<p>Hey, so my cousin is an international student who applied to Vandy but was rejected. She really has fairly good stats and awesome extracurriculars. Her transcript isn't stellar, but she does seem to be well suited for Vanderbilt. The problem is, her application didn't allow that to shine through. She wrote a really bad application essay and didn't do such a great job highlighting her strengths. Because of this, she wants to send in a letter for reconsideration with extra materials and was asking me about it. Does anyone know how this process works and if students are ever actually reconsidered and admitted to the university?</p>
<p>Did she even make the wait list? Those applicants will have priority for any remaining openings.</p>
<p>Where did you/she get the information that “reconsideration” is an actual process? Sometimes waitlisted applicants send supporting documentation to enhance their chances.</p>
<p>Should all the rejected applicants, most of whom are academically qualified to do well at Vandy, “apply” for “reconsideration”?</p>
<p>Perhaps she could demonstrate how awesome she is at another college and apply as a transfer.</p>
<p>I know some elite schools send letters suggesting rejected applicants apply as transfer students. I don’t know if Vandy does this.</p>
<p>The waitlist is very large. I can’t imagine there will be any reconsideration of a rejected applicant. As others said above, if your cousin was waitlisted, she could (and should) have sent in supplementary material when she returned her notification that she wanted to remain on the waiting list.</p>
<p>Here is what I read at the Vandy blog a couple hours ago:</p>
<p>All of the students who formally request a reconsideration (see below for how this is done) receive that reconsideration. I do not keep a statistic on how many of those decisions are reversed, but I can tell you that it is not many. The appeal/reconsideration process works like this: If a student wishes to appeal their admissions decision, they must write a formal letter (not an email) to our Dean of Admissions, Douglas Christiansen, requesting a reconsideration. In that reconsideration, we strongly encourage applicants to submit any NEW information that may be available (new grades, new testing, etc). An independent committee is then chaired by the Dean to decide these reconsiderations and a final decision is returned to the applicant.</p>
<p>I mentioned that few reconsiderations result in a reversal of the decision. It is important to note that this is not due to some internal “stacking of the deck” or “one strike already against you” thing, just that it is rare that the new information a student submits dramatically changes things.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if this is different for International students, but it does give me the impression that she should go ahead and request reconsideration if she feels that she can add sufficient information. I’m pretty sure that next to none of these requests actually overturn an initial decision, but I guess it might make a good impression for if she decides to transfer? I’m not quite sure, but I just emailed that excerpt from the blog to her. I suppose its up to her after that…</p>
<p>Oh, and she wasn’t waitlisted. I’m pretty sure it was outright rejection…</p>
<p>i’m a junior at Vandy and my roommate freshmen year was initially rejected…her SAT’s increased by a considerable amount (maybe 150-200 points?) and she appealed… and was later accepted. so its possible.</p>