<p>We love Vanderbilt. It was our dream school for all of the reasons you mentioned. My daughter was thrilled to attend…but after the first semester, she left and returned to college in NY. And, two other students from her school transferred, too, to highly impressive schools. However, they had not planned to transfer. It has a strong Southern core although it has aggressively recruited Northerns. Greek life is dominant. While drinking is the norm at most schools, it is very dominant here. And football remains a large part of the draw. And, there are a lot of rules. Conformity is big here.</p>
<p>Football remains a large part of the draw? Most people could care less about Vanderbilt football…</p>
<p>If you are extremely homesick for living on the east coast (like from VA up to MA)…do you think Nashville would be as nice? Vandy seems awesome so far except for the Nashville,TN part…I haven’t ever been to TN…and I don’t like country music :/</p>
<p>football is a huge part of the appeal of vandy for the SEC atmosphere and the tailgating, not the games themselves</p>
<p>My kids are from the mid-atlantic and they never miss anything ‘regional’. Part of that is because they like a lot of chain restaurants, and Nashville has them all. There is also a mall that is identical to malls up and down the east coast. They have similar weather. The look of the Vanderbilt campus is a lot like any NE private university. It is absolutely beautiful. Also, the student body is from all over, but there are quite a lot from the NE. Nashville is a wonderful little city, a state capital, and has both the music and health care industries to anchor its economy. If you’re from a NE city, large or small, you will feel right at home.</p>
<p>I am not from the South, but I have been to Nashville. It’s actually a very fun city, with plenty of social and cultural activities. Nashville isn’t all about country music, which was pleasantly surprising to me. And the food I had there was excellent.</p>
<p>Nashville has been known as “the Athens of the South” for decades. Beautiful architecture, many universities, lovely parks and historic sites. The country music scene, with its own history and its presence in so many venues large and small, is a great facet of life there but not the whole shebang. My Vandy grad, who quite happily lives in DC, loves Nashville and feels it’s a great place to live, for 4 years or much longer.</p>
<p>i live in nashville, though i do not go to vandy, and never will, i can tell you that vandy is a private ivy league school, so your going to be with people all across the country. And in addition allot of residents of nashville arnt actually from here either. And i agree with frazzled1 its a great place to live, but it gets old. If you love country, your in the right place. We have tons of annual country music festivles, including the CMA festible, and many others. We host the CMA’s annually, its a safe city besides the various neighborhoods around downtown, exspecially by the TSU campus. Its got alot of stuff for tourists though, which is why it gets old. Downtown is neat to visit with all of the street side bars, saloons, and shops. But honestly ive only been there twice to actually walk and look at the shops. The Opry Mills mall is pretty big, but being from Tampa is nothing that florida has, and in addition it is currently closed do to the flooding recently. But overall its a pretty good city, but it will feel just like any other if you dislike country music because every other club is a country club, we only have 3 top 40 or hip hop stations here to listin to. 101.1, 102.5, and 107.5. The rest are mostly country. And just like going to L.A. you cant expect to see anyone famous, cause your not. They all live in Franklin or Brentwood, or on giant estates in Williamson County. Which is like the Hills of Nashville.</p>
<p>Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say you’ll never see anyone famous in Nashville. Vince Gill is a regular at Vanderbilt basketball games being a good friend of Coach Kevin Stallings. Taylor Swift lives in a condo complex adjacent to Vanderbilt (although her family also has a farm outside of Nashville as well) where one of D’s former suitemates currently lives while attending law school. A number of D’s friends have seen her in the elevator from time to time and D met her several years ago at a football tailgate. Green Hills Mall and The Hill Center provide the best shopping in Nashville and I have spotted Lee Ann Rhimes there and one of D’s friends spotted John Corbett there in J.Crew one weekend. Nicole Kidman was frequently spotted at Starbucks near Vanderbilt several years ago before she was pregnant with Sunday Rose.</p>
<p>What about a westerner? And, speak for yourself, I’ve seen a few famous people in L.A.! ;] Only because I’ve lived there my whole life… sometimes you’re is bound to get lucky!</p>
<p>falalalafun, if the NE students can take a liking to Vandy, you probably can too (you came this way for a reason right? 
). I hope you like trees. However, our campus looks more like something out of the west if you wanted architectural comfort lol. It doesn’t even look or feel like other Universities in the southeast or northeast. The architecture is out of place, but in a good way. It looks somewhat like a southern version of Stanford. Our campus is forested, and perhaps has weird architecture I guess (you know, the marble, stucco, and red-roofs). I’m pretty sure some people come and think “***, this is confusing” Then again, I imagine you may have seen it before when you were doing your college search.</p>
<p>Peabody campus is very similar to UVA</p>
<p>regarding seeing someone famous around Nashville, it isn’t that rare. I met Johnny Cash and June at a wedding. I saw George Jones drunk coming out of a place I was entering for lunch. I saw Amy Grant in sweats at Kroger buying milk and Minnie Pearl visiting people in a Nursing home. The Speaker Circuit alone at Vanderbilt is very broad…and the arts circuit is even broader re the acts passing through town. Lots of stuff on Music Row brings in a sort of California group that does business lunching around the Vandy neighborhoods…used to serve them as a waitress. It is true that you will have to stand reading about country music in headlines more than in other cities but the classical music scene and studio musician scene in Nashville is excellent. The new venue for the Nashville Symphony is world class…although doing flood cleanup.</p>
<p>idk, im probably not fully qualified to comment on how southern the school is based on three hours of seeing the campus and students tho. Anyway, i’m from Northern Virginia- sort of a “tweener” area that Northerners think is “southern” and Southerners think is “northern”.
Whatever… when I visited Vandy, I definitely felt like it wasn’t overly southern, based on just seeing the people and buildings, and “feeling the atmosphere”. As in, it just “felt” different than the area in Georgia where I have a lot of relatives… so i would say that coming from someone from the mid-atlantic, vandy is not TOO southern that someone from the north would be uncomfortable. but anyway, i’m no expert, thats just a very general idea/feeling.</p>