<p>what do you love/hate about Vandy?
(social life, etc.)</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>lol I was just about to ask the same question...</p>
<p>i'm not a student, but this is the description on ************** (i actually have an account lol)</p>
<p>hope this helps, its kind of fun to read</p>
<p>The Batman Building The Bell South building, which bares a striking resemblance to Batman.
The Bod Peabody Campus.
Dores Commodores.
Gee Chancellor Gee.
Heinous Sorority girls favorite word for ugly.
The Loop The perimeter of campus.
Metro The Nashville police.
MRS degree When a Vandygirl goes to Vanderbilt with the ulterior motive of finding a husband.
O.T.P. Office of Traffic and Parking. If you have a car, you will grow to hate them.
Play Party, hang out, have some fun.
Prospective High school junior/senior looking to possibly matriculate at Vanderbilt. These wide-eyed minors are to be pampered and given a taste of the Vandy nightlife by their host students.
The Rec Student Recreation Center.
Sketch Suspicious.
Sorostitute A sorority girl who spends all her time at frat houses sucking up to the brothers.
The Steps A series of steps inside Sarratt Student Center.
Vanderbubble The community we live in.
Vanderexic Not quite anorexic, but obscenely thin. Typical of Vanderbilt sorority girls.
Vandygirl Not a girl from Vanderbilt, a girl who personifies the Vanderbilt girl stereotype.
Vandypants The tight black Capri pants that Vandygirls wear everywhere.
The Wall The walkway between Sarratt and campus.</p>
<p>Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming
to Vanderbilt
How large and imposing the Greek system is. Regardless of your position on whether or not you will join a frat, you will undoubtedly be affected by their abundance and spend a lot of time at their houses.
It takes so long to get your head out of the fog that is the Vanderbubble, and you should make an effort early on in your college career.
How extensive all the requirements that undergrads have to complete are. Take AP tests in order to get out of more requirements if you can.
The depth of Southern culture and its affect on the citizens of Nashville. Unless youre from the South, the Southern mentality is impossible to understand. Visit the South (Tennessee, in particular), or speak to relatives and friends who have lived or gone to school in the South to get their take on all this.</p>
<p>Tips to Succeed at Vanderbilt
The party scene is huge at Vandy, but academics are also very rigorous, so if you dont focus on school, you will be in trouble. This is a key point. If you get into Vanderbilt, you are an intelligent well-adjusted person, and you should possess the study skills to get things done. Dont fall into the traps and seductions of the nightlife. Also, establish relationships with your professors. They want to know you, and if you make the effort, your college experience will be greatly enhanced.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt Urban Legends
There is a monkey laboratory underneath Wilson Hall.
There are several graves on campus (underneath various monuments).
The Community Outreach House is haunted.
There is a series of underground, interconnected tunnels that run under Vandys campus. This one is true.</p>
<p>School Spirit
There is a lot of school spirit at Vandy; its just focused on teams that are winning. So, the teams that succeed tend to draw big crowds, while the teams that lose a lot dont always play in front of a packed house. Students and the Nashville community have a tremendous amount of spirit for teams like the baseball and basketball teams and will often pack Memorial Gymnasium or Hawkins Field. For the most part, people on campus are jaded about the football team. If were playing a really good school, a lot of people will use the excuse that they think were going to get killed. If we play a really bad school, people say that they dont want to see us win by 40. Maybe Vandy students just dont like football.</p>
<p>Traditions
Overdress to Impress
This involves guys dressing up in a coat and tie and taking a date in a dress to home football games. Like many traditions, no one seems to know why this is done. For the most part, the only people who participate are frat boys. Possibly, it is so they can sneak past police because they look sophisticated when in reality they are drunk out of their minds.</p>
<p>Running of the Pigs
This is when the sorority girls run to their houses on bid daythe day that they find out what sorority house theyve been accepted into. Pigs is probably one of those fun, half misogynistic, half freshmen orientation terms that was applied a long time ago. They used to let the frat boys throw stuff (water balloons, food, beer) at the girls as they ran by, but Gee shut that down. Now, the guys just line up to stare and check out the newest freshmen.</p>
<p>Rites of Spring
Rites is a huge concert series that, in the past, has featured such big name acts ranging from Dave Matthews Band, to Nelly, to Ludacris.</p>
<p>Commodore Quake
A huge concert before homecoming which has, in the past, hosted acts ranging from Counting Crows to Busta Rhymes.</p>
<p>Pre Game Scamper
The freshman lead the football team onto the field for the first home game of the year.</p>
<p>college-*******. i don't know why it puts stars over it</p>
<p>college p rowler.</p>
<p>The Bellsouth building looks like Sauron, minus the actual eye.</p>
<p>I just scanned that, kind of interesting...got to the part about sneaking past security by looking sophisticated - you just made my day.</p>
<p><em>insert Sauron here</em></p>
<p>^Sauron, in case no one knows what I'm talking about</p>
<p>Yeah I don't know about the CPH being haunted, but the other urban legends are true. I think that gives a fairly accurate, albeit outdated summary of Vandy. The thing that really impressed me about Vandy, especially in the science depts, was the collaboration. People are willing to work together and solve problems. The Greek scene gets on my nerves sometimes, but for the most part I'm involved in so many other activities that I don't really notice them.</p>
<p>thank you so much :)</p>
<p>also, does greek life ever interfere with your academics?
