)
Varsity Track- all four years (most likely)
Fellowship of Christian Athletes- all four years
Drug Free Program at my school- all four years (officer for Sophomore, Junior and Senior)
Student Council- last two years (Ambassador during Junior year and Student Body Vice President)
200+ hours of community service</p>
<p>You can look at this board in April and March of last year to see the stats of those students who reported being admitted or rejected or waitlisted. Ditto the ED round seasons.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt students are serious about mastering exam taking skills and score high and prep mightily. If you are interested in upping your chances, there is good time right now to do all the practice exams in the Red Book of Real ACTs. Do a couple of them open book and study the answers that are correct. Then start timing yourself. You have high math and english scores already but you can likely change things by mastering the test to your best ability and then knowing when to hang it up and just start applying. When our son made the same SAT score twice, that has the ring of finality to it even though he only took it twice. Time to quit and to focus on the rest of the application.</p>
<p>I would love nothing more than to apply Early Decision, but I do not want to be stuck if the financial aid does not work out. But thank you for the advice, nevertheless.</p>
<p>You can get a very good idea of your FA from Vanderbilt’s net price calculator. It is very accurate. We were a little hesitant to let our son apply ED because of finances also, so after running the calculator I phoned the financial aid department and they said as long as you input the correct information, they stand by the result within a couple of thousand. He applied ED1 and his final financial aid package was only $500.00 off the calculator amount.</p>
<p>Unless Vandy has changed their policy, they do NOT superscore the ACT. Your ACT is low for Vandy- I believe their mid 50% was 32-35. But you already likely know that applying to a school like Vandy is extremely competitive- their acceptance rate is in the low teens. It’s always anyone’s guess as to what these schools look for. Good luck.</p>
<p>I’m thinking this year is when they are going to factor in the writing score? Might want some help on that to get in the 10-12 range? I think they mentioned it at last years info session? They also said the prefered date for ACT is the October test. My middle had a 31, but retook it and got a 32. She had a 4.5 weighted GPA and 4.0 unweighted. Took as many APs as her schedule would allow. Very good extras, and lots of community service. She excelled at music outside of the academic, and work/volunteering outside of school shows 4 years of dedication to intended major. She applied ED.</p>
<p>appforcollege, the decision to do ED is not really only about wanting to wait re financial aid. If your family knows their Cost of Attendance more or less at Vanderbilt, than you can compare to your COA at your state flagship and have that family pow wow regarding what they plan to spend.<br>
It is highly unlikely that any other college besides perhaps a place like Princeton will offer you a better need package loan free. That is the good news when you choose to do ED at a college that has a No Loans financial aid offering. </p>
<p>The rub is if you would consider taking merit offers to other colleges. that takes a great deal of reality based thinking on the odds of merit money. really fine colleges like my alma mater Furman University have merit money for the lucky winners but their need packages include loans. </p>
<p>Vanderbilt’s merit money is quite the challenge considering that all admittees would be meritorious in several respects. </p>
<p>Although we would like to have offered our hard working second son the privilege of a full priced private college, the recession of 2008-9 nixed it. He therefore didn’t consider ED at his favorite private institutions and he was prepared to pay full price to our flagship colleges or to win merit money. He also has long term graduate school plans that are expensive and seldom are reduced for need or merit. </p>
<p>If your COA to Vanderbilt is comparable to your COA to your flagship college…than ED makes sense. Our eldest got into Duke and some little Ivies and had honors admissions to three colleges but the reality was…all Full Price. No merit anywhere, some schools offered perks or little summer research stipends. Happens to the best of students just like that. We just didn’t grasp how these things work till son number 2. Plus we obfuscated and had a hard time facing up to our limitations as parents. If you are the first to go to college, try to get your parents to make a nice chart and to really think about costs.</p>
<p>appforcollege - I would only add that no university can hold you to ED if the aid package comes back unexpectedly unaffordable. It would be unlikely if you do all the calculations others have advised, but just know that no school can make you attend. Despite signing a statement that says you understand what being accepted ED entails, it is more of a moral commitment than a legal one. To the best of my knowledge, no person has ever been taken to court for not following through on an ED acceptance, and financial reasons would be a legitimate “out” anyway.</p>
<p>Vandy states during their admissions sessions “don’t apply ED unless you are willing to take their offer.” I’m not sure how ED works. How can they make you go to Vandy or NOT let you go elsewhere. But… they said they hold to ED. </p>
<p>The middle class is in a tough position. We all make too much to qualify for financial aid but don’t have $60K x 4 years x 3 children sitting in the bank. Yes, the recession hurt a lot of families with college-aged children.</p>
<p>Rice1961 is speaking about reality. We sent eldest son full price to Duke in 2005 and are still in “recovery mode”. Recession of 2008-9 was something we didn’t prep for and property values/equity are weak in our town. Do consider paying full respect to your state flagship and honors college options if you have any plans for graduate school. ie…we now have two employed sons with bachelors degrees but not much re resources to help with huge grad school loan burdens on the horizon for the son with an expensive career choice and other son will be doing state schools at night for his grad degree while working.<br>
Run this whole year with your Long Game in mind, parents and students. An A student with good testing scores on pre professional exams like MCAT GMAT GRE LSAT will get into grad school. is your grad school path expensive? Factor this in.<br>
