ED or RD: chance me for both

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
1

Hello all,
I’ve been researching Vandy more and more as of late and I’m fairly sure it’s exactly what I’m looking for. I’ve scheduled a campus visit in July along with time to tour Nashville, but I’m still debating between early decision and regular decision. Ive posted my stats below, but I feel like I am only borderline acceptable for RD and it really scares me. At the same time ED and the chance of bad financial aid scares me just as much. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): 1540 (CR=760, Math= 780)
ACT (breakdown): 35 C, (35E 35M 35R 35S)
SAT II: Planning to take Math 2 and Chem in October, should be available before Nov. 1 deadline correct? Both predicted 700+
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.8, some upward trend after sophomore year
Weighted GPA: 4.75
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): 15/609
AP (place score in parenthesis): Stastics (5) Euro (3) English Lang (3+ predicted) APUSH (3+ predicted)
Senior Year Course Load: AP Physics, AP calc BC, AP Econ, AP Government, Honors Technology, Spanish 2, Technical Theater, AP English Lang
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):
RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards)
Mock trial: ISBA State Top 8 Team
2x Dupage Mock Trial Tournament Top 8 Team
PLTW EDD Illinois State Competition Finalist
Presumptive National Merit Semifinalist/Finalist
Presumptive AP Scholar

Subjective:

Extracurriculars:
Mock trial 4 years, 2 as a board member
Church Youth group 6 years
Robotics 2 years
Mathaletes 4 years
Scholastic Bowl 1 year
Student Advisory Board 2 years
Peer Leader 2 years

Job experience:
4 seasons as a Little League Umpire
1 years working as a cashier and stocker at a grocery store

Volunteer:
7 total mission trips to New Orleans/ Detroit, and Mexico
Various volunteering through my church around the area
Volunteering and speaking at school events
Summer Activities: Working, mission trips, leadership camp at Augustana College
Essays (rating 1-10, details):
Most likely will be around 7-8, talking about my mission trips and how they shaped my views of the world
Recommendations (rating 1-10, details):
(Predicted)
Teacher Rec #1: 8, Junior English teacher, very involved in her class
Teacher Rec #2 10. Law Teacher and Mock Trial coach, president of Teacher’s union, knows me very well
Counselor Rec: 8, she knows me well but a very large school
Additional Recommendation: 8-9, from Stanford educated pastor
Interview: hopefully

Other

Applied for Financial Aid?: Yes
Intended Major: Mechanical engineering
State (if domestic applicant): IL
School Type: Large public, enrolled in competitive STEM program
Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
Income Bracket: Upper/middle class
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.):
none that I can think of right now.
Thanks For reading all this and for any advice you can give me!

2

Good numbers and solid EC’s. You would have an extremely good shot ED. I would say you have a good shot at RD too, but it has gotten a lot less certain recently, so I can’t really say for sure. I doubt you would be outright rejected, but there is a chance you could be hit with a waitlist.

See how certain you feel about liking the school based on your visit. As for financial aid, I found the financial aid calculator you can find online to be pretty accurate for predicting what it will look like (although this was a few years ago now). Depending on those two factors you can decide ED/RD.

3

Agreed with the first poster. You have a good shot and you’d almost certainly get in ED. The one thing I see that might kill your app could be the essays. Just be sure to avoid clichés when you talk about your misson trips. I hope you come to vandy :heart:

4

you need to sit down with your parents to discuss thoroughly if you can accept Vanderbilt’s view of your estimated cost of attendance. This means filling out the FAFSA and the supplemental information that is also required of your parents on the CSS Profile and going through the motions of facing it down as a family. Do it this summer as a guesstimate as your family makes decisions on where you can attend.

Keep in mind that merit offers are given to less than 1% of admitted students but they are most certainly given to ED students every year. The smart plan is to always always get admitted to the honors program in your home state or in a state where you can pay in-state tuition level rates for a very good education. Another angle is to consider paying out of state rates at a fine flagship school in a different state which can often still be much less than a private education. Whatever you do, do not get distracted by “if I can get in” without a realistic view of “would it be wise to pay my ECA” in my situation (grad school plans, siblings coming behind you etc.)

