Vanderbilt - The Southern Ivy Asian Parents Haven't Heard About

Vanderbilt proves my theory that the difficulty of getting in has much more to do with how many Asians know about that place than the ACT or SAT score. Every Asian parent knows about Harvard (17) , Stanford (24) and MIT (26), but not so much Vanderbilt which is only 7% Asian. There are even questions on college boards on whether it's OK for Asians because it's so "low". Heck MIT was 5% when I went in 1976-1980 and we thought that was a lot of Asians. Sure, some Asians are from schools that are 50% Asian, and so are some campuses like UC Irvine, but then most of the US is 70+ white, so maybe 7% is a good number. They have a good sized Asian club, and everybody who has actually been there says it's just fine for any race or group, as long as you don't need to be in a city with a China/Asia town or an Asian grocery the size of a Walmart. Macalester in St Paul is a lower version of the same thing, test scores about even with Brown or Cornell, but with a 46% admit rate, you'll actually probably get in if you have an average test score, instead of being turned down at Cornell. Same with Vanderbilt, if you have a Harvard level test score, you'll actually get into Vanderbilt, but your chances will improve from impossible to highly unlikely if you "only" have high test scores at Harvard. Kids from Bothell high went there and they said the campus and city of Nashville look great and the people are friendly if with funny accents.

From my ACT ranking
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Apd_BaQPgLcSdDljYlA1MzlfcjhnQkhxbEctb3FHSEE&hl=en

ACT        Admit
31 35 08 Harvard
31 34 12 MIT 

29 33 10 Stanford 
29 33 38 Carnegie Mellon University
29 33 33 Vanderbilt Nashville
28 33 14 Brown University
28 33 35 University of Chicago
28 32 21 Cornell
28 32 46 Macalester College St Paul
 

Here is the money that gets awarded:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/financialaid/2010-Financial-Aid-Brochure.pdf
$55,368 is full price

Income Range     Avg. Award #Awards Award Range

$0 – 39,999        $52,727  107 $30,789 – 59,156
$40,000 – 59,999   $49,903   85 $28,399 – 56,390
$60,000 – 79,999   $47,588  100 $20,917 – 56,169
$80,000 – 99,999   $43,902   97 $22,819 – 55,057
$100,000 – 119,000 $40,062   62 $22,314 – 50,510
$120,000 – 139,000 $34,370   64 $11,379 – 49,110
$140,000 – 159,000 $29,805   54 $ 7,323 – 43,414
$160,000 – 199,999 $24,040   63 $ 4,221 – 42,569
$200,000+          $18,408   34 $ 2,585 – 30,679

So if you have one software engineer at $60,000, the average award is $47,000 so it would cost $10,000. Even if you have two, the average award is $35,000, so it still doesn't cost more than some state colleges with dorm.

So if you want a school with Ivy level students, but isn't a lottery to get into if you have the test scores, and don't mind going to a school most people in Seoul haven't heard of, give Vanderbilt a try as the "southern" Ivy.