timewarptrio, if you haven’t seen Vandy, you should cancel what you are doing and go so that in April you can make an informed decision on your college. Plus who knows, you may want Vandy for grad school. Go soak it in and ponder.
@faline2 you are absolutely right on the fact that we should know a school well before deciding, but according to numerous articles, Mosaic weekend gives biased and partial view of Vandy that is nowhere near the real experience.
@timewarptrio the flight is gonna cost a fortune, and I estimate a total cost of maybe 500 dollars (a little too much). To be honest I really want to go, but my parents think otherwise…
OK, Blucyanide…I am sure you will have lovely choices by spring, and you can consider Vanderbilt from afar. Congrats on your invitations. If you want to attend but cannot afford to finance the travel, you should probably email your admissions regional counselor. I do not agree that Mosaic gives “biased and partial view of Vandy.” It is just a weekend effort of welcome and gives you a chance to use your own eyes and ears and to ask questions from people who have been living on campus. Vandy’s diversity stats are public and quite good. As far as the campus cultural life, that is a question with many answers and points of view. Our son was non Greek and did his own thing usually with independent students, many of whom were first and second gen in the US. His view was to make his experience his own…which is a good way to go wherever you commit this spring.
@Faline2 I agree that I should visit before I make my final decision, but even with my increased travel reimbursement, it will still be hard for my family to pay for the visit. I’m especially considering budgeting my time/money for other potential visits, because I applied to several schools (even though I have no idea whether I will get accepted to them).
Does anyone know if MOSAIC selection correlates to a higher chance of receiving a merit scholarship? I know around 300 students are invited to MOSAIC and much fewer than that receive merit scholarships (but not everyone applies for the merit, so…)
In any case, I hope I’ll be meeting you guys soon!
Above and beyond I am so thankful for the admission! I was NOT expecting something like this at all! And I really want to go, but I do not know how expenses are going to work out. I’m definitely going to email my admission counselor and see what happens.
Congrats to the rest of you that got in and are going!
Got my letter on yesterday lol! Nice Valentines present that will make me seriously consider attending Vanderbilt. Now I just need to wait for all my other letters to see what choices I have.
Do they send MOSAIC invitations in batches?
Is there any chance of getting invitation next week?
For people who got accepted to mosaic, when did you submit your applications?
On January 1st at 1 in the morning. Not my best decision.
@intowishi It’ll be nice to meet you next month. I’m wondering the same thing about the chances of getting merit scholarships after MOSAIC selection. It does seem like there would be a correlation, but MOSAIC does favor more diverse students. I wish there was some sort of statistic for this.
an invite to MOSAIC is an acceptance right? People who get the invites won’t get rejections in the spring?
Also, is it worth it to attend? I would have to miss a FIRST Robotics competition in order to attend, and I’m still deciding if it’s worth missing that, and being out 500 or so dollars. Would you recommend waiting until April to go? Or it is really worth it to go basically NOW in March?
Also, along the same lines, does it mean you were accepted to your first choice school? Or is it possible that you could still be placed in your second-choice school within Vandy?
@bioninja , It’s very very rare to be accepted only into your second choice school. It’s very easy to change majors/schools at Vanderbilt and they essentially have no incentive to decline you from one school but accept you to another. Perhaps if you applied to Blair with an exceptional academic record but subpar music record, but otherwise, this is not something you need to worry about at all.
I’ve been seeing contradictory information… One college blog post claimed that MOSAIC students were selected randomly from students already admitted, another that MOSAIC students were selected by the admissions committee (which would be a good sign about scholarships). Not too sure, as I’ve only done research on it in the last few days!
Are you going to MOSAIC for sure? I’m debating whether I’d like to go visit Vandy in April or in March.
Invited to MOSAIC as well! I’d love to go since it’s during spring break for me, but the $500+travel fees just can’t justify it 
@intowishin I’ll be going. I hope to see you there! I think MOSAIC would be a lot more structured, as well as would have more opportunities for students to explore campus than just a regular visit.
For those who received acceptance and/or MOSAIC invitation, do you get any package (snail mail)? Especially any info about financial aid?
My S got the acceptance and MOSAIC invitation in email on 2/17, but did not get anything else. I used the College Board net price calculator for Vanderbilt, and the financial aid number looks attractive, but I don’t know how reliable it is, so I want to see the official numbers. My S is planning to apply scholarships for other universities, but if we can confirm the numbers for Vanderbilt, he will not consider those other universities, so he does not need to waste time applying for the scholarship.
Thanks.
^^ You won’t get financial aid info for a while because Vanderbilt still needs IDOC info which they will request from you later.