<p>MommyDearest13: Well they don’t explicitly <em>say</em> it, and yes, you’re correct in that it’s not as much as an issue as with Tufts and WUSTL. However, people who they sometimes deem “overqualified” statistically (perfect grades and scores) who have not visited or shown any interest whatsoever are going to have a tougher time than those with similar stats who do show interest. The difference here is that though Vanderbilt doesn’t tend to outright reject overqualifieds as much, they do tend to waitlist a lot of overqualified people to give them a chance to show whether or not they are serious about attending.</p>
<p>Back to the OP…I have a very good opinion of Rhodes College. Am friends with three grads all of whom have graduate degrees- one is a physician. There is a long term poster on this board whose daughter chose a merit scholarship to Rhodes over admission to Yale, and she ended up at Yale Med School. Rhodes has the advantage of access to St Jude’s hospital as you probably do. Peter Taylor wrote one of my favorite collection of short stores…The Old Forest…about life connected to Rhodes under its earlier name as a college. I think you should base your decision on A. Where you can get admitted as a transfer, that is if transferring is important. B. Where you can finance your education and C. Where you personally feel you will get the best MCAT preparation. You sound like you are doing your best to use every opportunity you have in Memphis. Whatever you do, stay the course of excelling and maxing out your classroom opportunities. I do not think you should eliminate Rhodes based on the limitations of the social scene as these issues are present on most college campuses and people tend to grow out of “entitlement” behaviors. Stay your own course. Do graduate school test preparations. People get into med school all the time without attending top tier colleges if they have strong references, test scores and grades.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt2017, they do explicitly state otherwise. On the common data set and in their blog last year. I highly doubt they would mislead applicants. From the blog:</p>
<p>"What is “demonstrated interest,” and does Vanderbilt use it in the admissions process?</p>
<p>Generally speaking, demonstrated interest encompasses any action a student takes to show s/he is interested in attending a certain school. For example, filling out an information card at a college fair, registering for a campus tour, or sending your admissions counselor an email could be considered versions of demonstrated interest. Many schools will take this interest into account in the admission process; in other words, a student who visited campus may get a leg up in the selection process, all other parts of the application being equal.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt, however, does not take demonstrated interest into account in the initial application process. We encourage students to visit campus, speak to current students, and ask questions of their admissions counselors, purely for the benefit of being well-informed throughout this crucial decision-making process – not to gauge which students are “really interested” in Vanderbilt and which are not. Because of this policy, students who are unable to visit campus for any reason will not be disadvantaged when it comes time to apply.</p>
<p>(Please note: students who are placed on the wait list in April are encouraged to let us know at that point whether or not they would still like to enroll.)"</p>
<p>With a 1490-1600 admitted students range, I question if they are waitlisting the “perfect” students. Maybe it’s the less than perfect students that they are waiting to see about, to perhaps replace those higher up in the “non-perfect” range who may get in but go somewhere else. I mean, the 25% slides the most when you compare the admitted range to the enrolled range. The 75% slide is almost negligible (a 1570 is hardly different from a 1600, but 1410 vs. 1490 is a noticeable but not huge difference IMO). However, an opposite argument could be made where these stats. suggest that you are right because perhaps, not all of the perfect people waitlisted were were interested in or gained admission from some other high stat. school and therefore Vanderbilt was able to successfully pull most of them from the waitlist and then enroll them, whereas more non-perfect, but excellent people that got in elsewhere, took the admission at the other school and ran. </p>
<p>Regardless, who knows, this admissions stuff is clearly really weird and somewhat unpredictable once the school is beyond certain thresholds of selectivity (below 15-20%).</p>
<p>@bernie12 – with regards to the waitlist, my sense and personal experience are there are plenty of students waitlisted with above average stats. Also, Vanderbilt recently published an article stating that while they are indeed need blind for ED and RD, they consider need when it comes to the wait list: [Vanderbilt:</a> Role of financial aid requests in undergrad admissions process is as advertised - InsideVandy: Administration](<a href=“Inside Vandy: Vanderbilt University's student news source”>Inside Vandy: Vanderbilt University's student news source)</p>
<p>I would also expect that many above average people be waitlisted, but I would have no idea the proportion vs. those with “kinda” above average stats. Oh, and that’s interesting, I would not have expected that to be the case. As in I would not have expected need to be factored in once people are waitlisted. Do you think that has any sort of effect on the stats? Could that indirectly explain why maybe more of the extremely high stat. individuals yield? Based upon your hypothesis, it could be, right? Maybe certain higher stat. individuals also have higher income and therefore come off the waitlist more easily than others . Who knows though. Seems weird. I really wonder what effect that treatment of the waitlist will have on the ultimate enrollment numbers and stats in the end, if they have any effect at all. Do you think Vanderbilt pulls from the waitlist a decent amount (this is the only way such considerations or tactics could have any real effect. If wl essentially=denial for everyone on it, then it doesn’t really matter)? Perhaps the trend could be opposite what I suggest whereby those folks who aren’t well above average on the waitlist tend to get pulled off because they may have less need. And then once pulled off, they yield.</p>
<p>bernie12 – I would predict that the GPAs and test scores of waitlisted students do not differ significantly from those offered admission. I think this is true at Vanderbilt as well as at many other schools that get far more applications than they have space for, and previous years’ yields would predict would attend. I think they just get far more qualified applicants than they can admit. </p>
<p>As for the number of students eventually offered spots off of the waitlist, I don’t know what it was for the past year, but it is a fairly large number – 200, I think. You can find the exact number in Vanderbilt’s Common Data Set that you can Google.</p>
<p>If you are on the waitlist and don’t have financial need and tell Vanderbilt “I will definitely come if you offer me a spot no matter what,” that works in that applicant’s favor, because at that point, as they said in the article, they are not need blind anymore. But for US applicants, I it doesn’t sound like they factor in who to put on the waitlist based on need.</p>
<p>Ah, interesting. Glad I didn’t have to go through anything like being on a waitlist. Seems tricky…but at least a reasonable amount may be pulled from it if you get waitlisted by Vanderbilt (perhaps other places pull from it heavily too). I guess that means there is at very minimum a remote chance you may get off of it.</p>
<p>Do a lot of people go to the sports games? Is there a lot of school spirit at Vandy?</p>
<p>Hi @vandy17 !! Can u possibly chance me ??? (Ps I didn’t name all of my extracurriculars for confidentiality reasons but I have good ones). Also applying ED1 LOVED the school !!!
3.67 unweighted GPA (all honors classes and 2 languages)
1490 sat (740 math 750 CR)
Head of cancer organization on tristate area with a lot of clubs in different schools and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars
-student government (all 4 years)
Varsity tennis
Award from state senate for exceptional community service in bringing food to a homeless shelter
President of model un
A few more good extracurriculars that are impressive
Glowing letters of recommendation
Great essay</p>
<p>Hello, @Vanderbilt17, I’m not sure if you’re still responding, but if you are I would love it if you could answer some questions for me. I’m very interested in Vanderbilt, but I’m afraid I won’t be accepted if I apply RD. However, I’m not sure if my family would be able to afford it if I applied ED and was accepted. We’ve used the net price calculator and while FA makes the cost more reasonable, I have heard that applying ED allows admissions officers to offer less FA because they know you must attend and are not comparing with other schools’ packages. Also, I will link my chances thread, and I would greatly appreciate if you weighed in for Vanderbilt Thank you in advance!
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1642228-chance-for-vanderbilt-and-gatech-will-ed-help-will-chance-back.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1642228-chance-for-vanderbilt-and-gatech-will-ed-help-will-chance-back.html#latest</a></p>