<p>I am a african american girl from new york; Vanderbilt offers many of the things that i am currently looking for in a college, but I am concerned whether I would fit in with the other students and with the southern culture. As I said before, I am black, Im from New York growing up in an upper middle class, but diverse (although still largely white) neighborhood. I just want to know whether I would experience any kind of "culture shock" if I attend this school. Ive heard from other places that it could be kind of preppy (something im definitely not used too), dominated by whites, and all the other races/nationalities kind of stick with each other.<br>
Is this school dominated by southern culture, or just things relating to tradition? How friendly are they to blacks, both on and off campus? Also, I heard that Vanderbilt is trying to improve their diversity, but how diverse is it?</p>
<p>Vanderbilt is filled with New Yorkers (its the second most represented state after TN). Most of the kids from New York tend to be either from Manhattan, Long Island, or Westchester though.</p>
<p>The campus is pretty diverse, but self-segregation does exist to some degree. However, there are blacks in the top, predominantly white sororities.</p>
<p>There is a preppy feel to the school, but I don’t really think thats a southern thing. Schools like Princeton, Dartmouth, etc have the same type of style.</p>
<p>Your very valid question made me curious about the statistical percentage of African Americans at Vanderbilt and it’s peer universities in the south such as Rice, Duke, Emory, Wake Forest and Washington Univ (I know St. Louis is not really “in the South”). </p>
<p>According to the stats on Collegeboard.org, Vanderbilt (at 8%) is within 1-3% of all of those schools. Interestingly, the “northern” schools in the top 25 such as Brown, Cornell, Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon do not have a significantly higher % (and some much less). Where there is a difference between Vanderbilt and SOME of it’s peer schools in the East is in the percentage of whites overall; Vandy does not have as many Asians, Latinos , etc (I have no clue what the category “other” encompasses).</p>
<p>As for the “preppy feel” I think Timetodecide12 ^ makes a good point that many of the schools in the top 25 will have the same type of feel; and will have a higher number of students who actually went to prep schools or other private schools–more than 50% of Vandy students graduated from public high schools according to the VU admission site. Also according to the admission stats, a little more than 1/3 of the students are from southern states but 1/4 are from mid-Atlantic and NE states. Illinois and Ohio send a lot of students too.</p>
<p>I do believe you would fit in well at Vanderbilt and in Nashville. As LHS posted there is not much difference in diversity at the top schools. Most are over represented with high income students, Asain, privately educated students with parents with college degrees. They are under represented with low income, black, white, latino students from public rural and urban schools.<br>
Take time to visit all the universities you are thinking about. Observe the students and spend time with the students and you will find the answers to your questions.</p>