Too Good a Fit: Won't Stand out?

haytheir20, you do realize that this is a question that has no answer? Whether or not being from a fairly established family financially vs being near the Pell grant line affects your admissions chances is not where your energy needs to be at all. Vandy has a ton more applicants than chairs and doesn’t have trouble attracting URM applicants. Even the Chancellor’s Scholarships are given to people for varied views of diversity now. That said, URMs will turn down Vandy and accept other offers, just as you might. Vanderbilt factors in all of the yield information they can project. They yield a healthy number of strong applicants but Vandy applicants are admitted broadly to other schools, too.

What is going to be true for you is that your family will be paying their ECA estimated cost of attendance at private schools-- unless you land merit dollars. People of the upper middle class of any ethnic group are somewhat “punished” for being successful. Plenty of mid to upper class top students will opt for almost free seats in their state flagships rather than having their parents pay full ticket for undergrad school.

Vandy is a reach. People sometimes are admitted to Ivies and not to Vandy and vice versa more often. That said, you are a contender. Focus on the things you can polish: substantive essays, personal recommendations and a good first semester. Make absolute sure your parents are on board for their estimated contribution and that they have filled out a CSS Profile and FAFSA to get an estimate in hand although your EFC will vary from college to college.

Build a list of financial safeties, reaches you can afford and spend time on essays for those extra merit scholarships.

Have faith in the admissions staff and work on your writing so they can get a picture of you and your personal values and how you would use Vanderbilt. Make your essays specific to each college. No one can handicap you regarding admission. People sometimes write that they are worried that too many people from their high school class are applying to school X or Y. Forget about all this. Run your own race and do your best and be good with your outcomes.