Vanderbilt Thriving In Trump Era With Apolitical Atmosphere: Bloomberg

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t rocket science. They followed a formula. It worked.

Do some research on who their leader is and what he is trying to do. He came from University of Chicago!

He has made a huge name for himself in the education sector. I wouldn’t be surprised if an Ivy tried to poach him.

Oh how to finagle rankings! Test optional, 2 ED rounds and tons of mailings/press.

They are 50% test optional as elites go test required the rich need a place to send their kids that can’t score well no matter how much $ they pay.

This past cycle is the first year some of the top 20s reverted to test-required But Vanderbilt has had a <10% and declining admission rate for years. What was the secret sauce in the past several years? It wasn't distinguishable for being TO. Hm.

Really?
https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2008/09/19/class-of-2012-is-most-academically-prepared-and-diverse-class-in-vanderbilt-university-history-64458/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you believe all the anti-Asians, Vandy will soon lose its luster with the crowd that supposedly is the subject of this article as the Asian population is now approaching 20% and rising.

Yes, and then the high achieving whites who want to balance academics with a robust social scene will move elsewhere and another school will become hot and then it too will change over time.
It happened at Duke and Northwestern. My freshman is at Dartmouth and it's happening there too---the crowd has really changed since a cousin attended 5 years ago.
The smart but socially-oriented kids will move on. Probably next to somewhere like Wake Forest or back to University of Chicago (which is becoming more chill).

I know people will say this is just racist but it's just kids trying to find a place of balance.

Agree.
I personally like wake forest, Washington &lee, or even UVA, as long as white is the dominant majority, it’s fine.

White is the dominant majority at nearly all schools.

It’s funny how the mediocre white folks are coming out of the woodwork. No pretense that they can compete anymore so just retreat.

BTW, UVA is 31% Asian…also continuing to rise.

You mean 'compete' by posting a 1600 superscore and a couple of "national" EC accolades that were purchased by your dad in Seoul and perfected over a period of 15 years? Sure.

Turns out there are myriad other important factors for winning the long game, and the Harvard lawsuit document dump put those out there on display for the world to see.

The Harvard lawsuit showed how much Harvard was discriminating AGAINST Asians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-09-05/vanderbilt-university-thrives-under-trump-amid-attacks-on-higher-ed

According to the Bloomberg article, Vanderbilt University has seen their stock rise meteorically by branding themselves as apolitical and fun instead of an activist hotspot like the Ivies. they're seen huge increase in interest from families across the country that want their kids to evade left-wing monoculture at the Ivy League and are now getting kids that in other years would've gone to HYP.

Gross. Like celebrating the “apolitical” 1936 Olympics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who sends a kid to a Tennessee in this political climate is a sucky parent especially a dd

Keep your little Karen in training out of the south land!

[Anonymous]

Published in their official student school newspaper…

https://vanderbilthustler.com/2024/04/06/three-students-expelled-following-student-accountability-hearings-faculty-criticize-university-response/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-09-05/vanderbilt-university-thrives-under-trump-amid-attacks-on-higher-ed

According to the Bloomberg article, Vanderbilt University has seen their stock rise meteorically by branding themselves as apolitical and fun instead of an activist hotspot like the Ivies. they're seen huge increase in interest from families across the country that want their kids to evade left-wing monoculture at the Ivy League and are now getting kids that in other years would've gone to HYP.

No one is turning down HYP for Vandy. No one.

I think Vandy has a small number of full merit scholarships. Some kids might take those.

Kids actually pick Vandy over HYP when they have a scholarship offer. Free Vandy is worth it over full pay HYP.

Students do that at all the schools at this tier. Rice, Emory, WashU, ND, CMU, Georgetown etc. The article is conservative propaganda. When including test scores Vandy isnt the most selective school of this bunch, Rice is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Published in their official student school newspaper…

https://vanderbilthustler.com/2024/04/06/three-students-expelled-following-student-accountability-hearings-faculty-criticize-university-response/

Ehh. Students in the wrong.
Good on this school for having a backbone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like Vandy is trying to carve a niche as an Ivy-alternative for politically moderate or conservative families that want elite academics without the intense left-wing political atmosphere. The incessant protests at many elite colleges spooked a lot of families, especially Jewish families.

Vanderbilt is leaning into their southern, apolitical, athletic, socially balanced image because they know it's an asset in an era where people are tired of being inundated with progressive agendas.

Vandy has always been conservative. There were confederate flags on campus when I was there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like Vandy is trying to carve a niche as an Ivy-alternative for politically moderate or conservative families that want elite academics without the intense left-wing political atmosphere. The incessant protests at many elite colleges spooked a lot of families, especially Jewish families.

Vanderbilt is leaning into their southern, apolitical, athletic, socially balanced image because they know it's an asset in an era where people are tired of being inundated with progressive agendas.

Vandy has always been conservative. There were confederate flags on campus when I was there.

Well that has backfired. Many millions gone to the endowment tax. Millions gone in research funding cuts. And things are not looking too good for future funding for science research in this country. Great job!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand most of these articles. Nearly every top 100 school has seen a big jump in applications over the last 5 years.

You could write the exact same article about every top 20 school and just find and replace a couple of location-specific comments.

The one hard truth is that test required always results in fewer applications. Brown applications were through the roof through 2023 and then dropped 15% when test required. MIT applications dropped 25% when back to test required.

