At a Glance
Vanderbilt admits 5.4% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Debt at Graduation
Not reported by this school
receive need-based grant aid
$30,578
average debt at graduation
Vanderbilt graduates carry an average of $30,578 in debt.
Merit Aid
744
students received merit aid
$33,730
average merit award
Getting In
Vanderbilt admits 5.4% of applicants.
Vanderbilt University's Early Decision applicants are admitted at nearly 3x the rate of Regular Decision applicants — 14.1% vs 4.1%. Note: ED is binding — you commit to attending if admitted.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 24% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 28% of the class submitted
91.4% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Vanderbilt University rates your personal essay as Very Important — equal weight to your GPA. Don't underestimate it. Demonstrated interest is Not Considered here — campus visits and emails to admissions won't affect your odds.
Student Life
57.4% of Vanderbilt classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Vanderbilt, 57.4% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
8:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
72.7%
Live on campus
74.5%
Men in fraternities
27.4%
Women in sororities
31.6%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Vanderbilt's student body is 39.7% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Vanderbilt graduates 89.1% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Vanderbilt graduates 89.1% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Vanderbilt
89.1%
4-yr grad rate
Most finish on time
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
92.6%
Overall 6-yr rate
90.4%
Pell recipient rate
Lower-income students graduate at nearly the same rate as their peers — a sign of strong institutional support.
Freshman Retention
97%
97% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Nashville.
Vanderbilt's campus is a registered arboretum sitting about a mile and a half from downtown Nashville, so students get a green, self-contained campus with a genuine music city attached. Live music happens every night of the week, and the Gulch and 12South neighborhoods are walkable or a short ride away. It suits students who want a major city's opportunities without a campus that disappears into it; Nashville's healthcare and music industries also make term-time internships realistic.
Notable Alumni
Muhammad Yunus
Won the Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering microcredit through Grameen Bank, after earning his economics PhD at Vanderbilt.
Robert Penn Warren
The only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry, and the first U.S. Poet Laureate.
Stanford Moore
Won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for work on the structure of ribonuclease, connecting enzyme structure to function.
Dinah Shore
Singer and television host whose variety and talk shows spanned four decades and won ten Emmy Awards.
Amy Grant
Six-time Grammy-winning singer and songwriter, and the first contemporary Christian artist to reach a platinum album.
David Price
Cy Young Award-winning pitcher and World Series champion, drafted first overall out of Vanderbilt.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
Major city
Nashville, TN
Best For
Traditions
Rites of Spring
A two-day music festival held on Alumni Lawn each spring, booked and produced entirely by students. Past lineups have included major touring acts alongside local Nashville artists.
Founders Walk
Before classes begin, the entire incoming class processes through campus and onto Alumni Lawn, led by faculty and upperclass students. Graduation four years later reverses the same route.
Anchor Down
The rallying cry at Vanderbilt games, paired with an anchor that student groups and teams pass around and display. It nods to Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose shipping fortune founded the university.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Nashville
Great Smoky Mountains
3.5 hoursThe most visited national park in the country, with waterfall hikes and ridge trails along the Tennessee–North Carolina line.
Chattanooga
2 hoursClimbing, whitewater, and a revitalized riverfront that has become an outdoor-sports hub.
Memphis
3 hoursBeale Street, Sun Studio, and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Nashville International (BNA)
15 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Tennessee Titans NFL
- Nashville Predators NHL
- Nashville SC MLS
Career Proximity
Nashville is the headquarters of the U.S. hospital industry and a fast-growing corporate hub, and campus sits a mile and a half from downtown.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- HCA Healthcare
- Vanderbilt University Medical Center
- Amazon
- AllianceBernstein
- Bridgestone Americas
Downtown Nashville — about 10 minutes from campus
Who Thrives Here
Vanderbilt runs like a small college inside a major city — 7,366 undergraduates, an 8-to-1 student-faculty ratio and 57.4% of class sections under 20 students, on an arboretum campus a mile and a half from downtown Nashville. The social scene is residential and Greek-leaning: 74.5% of undergraduates live in university housing, 27.4% of men and 31.6% of women join a fraternity or sorority, and students book and produce Rites of Spring, a two-day music festival on Alumni Lawn, themselves. The aid is real — 100% of demonstrated need met, and 744 students with no financial need still received an average $33,730 merit award — but graduates who borrow leave with $30,578, so "full need met" and "no debt" are not the same sentence here. The harder trade-off is getting in at all: a 5.4% admit rate makes this a reach for every applicant, however strong.