The Vandy Admissions Blog

Thom March 26th, 2009

Decision letters for the next great incoming class at Vanderbilt University have officially left 2305 West End Avenue!

Last year’s incoming class was historic.  For a year now, the Vanderbilt class of 2012, the first Commons class, was able to boast about being the most diverse, best prepared group of incoming students ever seen at Vanderbilt.  After this coming Fall, the class of 2012 will not be able to say that anymore. 

In several ways, Vanderbilt’s applicant pool had a breakthrough year in terms of the overall quality, depth of character, diversity, and intellectualism.  Some highlights of this amazing applicant pool include:­­­

• 19,350 applications received, up 16% over last year and setting a new Vanderbilt record.
• Vanderbilt’s geographic diversity continues to expand as students from around the United States and overseas consider Vanderbilt an academic destination. This year’s applicants hail from all 50 US States, 13 US Territories and Military Bases, and 97 foreign countries, up from 77 just two years ago.
• The exploding growth in the ethnic diversity of Vanderbilt’s applicant pool continued yet again this year, with all underrepresented groups registering double-digit increases in applications over last year:
  • African-American: Up 15%
  • Asian: Up 20%
  • Hispanic: Up 18%
  • Native-American: Up 33%
  • Other Minority: Up 10%
  • International: Up 38%
• This year’s applicant pool featured the highest level of academic preparation in Vanderbilt’s history as evidenced by students enrolling in the most demanding curriculum offered at their high school.
• Most impressively, our applicant pool set a new standard of engagement and leadership at the high school, community, regional, national, and international level.

As a result, our staff had the difficult task of selecting the students who will make up another historically accomplished and diverse incoming class at Vanderbilt.

Statistically, below is a breakdown of the students admitted for the Vanderbilt class of 2013.  It is critical to understand that these figures are provided to assist you in contextualizing our decisions, and have never been, and never will be, firm cut-offs in our process.  The middle 50% standardized testing bands mean that, for example, 25% of students admitted had below a 1400 SAT (M+CR) or an ACT composite below a 31, and 25% had above a 1560 or a 34. We believe strongly in the merits of a truly holistic review process for admission, and these numbers cannot fully capture everything that gets considered - leadership, character, intellectual verve, and overall fit with Vanderbilt, for example. 

• Admit Rate: 18.9%
• Middle 50% SAT Reasoning (M+CR): 1400 - 1560
• Middle 50% ACT Composite: 31 - 34
• Percent of admitted class in top 10% of their graduating high school class: 92.15%*
• Gender breakdown:
  • Female: 49.1%
  • Male: 50.9%

*Figures only represent admitted students for whom we have official rank information from their high school.

Our office will be closed to the public tomorrow (Friday, 3/27).  We will not release decisions over the phone until Wednesday, April 1^st.  If you have not received your decision by then, please feel free to call our office (800.288.0432).

Congratulations to the newest members of the Vanderbilt community!

• Application Process , VU Admissions Statistics
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Thom February 13th, 2009

MOSAIC: adj, composed of a combination of diverse elements, etymologically rooted in the Greek word “mouseîon ” for “work of the Muses” c. 1400

Early next week our office will be mailing invitations for Vanderbilt’s MOSAIC 2009.  This program is geared to highlight the vast diversity of Vanderbilt (One of the nation’s most diverse and inclusive leading Universities according to a recent report from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education) for newly admitted students of color for the incoming class of 2009.  MOSAIC is our signature multicultural student recruitment program and one that we are incredibly proud of, not only for rave reviews it gets from students (it has the highest percentage of students who attend who ultimately enroll of any program we run), but also that it has become a program that literally the entire VU community has bought in to.  You see it from the fact that admitted students who attend are hosted by current Vanderbilt students (from an amazingly diverse background), to the central role that the Vanderbilt cultural student organizations play in the planning and coordination of the program, to the fact that the Vanderbilt NPHC fraternity and sorority step show, a highly popular community-wide event, is coordinated to coincide with MOSAIC weekend.

A couple of key facts about our MOSAIC invites:

• Students invited to MOSAIC receive a packet that informs them that they will be admitted to Vanderbilt, even though their official admit packet will not arrive until the beginning of April, when all of the rest of the decision letters go out.
• Not all students of color who will ultimately be admitted to Vanderbilt can be invited to MOSAIC.  It’s a space and program capacity issue.  We utilize a competitive and holistic review process to select who gets invited to the program.
• DO NOT assume that if you are a student of color and you are not invited to MOSAIC, that you are de facto denied to VU.  Your application is still under consideration, and you will receive your admission decision at the beginning of April.

Congrats to all invited MOSAIC students, and welcome to the Commodore community as newly admitted students to Vanderbilt.  We hope to see you in March!

• Application Process , Diversity at Vanderbilt , MOSAIC - VU's Multicultural Student Recruitment Program
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Thom December 13th, 2008

Happy December,

The Early Decision letters have officially left 2305 West End Avenue as of noon today. I speak for our whole office when I say that this was a very impressive pool both academically and personally.

Overall, the ED 1 pool was larger (albeit slightly) than in years past and while we were excited to see the pool grow in numbers, we were even more thrilled to see an increase in both depth and talent. Indeed, this was the largest, most talented, and most diverse Early Decision group in Vanderbilt’s history. Regarding diversity, Vanderbilt had significant increases in ED apps from African Americans (up 62%) and Asians or Asian Americans (up 72%). Applications were stable among Latino and American Indian populations. Keep in mind that it is generally our practice to not publish academic quality statistics until the entire admitted class is complete (at the end of regular decision).

Consequently, we had some very interesting and difficult discussions. Ultimately, we admitted slightly more than 45% of Early Decision 1 applicants.

Please remember that we always have, and always will conduct a holistic, need-blind admissions process. So many students augmented their academic performance with co-curricular involvement, leadership, commitment to diversity, intellectualism, creativity, musical talent, and service. We value these, and many other attributes when building a class.

All letters are sent in regular envelopes (i.e., the small ones) with first class postage. Weather, distance from Nashville, and holiday mailing volume all affect arrival times. Our office will release decisions by phone starting next Wednesday.

Congratulations to the newest Commodores, we are delighted that you chose to apply to Vanderbilt.

• Application Process , Diversity at Vanderbilt , Early Decision , VU Admissions Statistics
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