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Vanderbilt University
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Inside Scoop

Quick Stats

School Slang
  • Baseball Glove Lounge : A completely silent study area found in Sarrat Student Center. Its name is taken from the enormous, leather, baseball glove chair in the center of the room.
  • The Batman Building: The AT&T Building, which bears a striking resemblance to Batman. It's also Nashville’s tallest building.
  • The Bod: Peabody Campus.
  • Branscomb Breakfast : The greasiest, most satisfying breakfast prepared at the Munchie Mart in Branscomb that you will ever drunkenly crave. Served only on Friday and Saturday nights from 12 a.m.–2 a.m.
  • Dores: Commodores.
  • Estrogym : The small gym found in the Commons Center filled only with treadmills, elliptical machines, and exercise bikes.
  • Kisslammed : Being assigned to live in Kissam Quad as an upperclassmen against your will
  • The Loop: The perimeter of campus.
  • Metro: The Nashville police.
  • MRS degree: When a Vandygirl goes to Vanderbilt with the ulterior motive of finding a husband.
  • Munchie Mart: The 24-Hour Varsity Markets located in some of the dorms
  • O.T.P.: Office of Traffic and Parking. If you have a car, you will grow to hate them.
  • Prospy : High school junior/senior looking to possibly matriculate at Vanderbilt. These wide-eyed minors are to be pampered and given a taste of the Vandy nightlife by their host students.
  • The Pub: The restaurant in Sarratt, also known as The Pub at Overcup Oak.
  • Randwiches : Delicious, toasted sandwiches available at the Corner Market in Rand Dining Center
  • The Rec: Student Recreation Center.
  • Sketch: Suspicious.
  • Sorostitute: A sorority girl who spends all her time at frat houses sucking up to the brothers.
  • The Steps: A series of steps inside Sarratt Student Center.
  • Vanderbubble: The community we live in.
  • The Wall: The walkway between Sarratt and campus.
Things I Wish I Knew Before Coming To School
  • How extensive all the requirements that undergrads have to complete are. Take AP tests in order to get out of more requirements if you can.
  • How large and imposing the Greek system is. Regardless of your position on whether or not you will join a frat, you will undoubtedly be affected by their abundance and spend a lot of time at their houses.
  • It takes so long to get your head out of the fog that is the Vanderbubble, and you should make an effort early on in your college career.
  • The break schedule for Vanderbilt is a bit off from the rest of the world. School begins in late August with spring break starting in February, classes ending by late April, and a short winter break. This can make it difficult to plan vacations and trips with family or friends.
  • The depth of Southern culture and its affect on the citizens of Nashville. Unless you’re from the South, the “Southern mentality” is impossible to understand. Visit the South (Tennessee, in particular), or speak to relatives and friends who have lived or gone to school in the South to get their take on all this.
  • The weather can be extremely unpredictable at Vanderbilt. Make sure to bring clothes for all conditions, regardless of the season. Rain boots, light jackets, heavy coats, jeans, shorts, flip-flops, T-shirts, sweaters, and skirts are all appropriate garments for a normal February and March.
Tips to Succeed
  • Don't miss out on all the events Vanderbilt has to offer. There are great speakers, concerts, performances, and athletic events.
  • Establish and develop relationships with your professors as soon as possible. Go to office hours, ask questions, attend class, and remain engaged with the subject, and you will have much more success.
  • Get involved in organizations that interest you right at the beginning. It's a great way to meet people on campus and learn what your passions are. Begin to narrow down your interests and really develop them, but don’t let one activity dominate every aspect of your life. Take advantage of as many different pursuits as possible.
  • The party scene is huge at Vandy, but academics are also very rigorous, so if you don’t focus on school, you will be in trouble. Students live by a strict work hard, play hard mentality. This is a key point. If you get into Vanderbilt, you are an intelligent, well-adjusted person, and you should possess the study skills to get things done. Don’t fall into the traps and seductions of the nightlife.
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Inside Scoop at Vanderbilt University

bina6209

Medicine and Medical Studies '13

4.2
A-

Special Dinners

Squirrel Celebration dinner at the pub, SS Rand, Birthday night every month, Holiday dinner before finals, Hogwarts dinner on Commons... the list goes on and on!

Feb 11, 2011

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Inside Scoop at Vanderbilt University

wbeyer13

Political Science and Government '13

N/A

Not for Everyone

I know that a lot of Vanderbilt students carve their own niches outside the main rich, white, entitled Greek scene, but it is not an easy life doing so. If you want to occasionally experience not the same loud thumping Greek party, you are out of luck - with almost no off-campus housing and terrible, cramped on-campus housing, the social scene is completely confined to Greek row. Greek life has its benefits, but I have also seen many good, worldly people turn self-absorbed and exclusive by joining. It, and the sorts of entitled values associated with it, dominate the Vandy culture.

Oct 24, 2010

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Inside Scoop at Vanderbilt University

braveheart

Biological Sciences '13

5.0
A+

Vanderbilt- the Balance of Life

The greatest thing about us Vanderbilt Students is that, well... we are very smart, obviously, or else we would not have gotten into this top-ranked school. We do not, however, study constantly. We have a lot of fun, too. Vanderbilt is the ONLY University in the U.S. that is ranked as a top 15 academic school, and well as a top 15 party school. We know how to live a balanced life. We know how to work and how to play.

Jun 14, 2010

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User rating for Vanderbilt University - Inside Scoop is 4.6 out of 5 based on 5 user reviews.

Facts

Traditions
  • Commodore Quake : A huge concert before homecoming which has, in the past, hosted acts ranging from Counting Crows to Busta Rhymes.
  • Overdress to Impress: This involves guys dressing up in a coat and tie and taking a date in a dress to home football games. Like many traditions, no one seems to know why this is done. For the most part, the only people who participate are frat boys. Possibly, it is so they can sneak past police because they look sophisticated when in reality they are drunk out of their minds.
  • Pre Game Scamper : The freshman lead the football team onto the field for the first home game of the year.
  • Rites of Spring : Rites is a huge concert series that, in the past, has featured such big name acts ranging from Dave Matthews Band, to Nelly, to Ludacris.
  • Running of the Pigs : This is when the sorority girls run to their houses on bid day—the day that they find out what sorority house they’ve been accepted into. Pigs is probably one of those fun, half misogynistic, half “freshmen orientation” terms that was applied a long time ago. They used to let the frat boys throw stuff (water balloons, food, beer) at the girls as they ran by, but Gee shut that down. Now, the guys just line up to stare and check out the newest freshmen.
Urban Legends
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt demanded that Vanderbilt’s Charter refuse to allow class to be canceled on Labor Day. Why celebrate and honor labor by taking a day off?
  • The administration at Vanderbilt has canceled classes only twice; one of those times because a bull got loose on campus.
  • The Community Outreach House is haunted.
  • There are several graves on campus (underneath various monuments).
  • There is a 3-to-1 squirrel-to-student ratio.
  • There is a monkey laboratory underneath Wilson Hall.
  • There is a series of underground, interconnected tunnels that run under Vandy’s campus. This one is true.

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How do we get our information? Find out here or report an error here. The statistics on our site are from the National Center for Education Statistics IPEDS database.
We update this information twice annually, most recently in May 2012, but it may not be the most recent information available for a particular school.
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