Vanderbilt is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee that is home to 7,152 undergraduate students. Vanderbilt is known for balancing work and play. The students there are super smart, and they also know how to have a good time. There are more than 475 student groups and intramural and club sports, and Nashville is a bustling city known for live music, amazing food, and outstanding opportunities for launching a career. The university matches innovation with tradition, and they strive to build a diverse, inclusive, and equitable community. The students on campus agree, and there is a deep commitment to community. More than half of Vanderbilt students participate in community service, and first-years form deep bonds by living together in a cluster of houses, the Martha Rivers Ingram Commons.
Vanderbilt offers a lot, and admission to the university is in very high demand. The Regular Decision acceptance rate in 2023 was just 4.2%, and included students representing 61 different countries. The Early Decision acceptance rate, though, was more than triple that. It was 15.7%. So, what does that tell us? The best way into Vanderbilt is through the Early Decision route — either ED I or ED II. And yes, that’s especially true for international students.
When you’re applying to Vanderbilt as an international student, there is a lot more you need to keep in mind than just which application deadline to put on your calendar. In this post, we’ll give you the key things you need to know about applying to Vanderbilt as an international student.
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What is Vanderbilt looking for in International Students?
First off, let’s clarify what Vanderbilt means when they say, “International Student.” For the university, an international student is any student that isn’t eligible to receive federal student financial assistance. If that describes you, read on!
Courses + Grades
There is no minimum GPA or threshold you need to meet with scores to be eligible to apply to Vanderbilt, but they do want to see you getting the best grades you can in the hardest courses you can take. They take this really seriously. “Most successful applicants,” they say, “have taken a very rigorous course load and have challenged themselves at the highest levels of the available curriculum.”
Vanderbilt also has a required course distribution for applicants, so if you want to be considered for admission you need to meet these requirements. If you want to be seriously considered, you need to exceed them.
At minimum, you need to take:
English (Writing/Literature): 4 units (units = years)
Math: 3 units
Science: 3 units, including two labs
Foreign Language: 2 units
Social Studies: 2 units
History: 1 unit
Electives: 3 units (this can include music and art)
Once you’ve ensured that you’ll meet all the course requirements, you need to make sure that your application will be submitted to Vanderbilt in the way they want to see it. Your transcripts, recommendations, essays, and any other pieces of your application must be submitted in English. Recommendations can be translated, but they must be translated by your school or certified translator. This is not a time for do-it-yourself!
Extracurriculars
For Vanderbilt, what you do outside of the classroom really matters. And they want to see you excelling in it to boot. One hundred percent (100%) of students admitted in the 2023 regular decision round and the early decision round that year “received one or more significant honors or held major leadership positions.”
So, you don’t just need to do things outside of school — you need to do things really well. Vanderbilt wants to see you fully, and how you spend your time tells them what your priorities and responsibilities are, and what you care about.
We encourage students with Vanderbilt on their list to pick a ‘spotlight’ activity (that is not a sport) that they focus in on and pursue with the intention of receiving honors and/or leadership positions. Then, you should have 2-3 additional activities that you may be a leader in, and may receive honors for, but that don’t have to be such a large time commitment. This method of having a core ‘spotlight’ activity with two or three support activities below it creates a focused application with both breadth and depth.
Standardized Tests
The SAT and ACT are optional when you’re applying to Vanderbilt and, while most admitted and enrolled students submit scores, it isn’t the overwhelming majority. For students entering in the fall of 2022, 61% of enrolled first-years submitted scores. So, you can get in without sending them — but we find that scores serve a really helpful purpose for international applicants, in particular.
The application readers at Vanderbilt are trained to understand international school systems, but high scores on the SAT or ACT basically give them peace of mind that you are actually everything your transcript shows you to be academically. Because of this, we highly recommend that international students take the SAT or ACT. We also recommend that they invest time and, potentially, money, in test prep to get the best score they can. To give you a sense of what “best score” means for Vanderbilt, you should aim to be at or above the “Middle 50%” for admitted students from 2023.
SAT Middle 50% Evidence-Based Reading and Writing: 740-780
SAT Middle 50% Math: 780-800
ACT Middle 50%: 34-36
The Middle 50% test scores for students who were accepted ED were a little lower. Not a lot lower, but notably lower. This underlines again how powerful a tool Early Decision is at Vanderbilt.
While the SAT and ACT are optional, there may be one test that you are required to take. Vanderbilt requires that some applicants submit the results of an English proficiency test such as the TOEFL, IELTS, or Duolingo English Test — and there are more options than just that. You don’t need to submit an English proficiency test score if English is your first language or the language of instruction in your school. You can also forgo the test if you “score above 26 on the ACT English section or above 630 on the SAT Evidence-based Reading and Writing section.”
Final Thoughts
There are a few more things you should know if you are applying to Vanderbilt as an international student. Most notably, financial aid. If you are going to request need-based financial aid, you will need to submit the CSS Profile or the International Student Financial Aid Application. And remember, that a request for need as an international student will be taken into account when reviewing your application.
However, there are a few scholarship opportunities unique to international students, like the Hilppa A. K. Roby Scholarship, which is for students from Finland, the Early-White International Scholarship, which is for students from the United Kingdom or European Union, or the Irene and Thomas Harrington International Scholarship. International applicants are also eligible to apply for all merit-based scholarships.
As you approach your application remember to take everything into account. There’s the academics of Vanderbilt, the social experience of Vanderbilt, the wonderfulness (a word, right?) of Nashville, and then there’s the one tool that is your best chance of getting in: Early Decision.
Applying to college in the United States can be wildly overwhelming, especially if you’re applying from abroad. We can help.