There are always scores of Vandy admits in RD who opt, reluctantly, to attend their better deals at other colleges which are often honors programs. In my decade of observance as a parent, highly motivated learners at state flagship honor programs do very very well in grad school and in the job market. We didn’t send either son to UVA to our financial detriment…what a waste. And Illinois has some excellent public colleges. Do not neglect them. I went to high school in southern Illinois and the state has very strong oral skills programs so you have done very well in a strong state for Mock Trial.

ED implies that you have done the due diligence and that Vanderbilt is your number one decisive choice among many other fine institutions that would also welcome you ED.

Back to the question of getting in. It helps if you have a strong notion of how you would use the resources at Vanderbilt in your particular way. You don’t have to promise your first born child. My son wrote premed type essays and then veered into a different path. But Vandy wants a class of students who are ready to make great use of their facilities in unique ways.

I like that you are taking your subject exams even though you have a strong ACT already. Some colleges as you know will require them… A word on the Math level 2. It has a more generous curve than level 1. Even so, it is my opinion that you should sit for subject exams on separate Saturdays if at all possible if you feel you must take them. With a 35 in Math on the ACT, it it necessary? And you must prep with the book that comes for the one hour Subject test to pace yourself–they are diff animals than AP exams. People take two at a time often and if you are a superb test taker, OK. My kids were mortals and did much better one at a time. I am a little confused about your being in Spanish 2 as a junior.

Last suggestion: Write merit essay drafts in the summers and always put your hat in the game. Why not? OK, my son turned his essays in usually at midnight on the deadline. Essays are very tricky and seniors are so very very busy and it is hard to package yourself in a few paragraphs but make the effort. On Writing the College Application 25th anniversary edition by Henry Bauld. Your biggest error would be to not be writing merit applications at state engineering schools as well if you cannot afford your EFC comfortably. Best wishes. Vandy has wonderful need aid and I truly hope it would be enough to suit your family.

5

Hey @Faline2,
After looking over alot and taking some time to reflect, you are right on alot of accounts and I’ll just hit on a couple of them.

  1. With regard to aid: based on the Net Price Calculator, Vanderbilt would actually grant the most need based aid of any private college on my list. However, this does not bring the total cost down to a number my family and I are comfortable with. With the uncertainty of merit based aid, I’m opting out of ED. This will also allow me to receive my first round of decisions from EA schools before I even worry about the vandy application.
  2. With state schools: I am certainly eligible for large merit aids/in state tuition at Midwestern schools like ISU or Iowa State. However, one of my largest concerns with college is simply location, which may sound odd; however, my reasoning is that these 4 years are my chance to live anywhere in the US and recieve a great education; I feel like I need to grab it while I can. I plan on finding at least 1 flagship state school to use as a safety.
  3. The SAT subject tests are not a huge deal too me, and are more to add to the statistics I already have and make up for some lower AP scores. I plan on taking both in the same sitting if possible, as I feel like it shouldn’t hurt my overall scores and I would like both ready in time to submit for EA.
  4. Senior year will be my second year of Spanish. This is due to some interesting choices just made freshman and sophomore year; each of these years I had only 1 elective and chose to take a social studies class using the elective instead of a language class. Do you believe this will be detrimental to my application? (One of the 2 years I took AP euro, the other I took 2 semester-long intro classes)
    Thank you for your detailed response!
6

Hi blountwil2:
I do not think your lack of 3-4 years of language will hurt you at all. I don’t even think 3s on your APs will hurt because your subscores are so good on your ACT. Your senior year classes are a bit over the top…maybe you should cut back and focus on doing well in fewer APs. I would drop Econ unless I just “don’t get it” re the advantage to More APs. I think 4s and 5s on Physics, Calc and Language is more important. And applications are so time consuming. Seniors have a lot of demands on their time. But what do I know. Your guidance counselor knows best. I recall that at least two Ivies require 3 subject tests. If you are really serious about engineering, take a hard look at the price tags and hunt hunt hunt since you want to go someplace new. Look seriously at Cost and Return on Investment. I totally understand that everyone would like an adventure and a new location. But there are upsides to staying regional in terms of networking.

My sons only come back to our small city once a year now. There colleges were extremely national in student body and people scattered, although their colleges have strong alum chapters in their current city.
Those who went to Va Tech and UVA have a ton of college friends in this state, great job networking and are more likely to have lives in the major metropolitan areas in Virginia/DC.

