<p>transva12: Without trying to ignite a sociopolitical debate, I will just go ahead and concede that those who work in admissions are trained to adhere to affirmative action. Obviously, they need to be exceedingly good students as well, but yes, that does play a role. I hope you understand if I don’t go into much detail beyond that.</p>
<p>sometransfer: I guess I was wrong about Kissam. Sorry to get your hopes up everyone!</p>
<p>Colleensgirl: That used to be a factor, but not so much anymore. I was told that a lot of people who used to want to get an A&S or an Engineering degree but also happened to be proficient at playing music applied through Blair School of Music because Blair students’ test scores and GPAs were not generally as high (Also, that came with a rehearsal.), and then transfer out of Blair into the school of their choice. Same thing went, sans rehearsal, with those who indicated they wanted to teach, for the same reason; it was easier to get in via Peabody and then transfer into your school of choice than if you were to indicate you wanted to major in another one of Vanderbilt’s schools.</p>
<p>Naturally, people caught onto that, and as such we tended to be all but blind with respect to what a student wanted to major in. If someone had indicated that they wanted to be a film studies major (I’m good friends with a few of those actually; they’re all either alumni or soon-to-be alumni though.), in the past, that may have, as you said, played in. But majors fluctuate so much…I think Vanderbilt recently put out a statistic on how many times the average student changes his/her major, and the number is so absurdly high…that very little emphasis is placed on it anymore. That same Film Studies major might call an audible and end up being a pre-med in biology. Furthermore, Vanderbilt is a small enough and rich enough school that they can easily accommodate an unusually high number of people in one major as opposed to another. With Blair, obviously, it’s a bit different and much harder to avoid getting students who are gaming the system, because there’s the whole rehearsal aspect that I had nothing to do with.</p>
<p>I understand that transfers do not have the same amount of time as freshmen do to toy with their major, but nonetheless, we were not given separate criteria with regard to that aspect of the application to judge them on. The general crux of Vanderbilt’s policy on selectivity between majors and schools is that Vanderbilt can accommodate you with whatever you want to do once you are accepted, which I guess is good news for some applicants and maybe not what some others would want to hear. :)</p>
<p>Now, if a student adequately conveys an extreme interest and/or previous coursework in the discipline (or even the inverse; a lot of acceptances come from people who say “I want so badly, as you can see, to major in X, but my current school does not have it, and Vanderbilt has a stellar program.”), as your son did, then yes absolutely 100% that will work in his favor. But it wouldn’t have to do with a dearth of Film Studies majors as much as it would have to do with a potentially exceptional student.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, even though I wasn’t a Film Studies major, I hear absolutely rave reviews about the program. The majority of your son’s classes would be in easily the coolest and most well-located building on campus (Buttrick). Best of luck!!</p>
The person I spoke with over e-mail about that was really nice and quick to reply, though. Got my application complete e-mail April 17th. So, I’m freaking out about this thing and my friend is unsure about his ACT (minus writing), and together we’re just making each other more nervous. :P</p>