What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$1,876 to $45,145 a year, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $89,590 a year. Average need-based aid package: $79,177.Aid and debt
$30,578
average debt at graduation
744
students got merit aid
about 10% of undergraduates
$33,730
average merit award
Not reported by this school: share receiving need-based grants.
Getting In
Admit rates
5.4%
admitted overall
14.1%
admitted Early Decision
4.1%
admitted Regular Decision
Early Decision
Early Decision applicants were admitted at nearly 3x the Regular Decision rate, and Early Decision is binding: you commit to attend if admitted.
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Some of that gap reflects who applies early (recruited athletes, legacy applicants and highly committed students concentrate in that pool), so it isn't proof that applying early would raise any one student's own odds.
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1510–1560 · 24% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 34–35 · 28% of the class submitted
91.4% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- Class rank
- GPA
- Personal essay
- Extracurriculars
- Character
- Important
- SAT/ACT scores
- Recommendations
- Special talent
- Considered
- First-gen status
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Vanderbilt rates course rigor, your essay, and your activities as Very Important, and your recommendations as Important.
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Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. The essay is weighted like your GPA. Depth in a few activities beats a long list. And recommendations matter here too — a recommender who knows you well helps.
Vanderbilt doesn't consider demonstrated interest in admissions at all — visits and follow-up emails won't move the needle here.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Vanderbilt just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Vanderbilt essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
57.4% of Vanderbilt classes have fewer than 20 students.
57.4%
under 20 students
33.9%
20 to 49
8.7%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Vanderbilt CDS 2025–26, I-3.
8:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
72.7%
first-years from out of state
74.5%
live on campus
27.4%
of men in fraternities
31.6%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White39.7%
- Asian18.7%
- Hispanic10.8%
- Black7.8%
- Multiracial5.8%
- Unknown / other5.4%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Vanderbilt CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
89.1% of Vanderbilt students graduate in 4 years.
89.1%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
92.6%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
97%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
90.4% finish in 6 years, against 92.6% of all students.
Pell Grant students finish at about the same rate as everyone else.
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.
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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.
The City
Major city
Nashville, TN
Best For
Notable alumni
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.
Traditions
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 from Nashville
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 and game days
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
Internships and jobs nearby
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
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.