We also underwrote one summer school session in cash, one class dropped and retaken (five grand at Duke), rent/food in DC 3 summers for two sons (ummm…12-15 grand at least although they had minimum wage incomes for food and transport fees), wardrobes for business, scraping together cars and insurance for each, used Obama care once to keep a young adult son on our family health care. airplane tix for semesters abroad, fees for Alternative Spring Break service trips, (semesters abroad generally do NOT cost more than a semester at Vandy or Duke fyi…just getting over there will cost you)
We are pleased with having employed college grads but in the long run, we were a bit delusional about paying full freight for Duke and second son accepted a merit offer but was emotionally prepared to attend his state flagships with a smile. Every family has different resources and different outlooks.<br>
You could not have talked us out of sending eldest son to a full price college in 05. but in hindsight for parents it was a mistake. Our son however greatly benefitted so we are not unhappy, we are proud of him and his love for his alma mater.</p>
<p>We are having similar feelings about being full-pay at Vanderbilt. Many of our D’s friends attend our state’s flagship school and are making straight As and having a great college experience. My D passed up an offer for the honors program there in favor of Vandebilt. She’s also having a great experience at Vandy but has had to work hard for a B average and is concerned that, if she does decide to go to grad school, she may have been better off with a stronger GPA from the state school. And, the cost to us is really oppressive. We’re so glad that she’s going abroad for a semester because the cost is so much less than a semester in Nashville (by almost half). If we had to do it all over again, I think we might not have chosen this route. Unless the student has a really clear vision of his or her career path and Vandy fits that vision well, I’m not sure that the cost is worth it. I guess time will tell on that. D has landed two good internships so far that may not have been available to her absent her Vandy credentials on her resume. But, the bottom line will be whether she lands a real job at the end of four years and, if not, whether she can get into a good grad school with less than stellar grades. Of course then we’ll have to figure out a way to pay for that, too, with a second child just entering college then. Hoping that one chooses the state school and gives us some relief.</p>
<p>I don’t think our kids would have gotten “lost” at our fine state colleges, but I can count the number of good students we know who did go to our flagship and underperform/get lost/never speak to a teacher etc. Apts with faculty members are a big deal at the flagships and there is a “get in line” aspect plus many courses have small group discussion led by teaching assistants. Totally diff experience from Vandy although our state schools in Virginia have tons of fine students who are highly motivated and are a benefit to grow up alongside.</p>
<p>The small classrooms at Vanderbilt were very positive and son got to know at least 8-10 faculty members over the years, enough to secure personal letters of reference. He had a high opinion of 99% of his Vandy teachers whether or not the class was larger or small or he was anonymous or known. Son had a good deal of contact with his teachers if he initiated…but no coddling or intimacy as he might have received at a fine liberal arts college where more personal relationships are standard. When you are in a big institution like Vanderbilt, you do have to be a self directed person just as you must be at a flagship college. But you get the bigger playground, the broader peer group, the grad schools and the massive resources Vandy provides.<br>
Regarding grad school entry, I think that Vandy itself will carry a great deal of weight when lenny2’s daughter graduates. She is going to school with tippy top students for four years. That alone will hone your survival skills and keep you working at your top ability. She will probably find the same chutzpah that got her the test scores to get into Vanderbilt when she takes grad school exams.<br>
Duke son graduated with a B average and that was his absolute best effort in a quantitative degree. Probably would have managed an A average at other optional colleges, but son has the good quality of liking being around excellence even when others are more gifted. The toughening up he had keeping up with the highly gifted was probably a great secondary benefit since he is in business where quantitative moxy is highly prized and used daily.<br>
Both sons are active in their alum networks and to be fair to Duke where we as parents overspent in 05 to 09…the Duke alum network was directly responsible for two of his job opportunities/interviews as well as for a support network of friends where he lives now. Vandy son graduated in 13 and has already attended Vandy alum events in two major cities.<br>
I think both of them needed what Duke and Vandy had to offer when they were 18…breadth and depth of peers and an institution of dreamers and highly motivated people.</p>
<p>I hate to be that person but I had really similar scores, same gpa, and similar activities and was denied ED1. My ECs could be directly correlated to my major choice and I had over 1000 high school service hours. They are looking for people with dozens of sporadic activities and 8+ APs minimum. Disregard everything they say in their tours and info sessions. They’re looking to compete with the Ivies and unless you have written a book or published scientific research in high school, it’s unlikely that you’ll be admitted. I’m solely speaking on experience, but hey, you never really know what they want! You could get in easily! I hope you do! Good luck! Sorry to play devil’s advocate! I’m kinda bitter haha</p>
<p>Abmcq17, I’m sorry to hear of your denial. Vandy is ultra competitive this year and initial ED stats reports suggest that they had so many apps that they paid a lot of attention to GPA and test scores. My initial impression from the ED1 stats is that 33 would very probably get you in, all else being equal, and 32 probably would not. That’s a very high score, esp. when the paired GPA is 3.8-4.0 unwtd. RD should be even tougher. Vandy seems to be one of these schools that you’d better apply to ED1 or expect to have almost no chance. Those 250 or so tuition scholarships have drawn apps from the best students in the U.S. because so few people can afford $250K for a single child even tho some of them have very good salaries. Something has to give in this country.</p>