You will see similar drops with the other schools re instituting test required.

You clearly aren’t in the same finance/PE circle I’m in. Or private school circles. And yes many in this circle are centrist Dems too.

This article was in Bloomberg. Not somewhere else. The school is actively cultivating Wall Street (NY and Palm Beach campuses?) along with donors.

No one in my circles is talking about any other college right now for their kids - ED - other than this. People are looking for private counselors who specialize in Vanderbilt. In some ways I think it’s like the Dartmouth of the 1990s. A little insulated bubble that’s fun and studious.

There’s a weird frenzy about Vanderbilt in the top .1%. My kids private school this senior class - 10% are ED to Vanderbilt. Including class president with 3.95uw and 35.

Note: my kid doesn’t attend Vanderbilt but did get in and turned it down for a T10. Still wondering if made the right decision.

And its not working Vandy still lags in IB placement. Companies aren't headed to Nashville to recruit, and those other campuses aren't undergrad campuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of those schools have sports though. This particular school is actively looking for a different kind of kid. From our non-DMV private it’s not the kids who are competitive for Harvard or Stanford or Princeton who are getting in.

It’s kids who would otherwise go to Duke or Northwestern or Notre Dame or Columbia or Brown. One kid was struggling between Dartmouth and Vanderbilt. Very different, right? But not really for vibe in their mind. Think sports culture won.

Theyre competing for conservative kids. Vandy, Dartmouth, Notre Dame are very conservative schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of those schools have sports though. This particular school is actively looking for a different kind of kid. From our non-DMV private it’s not the kids who are competitive for Harvard or Stanford or Princeton who are getting in.

It’s kids who would otherwise go to Duke or Northwestern or Notre Dame or Columbia or Brown. One kid was struggling between Dartmouth and Vanderbilt. Very different, right? But not really for vibe in their mind. Think sports culture won.

Theyre competing for conservative kids. Vandy, Dartmouth, Notre Dame are very conservative schools.

I don't understand how the current "conservative" policies are helping any of these schools. It has cost all of them many many millions. I guarantee every single one of these institutions wishes that those policies had not been enacted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like Vandy is trying to carve a niche as an Ivy-alternative for politically moderate or conservative families that want elite academics without the intense left-wing political atmosphere. The incessant protests at many elite colleges spooked a lot of families, especially Jewish families.

Vanderbilt is leaning into their southern, apolitical, athletic, socially balanced image because they know it's an asset in an era where people are tired of being inundated with progressive agendas.

These same people are those who are dumb enough to believe that all of the Ivies are non-stop protests and activism. Yes, it happened, but it wasn't constantly in your face like Fox News would lead you to believe. I think the Ivies are in some ways better off without these people as they are too dumb to think critically and evaluate news sources. And I say this as a Jew with an ivy league degree - not thrilled with how my alma mater handled things, but that is just one of many data points and it wasn't that bad.

I know plenty of conservative kids and Jewish kids at Ivies that say it isn't truly as bad as the news made it out to be. However, the non-stop coverage and disruptiveness of the protesters tainted the image of these schools in the eyes of many people. Seeing students proudly sporting flags of foreign terrorist groups made these schools look horrible.

💯
The Hezbollah flag flying at these schools…
What?!?!?

And the fact that these schools never enforced their own permitting/ gathering/ loitering rules….
You can’t disrupt other people’s lives at college with your protest in favor of terrorism.

That is your viewpoint. Others think politically active college students is a good thing. Many esteemed scholars now believe that Israel is conducting genocide in Gaza so the college protesters were prescient and more aware than the general public.

Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, the situation on the ground has evolved since Oct 8th 2023 when our first collegiate SJP bullhorns were praising Hamas for their clever use of hang gliders? Perhaps leading some prominent scholars to change their viewpoints as intervening events have taken place over a 2-year period?

It's the Hamas Cheer Squad type that my college senior wanted to avoid when applying. Well before 10/7/23, the writing was on the wall at a number of top schools re: their illiberal environments. Those schools indeed went on to sh!t the bed after that date.

You are misrepresenting the protests. Perhaps there were a handful of protesters that you could refer to as the Hamas cheer squad. Most of the protesters were protesting Israel’s apartheid stance on Palestinians and American military support- billions of dollars- every year for Israel. And Biden giving Israel a green light to do whatever it wanted with US weapons. It would be a terrible thing to equate all American Jews as supporters of Israel’s actions but we should be careful not to lump everyone together on the other side as well

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who sends a kid to a Tennessee in this political climate is a sucky parent especially a dd

Keep your little Karen in training out of the south land!

This is an interesting perversion of the Karen insult. Started out meaning white women calling the police on black people for no good reason, now this poster is using it to mean people who care about reproductive rights?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like Vandy is trying to carve a niche as an Ivy-alternative for politically moderate or conservative families that want elite academics without the intense left-wing political atmosphere. The incessant protests at many elite colleges spooked a lot of families, especially Jewish families.

Vanderbilt is leaning into their southern, apolitical, athletic, socially balanced image because they know it's an asset in an era where people are tired of being inundated with progressive agendas.

Vandy has always been conservative. There were confederate flags on campus when I was there.

Heritage not hate! Our families fought under that beautiful banner.