How hard is it to win this scholarship?
I would suggest hitting the search button on the Cornelius Vanderbilt to read up on student commentaries. Some of the winners have returned now and then to post. My impressions include these: ED students are indeed sometime winners and are not “punished” for already committing to Vandy. There is no “pattern” to who wins the CVs but my impression is that they reward academic promise, which is saying a lot since the entire admitted class has academic promise. Vanderbilt is a collective of specializations and each academic community wants wonderful students ready to enter their programs annually. Public service promise --whether in the future private sector, in research, non-profits or in innovations of some kind-- is part of the design for the signature Ingrams. If you cannot afford Vandy without merit $, definitely have another college admission lined up in your financial reach. That said, when it comes to merit dollars, apply apply apply.
It is very very hard to get a Vandy merit schollie. But mere mortal applicants do actually get them without having cured cancer or won a Nobel prize. Top 20 schools overall have zero-to-little merit money. But within that group, Vandy likely has the most merit scholarship money.
Vandy says that about 1% of applicants will get offered one of their merit schollies (of which the CV is one). So the odds are quite low. But much higher than the odds of winning the lottery.
Probably about 8% of enrolled students are merit scholar recipients. And Vandy’s schollies are typically full tuition as compared to half tuition (or less) which is more common at other schools.
So it is worth a shot, but not something anyone can count on. Good luck.
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@northwesty is correct. Another bonus about the Vandy scholarships is that they do not require an interview. Some schools offer a couple of full tuition scholarships and then invite 30 or so top applicants to interview for them; a battle royale. It seems to me the real plan of such schools is to lure top students to visit so that they will fall in love with campus and then attend no matter how much (or little) they are eventually offered. With Vandy, sometimes the scholarship offers come with a letter of admission before the middle of February; a very nice surprise for a student thinking they had to wait until the middle of March for news. So, I suggest applying for whichever of the 3 main signature scholarships you feel most fits your background (and perhaps more than one, but that may mean more essay writing). Good luck!
Pretty tough. The purpose of them is to yoink candidates away from HYPSM (i.e. people would normally end up at one of those schools and need something to sweeten the deal to end up at a “mere T15”). Obviously not every one of them has an offer, but all the ones I knew in person did.
So bottomline is that you should be in the top tier of applicants.
Son applied RD and was not awarded the CV scholarship.
His metrics include scoring 36s on the ACT both times he took it (once without writing and once with writing), 4.0 unweighted, 800s on both SAT subject tests, and 5s on all 8 APs taken to date. He also is a National Merit finalist. There is quite literally nothing more he could have done academically.
ECs are very strong as well, including captain and All-State in football (state championship team), track captain, band captain, math team captain and numerous other non-athletic ECs.
We understand the ultra-competitiveness involved and are neither upset nor surprised by this outcome. That’s just the way it is. He will have many good options.
That said, I still can’t help but shake my head.
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