<p>Applelover, he got into One top 3 liberal arts college with a very low admission rate which in some polls is ranked above some top Ivies for all round community, academic intensity and brilliant outcomes in grad school, and into Another major mid-sized research institution that had over 31 thousand applicants with incredibly high stats and very low admission rates. He is one of the luckiest international students in the game. </p>
<p>Swarthmore students are not more interesting than Vanderbilt students. However, Swat has a completely different community of scholars, almost zero frats, a different residential housing culture (upperclassmen live in proximity to frosh) and total intimacy with professors. It can seem claustrophobic re eating in one of the two dining halls, you have to get to Philly to get off campus (train station at foot of Swat campus conveniently) and you might get a little tired of the same 400 people instead of the 1600 people in your class at Vandy. However, Swat can deliver things Vanderbilt cannot deliver regarding very personal oversight and interactions with full professors, and Swat has a great deal of money that is dedicated to academic things like funding your honors degree senior project (Unreal what Swat will do to make this a unique gift to the student).</p>
<p>My Vandy son who was also a cross admit and had an easy decision since he won merit money at Vandy during the recession peak year, has friends of every faith and nationality you can imagine. He is part of many activist organizations and organizations that have debate and discourse as their foundations. He is part of the culture at Vanderbilt that resembles Swarthmore’s reputation and he enjoys the graduate schools and their speakers and events on the Vandy campus. There are Greek students in all the organizations he has joined who also enjoy discourse, debate, discussing ideas, attending speaker events. He would have preferred a non Greek college but “them’s the breaks”. </p>
<p>So he is part of the 60% of men not in frats. Not exactly the biggest hardship of his life. A good portion of the men and women he will meet in the workplace enjoyed Greek life as part of their college backgrounds and it is pointless to not learn to have friendships with students who chose Greek life as a key part of their social experience in college. All of that is so fleeting. By the end of sophomore year, people are busy focusing on internships, summer jobs and other future oriented activities and it is all over very fast indeed. In fact, my Duke son got his first job due to frat contacts in another city. And no, I am not fond of Greek life myself but I can be fair and acknowledge the good.</p>
<p>The culture of Vanderbilt is undergoing a shift. The new student gov’t president is a Chancellor’s Scholar and a non Greek. Students from every part of the nation will move into the freshman campus, many with some anxiety about the social life at Vanderbilt, all of whom were top scholars in their respective high schools. My own son put Vanderbilt on the “bottom of his list” because of anxiety re the old Vandy stereotypes…but after a weekend there, he changed his mind and enrolled. He had merit offers elsewhere and chose Vandy and Nashville.</p>