Post recession, you must be shrewd. We weren’t. We wanted to what I call “buy our eldest good kid who worked so hard a pony”. So we paid full price for Duke. He loved loved Duke. But financially, he goes to night school for his masters and works full time. It’s a trade off if you have limited resources for tuition in the family. Our resources for college are shot and guess what-- we got older, too, in the last decade and have little time to pull it together for retirement. Vandyson is in law school, an expensive path with often dubious return on investment even with the merit money he landed. Play your long game.

Personally, I think Vandy is worthy of some family debt in some instances. Engineering is usually a four year-- then get a job plan --which is a lot better than directly going to a 200 thousand dollar grad school path that is debt heavy and that often requires your parents’ income on page one of your financial applications! Getting more credentials in engineering is not a desperate situation for funding on your own. This is what I mean about if your family has to dig into their assets modestly for four years of undergrad. There are many reasons NOT TO DO IT. There are circumstances that are AOK as well. We used home equity and then the real estate market declined in 2008. So be shrewd. Always be shrewd. Take a look at OOS rates at places you might want to go like Georgia Tech for instance or Virginia Tech. Lastly, in the tiny% category are admits to the short list of Ivies (Princeton? Harvard) I can’t recall…that have unique limits on the amount of % of parental income they will take. They are kinder to the upper middle class than even extremely generous Vandy. Look into that if you want to throw out a reach application. by the way, signing up for face to face or alum interviews starts now. get out an excel sheet and set up all the deadlines and financial aid and % of Yield and admissions. Def not a time for beer goggles and parents are often more guilty of this than students.

7

@Faline2 Why is law school associated with a dubious return on investment? I don’t know much about that path but I heard that for med school there’s a pretty high chance on a good return (lawyers and doctors have similar incomes, no?)

@blountwil2 I personally think your senior schedule is fine but you know yourself best. You have good numbers and good volunteering, your ECs are pretty good but it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of (major) leadership although board position is kind of vague. I’d say you have a great shot getting in ED based on some of the people I know that got in ED and a pretty good chance getting in RD

8

@Suffer
Law school is more of a gamble because the barrier to entry is at the hiring level, rather than the school acceptance level unlike med school. That’s why if you go on the toplawschools forum the general rule of thumb is: only go if you get accepted to a T14 school, or if you get a significant scholarship to a top 50. Otherwise, your chances at getting a job at all (let alone a biglaw job, the only place to get a doctor/banker level salary right out of school) are not very high.

9

@Suffer One of my friend’s dad is a lawyer and he said that unless you can get into a top T14 law school(and be confident that you can graduate near the top of your class) it’s not worth while going anymore. There’s still good money at the top firms but outside of that the outlook is pretty dismal and will probably not improve anytime soon. He explained that a law firm use to need many young lawyers to research case law and old precedents. Now that can be done online through sites like Justia and FindLaw with much less manpower. If you graduate at the bottom of your med school class you’ll still be a doctor. Not the same for a law student.

10

Suffer, I don’t think there is a relationship between doctor and lawyer income potential that has any reliability. The last two posters are correct. There is a great deal more work in medicine at a pay scale that will chip away at your student loans. Most law students believe they will be the “exception” and will find work --including Vandyson…haha, who did in fact win merit money to a top 20ish law school and took it gratefully despite the better odds of getting hired out of a T-14 law school. If he had accepted a T-14 law school, his scores were not going to garner merit dollars and few families should take on 200-250 thousand dollars of debt for a law degree. In fact, the landscape in this field has more than shifted. It has altered permanently and been upended by many factors including globalization and digital age capabilities. There used to be a now quaint flourishing profession called “Law Librarian” for instance and a line of students waiting their turn to check out certain books or to have a librarian “go fetch” a research journal for them. Some work is actually subbed out to southeastern Asia overnight, just as some radiology is handed off to another hemisphere while local doctors sleep. Change is just much more rapid in some professions than in others. Probably there would be more demand for an attorney who is an accountant or an attorney who is an engineer or a specialist in the environment etc. In this situation, it might be smart to go to your flagship honors college at a lower cost and borrow for law school. Your career path should help you decide how to make long term plans on when you can risk borrowing.