John O. Gaines, Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Vanderbilt University, announced some interesting tidbits of information that should be of interest to students and others who want to learn more about the selectivity of Vanderbilt’s overall Early Decision first-year student admissions process for its Class of 2023. The highlights include:
- The middle fifty percent of students accepted into Vanderbilt’s Class of 2023 via ED I and ED II who reported their SAT scores had SAT Evidence Based Reading and Writing scores of between 710 and 760.
- Meanwhile, The middle fifty percent of students accepted into Vanderbilt’s Class of 2023 via ED I and ED II who reported their SAT scores had SAT Math scores of between 770 and 800.
- Of those students accepted to Vanderbilt’s Class of 2023 ED I or ED II who reported their ACT scores, the middle fifty percent had ACT composite scores of between 33 and 35.
- No statistics were given regarding GPA averages of accepted students, which is not surprising because GPA scales different from school to school and some schools are ditching GPAs all together. A significant percentage of high schools also do not rank students, and an even greater percentage of high school counselors severely guesstimate students’ ranks in their counselor evaluation reports to colleges; yet, that didn’t stop Vanderbilt from reporting that of those students accepted ED I or ED II this admissions cycle who attend high schools willing to give a decile rankings for their students, ninety-seven percent of accepted students were in the top ten percent of their graduating classes.
- Overall, Vanderbilt’s average ED acceptance rate for its Class of 2023 was 19.8 percent.
In recent years, Vanderbilt has filled more than fifty percent of its first-year classes with students accepted Early Decision. Also in recent years, Vanderbilt has become a college that has an ED acceptance rate that is at least twice as high as its Regular Decision acceptance rate. With that in mind, it would not be surprising to see Vanderbilt announce later this spring that its Regular Decision acceptance rate has fallen to seven percent or below. We’ll keep you updated.
In closing, we know we shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth and all, but what’s up with colleges combining their Early Decision I and Early Decision II admissions statistics for public dissemination? What we didn’t learn today is how students accepted to Vanderbilt ED I compared to students accepted to Vanderbilt ED II. If Mr. Gaines would like to fill us in on how Vandy’s ED I admits compared to Vandy’s ED II admits, he is respectfully invited to contact us here, and we will happily and thankfully share his response with our loyal audience.
In the interim, congratulations to Vanderbilt and to those students accepted to Vanderbilt ED I and ED II during this admissions cycle.
December 14, 2019 Note: The below article is about the 2018-2019 admissions cycle. The only information yet published out of St. Louis about the 2019-2020 admissions cycle is that Wash U. has accepted 708 students Early Decision I (EDI). Check this space for more information about the Wash U. 2019-2020 admissions cycle as we have it. If Wash U. follows trends from the Ivies, and if its lack of any major press release to date is any indication, 
UT at Austin’s Office of Admissions began admitting students to its Class of 2023 on Friday evening December 7 when a few thousand fall 2019 freshman applicants received an email asking them to visit their MyStatus page for an update.
