<p>One thing to keep in mind regarding Parents Weekend is that it falls close to when the students have a 4 day weekend. I ended up canceling our hotel reservations for Parents’ Weekend this school year because our son came home for that weekend, and it seemed silly for all of us to go to Nashville just 4 days later. Don’t get me wrong – it’s worth making reservations because you don’t know what will happen and there is no penalty for canceling well enough in advance, but it is something to think about.</p>
<p>Thanks LBowie and LHSCary…I have booked for move in and parents weekend. I figure we will come down for at least his first year parents weekend. I did book a hotel that charges for parking but it is on the 21st ave side of campus so I am hoping we can walk to the Commons from there and not have to find parking.</p>
<p>But I don’t think I could get any credible feedback on that issue from anyone but a Black Vanderbilt alumni/student. </p>
<hr>
<p>D’s former roommate of 3 years (and friend for life) is a Black Vanderbilt alum who had no issues with race relations. She hung out with whomever she wanted to hang out with … including a Muslim or two. I talked about race relations with her, and she felt that they were not a problem for her.</p>
<p>I booked a room for Commencement a full year in advance. We stayed at the Holiday Inn, which was really convenient - especially since rain moved Commencement inside, and the gym was really close to the HI! I actually booked with an Entertainment coupon - I kept my booking receipt, and when they tried to hike the price, I complained to the manager & got my initial rate!</p>
<p>For move-in, we really liked the Hampton West End. D was in Vandy-Barnard, which was walking distance from the hotel. We went back & forth a number of times. It was really convenient for us.</p>
<p>Might it be a socioeconomic thing that just translates to a race thing?</p>
<p>It’s odd:
- The more diverse schools tend to have more segregation. Schools with less diversity have less segregation.
- Some schools are proud of their diversity because the students look different but when you look closer the kids all came from prep or magnet schools, have the same GPA, test scores, EC’s, go to the same church, have the same tax rate, and play the piano.<br>
- If diversity is so important to a quality education why do elite schools admit so many students from the least diverse high schools?<br>
- Why admit so many kids from the same high schools every year? Why do they never admit kids from other high schools?</p>
<p>I’ve just booked Move-In weekend at a nearby Bed and Breakfast. We are arriving on Monday since our son moves in on Tuesday to attend Band Camp. We’re staying the week so that we can be there for Move-in Weekend and all the family events. We’re looking forward to exploring Nashville plus we can pick up items for the dorm room at the stores before everyone else arrives.</p>
<p>I’ve booked Embassy Suites for Parent’s Weekend, but thinking about changing it to the B&B.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not true.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is false is two senses: that students have the same ECs, same religion, same tax rate, and same musical interests. And that racial diversity is only skin-deep.</p>
<p>
[quote]
3. If diversity is so important to a quality education why do elite schools admit so many students from the least diverse high schools?
[quote]
</p>
<p>Because they’re also the best high schools. >.></p>
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</p>
<p>They do admit kids from other high schools. They disproportionately admit kids from higher ranked high schools because those are the best high schools.</p>
<p>The More You Know</p>
<p>Go9ersjrh, I am going to suggest you keep your Embassy Suites place on Parents Wkend. (Btw, Parents wkend is not something we did more than once and you will be able to negotiate wkend visits when your son or daughter has events to share or is less busy and hotels aren’t so booked)
The reasons to keep Embassy Suites are pretty much because in my experience with only my sons at Duke and Vandy…you may be surprised with how little time they spend with you even on Parents weekend. They generally have 2-3 hours at a time to be with you and are glad you are there but they still have homework, appointments, rehearsals etc. From Embassy suites you can get a shuttle to drop you off at the stadium or at a West End restaurant. But The Commons is good on foot since this hotel is on the side of Vandy where the Law School is located. They can join you for breakfast at the hotel for a nominal fee, they can meet you at many places they can get to on foot as well. They can walk to the Embassy Suites and you can take off from there to an outlying restaurant where it might not be so crammed with current students and parents.<br>
Keep a couple of options open in my humble opinion: a shared meal with invited friends without parents or with their parents, but make sure to have at least one block of time with your son or daughter alone in a peaceful setting to check in.<br>
A one mile walk around beautiful and flat Radnor Lake is always a great place to have a conversation. Radnor Lake is the amazingly intown preserve where native Nashvillians go to refresh.</p>
<p>Princeton Review’s rating of Vanderbilt is not derived from diversity stats; its derived from answers to a pretty basic question:</p>
<p>“Do different types of students (black/white, rich/poor) interact frequently and easily at your school?”</p>
<p>And for some reason, more students at Vanderbilt answered, “No,” more often than all but a few other colleges (19 in 2012). Any insight into why?</p>
<p>(anecdotes of reassurance aren’t really statistically significant in the first place)</p>
<p>I agree with Faline about staying at the Embassy Suites, although we have had plenty of time with our daughter both times we have attended parents’ weekend. We don’t do many of the school-planned events but instead taker her to Target and the mall (she always “needs” stuff), and out to dinner once with friends and another time with just us. It’s best to be within walking distance of campus, as there is nowhere to park on campus. The Embassy Suites is in a fine location–we’ve walked from there to everywhere on campus</p>