and could anyone give me the names of top sororities/frats in order of popularity?</p>
<p>kace, theres already a huge thread ranking the sororities. Id like to know about frat "rankings" too.
also, my philosophy is I am at college to learn 1st and party 2nd. How hard would you say it is to balance a frat with getting a decently good gpa in engineering? which frats tend to have smart, high achieving kids in them? or are they mixed in?</p>
<p>I think everyone is at Vandy for an education. My S is in Engineering and a frat. Every time we talk it is about balance. He has a 3.5 gpa and enjoys the parties with the best of them. So you can do both, but you have to be mature about it. I think I can talk a little on both because my wife and brother went to Vandy and were Greeks. As told to me by them as well as seeing the development of my S. The first two years are heavy greek for partying but as you get older you become more focused on your studies. With the way Vandy is set up, you develop friends more thru your hallmates with many different interests than your frat. The Greek houses only have approx. 6 members living in the house, everyone else lives in Vandy housing. Housing is where you spend most of your time. Of my S 10 best friends, I would say only 3 are frat brothers. So is the Greek scene important at Vandy yes, why because it is easy for Fresh. and Soph. to meet people in an open enviroment, because in my S class their was over 1000 different HS as part of his class. So hardly no one knows anyone else. As you get older, you finally meet people who you like and you hang around them more as you get comfortable in the Vandy bubble.</p>
<p>Most Greek men have their best friends and roommates inside the fraternity. Your son is probably in a fraternity that is geared towards engineers and the like, sounds like ATO. That is the exception and not the norm.</p>
<p>YouTube</a> - Dixie Belles traditional high kick routine to DIXIE</p>
<p>Hey! I'm a senior at Vandy and am feeling incredibly bittersweet about graduating. It's been an amazing 4 years. I think everyone's hitting the nail on the head in emphasizing the balance at Vandy--students are intelligent and motivated, yet they fully recognize the value of involvement in extracurriculars and mere downtime on the weekend.</p>
<p>I also truly believe that nearly anyone can find their niche at Vanderbilt. There is incredible diversity at Vanderbilt--diversity of opinion, of religion, of interests, of hobbies, etc...I would strongly disagree with anyone that claims that there is a "Vandy type."</p>
<p>Just want to share this with you, too...it'll give you a good idea about what life in Nashville is like, both within and outside of the Vandy bubble. Just click on "College Towns" and "Vanderbilt." Enjoy!</p>
<p>"There is a monkey laboratory underneath Wilson Hall. "
this one's true as well. psychological research on primates. pretty controversial</p>
<p>This article recounts numerous myths about Vanderbilt, some of which are mentioned in jnm656's post above. As you can see, there are actually five graves on campus.</p>
<p>One of the perks of being a Vandy parent is receiving the excellent alumni magazine.</p>
<p>jennilynn87 - Thank you for your post. Your sentiments directly mirror what I have heard from current and past students and what makes me so excited to send my S to Vandy this fall. I'm confident he will find his niche and meet wonderful, nice, smart and engaging friends. Godd luck to you and your future endeavors.</p>
<p>For those of you who are science bound, I have some academic pro's and con's.</p>
<p>Beware the physics department :P.<br>
Math 155 is easier than math 150. Trust me! Do NOT take math 150, take the "advanced" course.</p>
<p>The best part of Vandy is the ability to get into research labs as a freshman or sophomore, and continue to do meaningful research until graduation. My advice is to contact professor's the second you get on campus. It is possible to get into labs as a freshman, just be pro active. </p>
<p>Social aspects of campus.... well that's a whole different story. It's a Saturday night and I'm studying, while all of my suitemates are partying.... sometimes Molecular Bio is a pain :P.</p>
<p>Echoing the post above--</p>
<p>My daughter is a current freshman. She made the mistake of taking Math 150. Despite the fact that she'd had a college-level calculus class in high school, this class was ridiculously difficult. The course-wide average on the first test was a 60--and the course is not curved.</p>
<p>Half her section had dropped by the mid-semester point. She spent hours and hours studying for this course, which she earned her worst grade in. She is not taking 150b second semester.</p>
<p>Chemistry was not a whole lot better, but at least this course is curved. While she is sticking this one out, many of her friends elected to drop it second semester. I understand that these "pre-med" required sciences are weed out classes, but it seems to me that Vanderbilt is making these classes unnecessarily difficult and weeding out bright kids who have every potential for success. Over break, I was dumbfounded to hear how many of my daughter's friends who go to state schools or "less prestigious" private schools (and more importantlly, have never been the kind of student my daughter is) reporting getting 3.8 gpa's their first semester. And A's in calc and chem. There's no way these kids would even pass the class at Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>All that said--my daughter is very, very happy at Vanderbilt. She has found the work hard/play hard reputation to be accurate, but as a kid who worked very hard in high school, she is working harder than ever for lower grades than she ever received before. And as GCN2 said, staying in on a weekend night to study or write a paper is not all that unusual.</p>
<p>Me S will probably major in History, English or Poly Sci. He is not a math kid so I wonder what type of math most "non-math" kids take? He would be thrilled to never take another math class in his life! Any suggestions?</p>