<p>I was just looking at Vandy's College Board profile and it says that Asians are 6% of the school population, Blacks and Hispanics are both 9%, and whites are 63%. Now, as many CCers know, Asians, as ORMs, generally make up a much more significant percentage. Why do you think they're the minority at Vandy? Any theories? </p>
<p>I'm not being racist or trying to offend anyone here! Just genuinely curious. :)</p>
<p>Frankly, as an Asian who has grown up with a lot of exposure to other Asian families and children, many Asian parents (but I must stress, not all) care so much more about the Ivy Leagues than anything else. Given that Vanderbilt is in the South I doubt a significant number of Asian families consider this school or have even heard of it for that matter.</p>
<p>You’d have to explain, then, why Duke, Emory, and Rice have an Asian Demographic approaching or exceeding 30% (Emory is the only that exceeds). Many would argue, that Emory is probably the least well-known among these 3, but for some reason gets more Asian students and internationals (well, maybe a tie with Duke for international) than the others. Your argument doesn’t hold water vs. this fact. The other southern top schools have a high %, and not just the “great” Duke. There must be something other than “prestige” governing this. However, research at Emory shows that being Asian does influence whether or not the “non-Ivy” school (especially southern, non-Duke schools) are considered a first choice (as in they didn’t have it as a first choice). However, first choice or not, they enrolled at Rice, Emory, and Duke, and not Vandy. Why? I’m sure they could have just as easily enrolled at Vandy upon admission even if it was not a first choice. </p>
<p>Also, Georgia Tech even has a higher percent of Asians (similar to EDR). While it has amazing engineering (ranks really high), it doesn’t have as much respect (as in lay perception and rank) as Hopkins, Berkeley, Stanford, Caltech, and MIT, none which are in the south either. “Ivy-bound” should mean that Tech has much less Asians regardless of its high ranks.
I’m pretty sure Asian families consider safeties as Ivies are no guarantee even for the highest achievers. Even Asian families would probably not just say “all or nothing” and only apply to Ivies and top 10 non-Ivies. That theory just makes no sense. That’s like you saying that “Asian families do not understand the admissions process at Ivies”. If what you said were true, then lots of prospective Asian students would be sitting out college the first year because they were not admitted to “X” Ivy. I’m sure there are plenty who do not and will not be admitted to any just like non-Asian applicants. They know this. Given that, other awesome places like Vandy are up for grabs (well not really, the admit rate is getting sketch here. A bit low now. It’ll now be too difficult to gain admission here for many).</p>
<p>I think this may have to do with the fact that the Atlanta area, and the Houston area, has many Asians, unlike the Nashville area. I’m not talking percentiles, but just sheer numbers. And being Asian myself, I know that word of mouth travels quickly amongst Asians. So my theory would be that these families living in the Rice and Emory area, since they know the “presitge” of the school, will likely have their children apply, and tell others about how amazing the school is.</p>
<p>And, well, Duke is Duke.</p>
<p>Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. Duke is very prestigious so they are different. I think Vandy, Emory, and Rice have a very similar educational quality to Duke, but the prestige difference between us and them is huge. I think a part of it is their sports triumphs and how it aids in raising their profile a lot on top of its quite awesome academics. It’s one of the schools w/a perfect package (Vandy and Rice have D-1, but they aren’t like Duke, and Emory doesn’t have it so our profile suffers more). All schools are awesome, but more people know about Duke being awesome and thus perceive it as offering a better package (thus they get higher scoring students and the like). I would say better education, but I’ve seen the work and curriculum initiatives, and many of those they hype up have been done years ago here and there is hardly no rigor difference. Like their change to the gen. bio sequence is not awesome, we fixed ours in like 08. Plus, students tend to care less about academic differences and more about prestige and non-academic factors (“quality of life”, “school pride”, “how much fun will I have” when considering many of the top 20s. Duke simply benefits from it getting more publicity through various sources. Something that Emory could especially improve on. </p>
<p>Anyway. I know Atlanta has Gwinnett and N. Dekalb County, which Korean population (know about Pleasant Hill Road and Buford Highway area?). My Asian friends and I really like to go there on weekends as they are the area of Atlanta with the highest concentration of say, authentic Asian food. I would also argue that Emory has more ties (from the distant past) to places like Korea.</p>
<p>I could be way off here, but I think that the image and stereotypes associated with Vanderbilt, the culture, and the intellectual life tend to repel Asian families (wether or not those images and stereotypes hold true).</p>
<p>Well a friend and I were joking about his reservations regarding Vanderbilt and this topic was brought up. First, I joked about how he resents rich people (Vanderbilt was founded by the extremely wealthy Cornelius Vanderbilt and has a reputation for attracting students from wealthy families). Then I thought more about it and remembered that Cornelius Vanderbilt gained his wealth primarily off of the railroad industry. My friend, being Irish, resents the early history of America for how the Irish were treated so poorly (yes, my friend is full of resentment and cynicism). That may seem really random but, in fact, it is all connected. The Irish, Africans, and Asians were the chief railroad constructors. Many died on this strenuous job and it is well documented that these workers were given miserable treatment. So, essentially, the Vanderbilt family gained affluence, and Vanderbilt University was founded by merit of the blood, sweat, and tears of Asian, Irish, and black workers. Maybe Asian families just really know how to hold a grudge.</p>
<p>However politically incorrect and outdated this statement may be, I think I’m on to something! ;)</p>
<p>Did you know that while Cornelius Vanderbilt provided the seed money for the founding of Vanderbilt University, he never visited the university that bears his name? Vanderbilt’s wife was a cousin of the wife of Bishop McTyeire who led in the fundraising to establish the school and who served as the first chairman of the Board of Trust. I can’t imagine why anyone in this day and age would eliminate interest in a school because of the source of the original funding. There are probably numerous schools out there whose large donors would fail social responsibility tests based on the source of their wealth.</p>
<p>2VU0609: Good point. We’re, for example, heavily sponsored and funded by those involved with Coca Cola. I don’t want to know what “awesome” stuff goes on there. Not to mention we came about because of some administrative squabble between y’alls administration and the Methodist Church. The rich thing doesn’t work at all. And that’s without adressing the fact that most students attending these schools (including the Asians) are very well-off (no one cares about the details describing how they or their parents make money), yet they choose to come to “X” top 20.</p>