<p>We did not attend Parents Weekend - it was too close to fall break, and with D coming home it seemed silly to travel 9 hours. My D was at another school freshman year, though, which was 17 hours from home. She had told us not to come for Parents Weekend, so I wasn’t going to make the trip. As it turned out, being so far from home with no one she knew took more of a toll on her than she thought … she needed a weekend with Mom. I booked a hotel away from her campus so she could recharge. I would suggest doing Parents Weekend freshman year, but I know my D didn’t need/want us to come sophomore year.</p>
<p>Thanks for the recommendation on keeping the reservation at the Embassy Suites for Parent’s Weekend. I also figured there would be lots of other parents there.</p>
<p>Our son won’t be able to come home for Fall Break. It just takes too long to get from Nashville to our location in California. It is a minimum of 2 connections. He would spend all day Thursday flying home and all day Sunday flying back. That’s why we were planning to go back for Parent’s Weekend. We have more time available. I’m thankful that Thanksgiving Break is an entire week. He’ll be home then.</p>
<p>For Fall Break, he will have the opportunity to see family that live in Atlanta if he wants to get away.</p>
<p>Since he will be playing in the Marching Band, I know that we are going to want to go back at least once every Fall. I’m really hoping that they have two back to back home games so that we can go for a week and see the band play twice.</p>
<p>Philovitist–I hesitate to even wade into this discussion of racism on campus (especially since I am white and a parent) but want to question your reliance upon the Princeton Review for your information. Sadly, I think racism exists in many places and suggest that the Vandy people answering the question for the Princeton Review were simply being more honest than their peers at other institutions.</p>
<p>Don’t know if you have followed the uproar at Duke this past weekend caused by an Asian themed frat party that the Duke Asian Student Association, among others on campus, found to be offensive. In a discussion on the Duke CC page, someone posted the following:</p>
<p>“Duke is not the only university to have had an offensive party or incident. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following that were discussed on CC:
the “south of the border” party at Santa Clara
the “Compton cookout” at UCSD
the Christmas jingle at Tufts
the “conquistadors and Aztec hoes” party and Mexican lawn mowing at Chicago
the Guantanamo Bay party at LSE
the “Halloween in the 'hood” party at Johns Hopkins
the “Conquistabros and Navajos” party at Harvard”</p>
<p>I do not bring this up to justify any of it, simply to note that Vanderbilt is not alone. If the issue is a “deal breaker” for your attending Vanderbilt, I am sincerely sorry and wish you luck in finding a better environment on another campus.</p>
<p>Go9ersjrh, I booked at the Embassy Suites too. My son will not be coming home for the fall break either so at least we know they won’t be alone!</p>
<p>It’s not just the Princeton Review, though.</p>
<p>College ******* covers diversity in much more detail and more than half of its student reviews of diversity are negative; many are strongly condemning. And most of the positive reviews follow the “I have this asian friend” template.</p>
<p>I’m going to Vanderbilt because I want to learn how to deal with problems like these, not run away from them (and because it has the Neuroscience Program of the Year 2012, everyone there is so nice, and I love music, and etc.)</p>
<p>But I’m probably making too big of a deal of it. Vandy’s diversity is probably bad to people from different regions of America, but I live in South Carolina. And I’m happy.</p>
<p>All I can say is I have no confidence in Princeton Review’s rankings on anything. They probably poll so few people that it lacks accuracy. Vanderbilt was also ranked #5 for happiest students and recently #1 for Greek life… Are these accurate? I have trouble believing it. Their rankings change pretty wildly from year in many categories which leads me to believe their sample sizes are small.</p>
<p>I haven’t had an incredible amount of interaction with other races but it’s because I don’t run into people of other races incredibly often (other than Malaysian students and I have trouble communicating with them). Still, it’s a lot more than I had in highschool. Everyone I meet here is intelligent and somewhat like-minded, and it makes getting along so much easier. Skin color is irrelevant.</p>
<p>Like I said, PR’s not the only indicator - several other sources identify problems. And Vandy’s stayed on the poor race relations list consistently over recent years.</p>
<p>Any sampling problem will have occurred at every school, and yet Vandy keeps being the one that suffers among the most from it? Why do you think that happens?</p>
<p>The issue is not about whether a problem exists at Vandy (it does); I was just interesting in how the problem actually manifested.</p>
<p>And now I have an idea. Greek system (stereotypically a step behind), socioeconomic divide (probably because of how Vandy handles aid), a culture of self-segregation on both sides, and apathy.</p>
<p>Which is nothing new to me. It’s 00’s style race issues, not 80’s/90’s.</p>
<p>I think Vandy suffers from being viewed by those who “rank” and “review” as the conservative, southern, old-money, WASP school it once was. There are some who are … but many others who are not. I know many students at UMich. When I hear the feedback about UMich students, I laugh - it doesn’t mirror what I know about UMich students. You can’t judge a school by what others think. However, I need to caution you that if you go in looking for it to be a certain way, you will probably be so busy looking for it that you miss what you are NOT looking for. Please try to be open-minded and look for the best. You are more likely to find happiness if you don’t focus on negatives.</p>
<p>I don’t know what Phil’s agenda is or why he feels the need for fear mongering. As a parent it’s a joy to see my child so happy at Vanderbilt. She has friends of every race from all over the country and the world and loves the Vanderbilt community and school camaraderie.<br>
Free advice Phil can use or be free not to use…Try to unclinch your fists and stop looking for fights. Visit the schools and spend time with the students and formulate your our opinion from what you see. Understand some great schools may not be a great fit for you and go where you feel you will be happy.</p>