do they send us an email when we get in? Or is it just posted on the portal and send the letter? Can’t wait!!!
I think they send an email with the link on how to access decisions.
^that sounds like the most nerve-wracking thing ever
Lol I haven’t applied to any other colleges besides Vandy yet. If I get rejected I’ll have to hurry up and fill out like 5 apps to Emory, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Uchicago, and some others before I go out of town on 12/20. Lol I am so nervous! Definite second choice is Notre Dame because my dad works there and I have a lot of connections. I’m so anxious.
@korimeck : Notre Dame is also the one most similar to Vanderbilt. Emory and Chicago? Not remotely the same. I am not convinced you’d particularly like them(I mean, did you visit and talk to people there?). Even Ohio State may be a better fit if the archetype is Vanderbilt. Why not Georgetown, Duke, Stanford, Cornell, USC, Virginia, Chapel Hill, schools like those? Very fun schools in the traditional college experience sense (not the quirky sort of thing that Emory and Chicago have going on), not as gungho academically oriented students (Emory with the pre-professional nerd types along with the just hardcore jump through hoops pre-professionals and Chicago still having the intellectual sort of nerd though also quite pre-professional itself, at least when compared to Vanderbilt, both of these schools are saturated with those types), and great academic offerings. All of these actually fit the bill of “work hard play hard”.
Where’s everyone on here from?
December 11th is the day; just saw someone who was accepted through QuestBridge and it said that their My App VU portal would reflect the acceptance on the 11th.
@gregorious New Jersey!
these next five days are going to be full of anxiety with hope and no hope and everything in between…
Do you know how for sure that is? Does any else know if it’s typical for release dates given on questbridge to be accurate for normal decision releases?
@gregorious Tennessee
what is questbridge?
@gregorious an organization that helps those with high achieving academics but low incomes apply and enter college
The email said, and I quote, “In addition, your MyAppVU portal will be updated on December 11 to reflect your admission to the Vanderbilt Class of 2020.”
ED 1 has a higher acceptance rate than ED 2, correct?
@hlsidle yes.
5 days to go! Let’s keep this active the wait is killing me.
@bernie12 Thank you! That is helpful. I have visited Uchicago and Ohio State, I’ve not heard much about Emory. I would apply to schools like Cornell and Dartmouth, but my subject text scores were not stellar (640, 640, 680 - I was having a bad day) and most of the ivies require subject test scores. But thank you for all the information.
I am from Southwest Michigan! Five more days!!! 
@korimeck I suspect Chicago likes subject test scores as well (even if it doesn’t require them), but at least it is now more scores (SAT/ACT) based like Vanderbilt, so if you have the scores you need for Vanderbilt, you could probably get into Chicago. But again, the type of academics and students there are very different. Cornell and Dartmouth, especially Dartmouth, are also good ones.
As for Emory, if you look at the major 4 southern schools, it is more like Rice in terms of “feel” whereas Vandy and Duke are most similar. Being more like Rice puts you basically in between the “work hard play hard” schools( like Vandy) and more “Chicagoesque/Intense types” type of schools (and overall, it appears that their administrations favor going the Chicago or Ivy-Like route). They are more like “play hard, but work/think way harder” schools. Both are very “happy” schools much like Vanderbilt, but I suspect it is for different reasons. It may be more so the quality of life, amenities, and virtue of being in the south (good weather) than being a medium/small private school with a more public school like social vitality (in addition to good quality of life. The 4 top southern privates all are among the best quality of life wise). There is no doubt that many of the students at Rice and Emory are outwardly nerdy (even crap tons of the pre-professionals) and aren’t particularly ashamed of it. No surprise as Rice has a huge engineering crowd and Emory has skyhigh amounts of pre-meds along with those interested in things like CS and Tech despite the fact that it doesn’t have engineering. Emory also has top English undergrad. programs so you can imagine what types that attracts. I could go on, but a huge difference with places like them (the more academic group of schools) is that students at such places are often attracted to very specific programs and offerings that the schools are very known for and lesser so the quality of life or vitality (though both are solid in those areas-admittedly some more academic, and even higher ranked schools are much less focused on quality of life and things like dorm and amenity quality show it). True “work hard play hard” schools attract a huge portion of the students due to quality of life and how vibrant the social scene is. The great academics are more or less taken for granted (as in, you accept that it is good because its rank indicates that it obviously is, even if you don’t really know what it truly excels in. You’ll find something good to major in or will excel despite how good your major is versus the best programs at the school).
Emory is even weirder than Rice in the sense that kind of like some Ivies…students are a bit more dense overall. It doesn’t have as much of the “laid back” (Rice students can be quirky but are relatively laid back) feel as the other 3 southern schools. Perhaps that is because it has Division 3 sports so attracts a decent chunk that didn’t even care for Division 1 sports in the first place. That on top of the pre-professionals makes for an interesting place that can be fun, but just won’t feel like the traditional type of fun you have at say…Vanderbilt or those other schools. For example, one of the big party weeks in Spring displays the quirkiness of the school called “Dooley’s Week” where we essentially made a week paying tribute to a skeleton (has to do with history of the school and its students in terms of how this came about) and this “mascot” and his “crew” will go around and let out classes IF folks in certain classes write a haiku. I went there, and as kind of a nerdy (I do not equate nerd/geek to “smart and wants to hard enough to make high grades”-I also do not equate it to anti-social as I love socializing. I just don’t care whether I’m doing it at a party every weekend or Thursday for that matter) person, I easily enjoyed it, but it isn’t for everyone and I worry when people think the school’s environment and its traditions are similar to say Vanderbilt.
They are similar caliber schools but they feel completely different for a variety of reasons and there are often many students at Vanderbilt who may prefer a more Emory/Rice feel (maybe they were hoping for more students to outwardly display nerdiness or more debaters/intellectuals, don’t know) and many Emory students who would have enjoyed the SEC feel (these people prefer the level of school spirit at a place like Vanderbilt as driven by sports scene and Greeklife than the “dense” cerebral nature of much of Emory- Perhaps a place like Tulane should have been their backup. Rice is ideal for those who like the sports scene and quirkiness) of Vandy much more. Fortunately, I think less and less students have these two as first and 2nd (or even third) choices. Emory now more typically gets lumped with CMU, WashU, JHU, Brown, Rice, Tufts, Chicago, Northwestern, and some LAC/LAC like universities.
With all due respect, without doing extensive interviews and using fairly sophisticated techniques (not worth the effort), I find it unproductive to attempt to explain the stereotypes of these universities. The fact is, whether it’s Duke, Vandy, Tulane, Miami, Emory, Rice, UVA or whatever, you will always have your jocks, partiers, nerds, snobs, people who act like it’s high school, etc. Sure, you can probably generalize a bit along the lines of urban/suburban/rural, and maybe a feel having something to do with a particular city, but that’s about it. Unless it’s a specialty school emphasizing liberal arts, fine arts, performing arts, engineering, etc., a student will always be able to find his or her crowd along the categories I mentioned above (and several others), even at state flagships. In the end, there is no substitute for visiting a school and getting a feel, and even then you may get it wrong. (But probably not - very few people transfer because, as I stated, you can always find your crowd.) There is a serious limit to how much detail is accurate when you are at the level of stereotype.