Admissions: Vanderbilt University

Our History

The $1,000,000 that Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt gave to endow and build our university was his first and only major philanthropic gift. It might have never happened if Methodist Bishop Holland N. McTyeire of Nashville, a cousin of the Commodore's young second wife, hadn’t gone to New York for medical treatment early in 1873 and spent time recovering in the Vanderbilt mansion. While there, Bishop McTyeire won the Commodore's admiration and support for building a university in the South that would "contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all sections of our common country."

Commodore Vanderbilt never visited Nashville. Instead, he trusted Bishop McTyeire to choose the site, supervise the construction of buildings, and personally plant many of the trees that today make Vanderbilt a national arboretum. Originally, the university consisted of one Main Building (now Kirkland Hall), houses for professors, and an astronomical observatory. The stone wall surrounding our campus was built to keep cows off the university grounds. The original charter, issued in 1872, was amended in 1873, changing our name to "The Vanderbilt University." The charter has not been altered since.

Vanderbilt University opened for classes in October of 1875 with an enrollment of 192 students. From the outset, Vanderbilt offered work in the liberal arts and sciences beyond the baccalaureate degree, and it embraced several professional schools in addition to its college.

While the assumption seemed to be that Vanderbilt would be an all-male institution, the board never enacted rules prohibiting women. At least one woman has attended Vanderbilt classes every year since 1875. By 1897, four or five women entered with each freshman class. By 1913, the student body contained 78 women, slightly more than 20% of the academic enrollment.

James H. Kirkland, the longest serving chancellor in university history, guided the university after a devastating fire in 1905 that consumed the landmark Main Building. The building was rebuilt and renamed Kirkland Hall, complete with a clock tower and bell that continues to chime on the hour today.
The original Vanderbilt campus consisted of 75 acres. By 1960, the campus had spread to about 260 acres. When George Peabody College for Teachers merged with Vanderbilt in 1979, about 53 acres were added. Today, our campus covers a park-like 330 acres.

National recognition of the university's status came in 1949 with election of Vanderbilt to membership in the select Association of American Universities, and by its 90th anniversary in 1963, Vanderbilt ranked in the top 20 private universities in the United States.

Himself unschooled, Commodore Vanderbilt once said, "though I never had any education, no man has ever felt the lack more than I have, and no man appreciates the value of it more than I do and believes more than I do what it will do in the future."

More than a century later, Vanderbilt University has grown into a private research university comprised of ten schools, a public policy institute, a distinguished medical center, and The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center. Vanderbilt offers undergraduate programs in the liberal arts and sciences, engineering, music, education and human development as well as a full range of graduate and professional degrees.