The U.S. Supreme Court’s ban on race-based affirmative action last summer forced the university to change its admissions process — changes were first implemented for Vanderbilt’s current first-years, the Class of 2028. Despite efforts to promote diversity in recruitment and yield, the university saw a 21% decrease in the proportion of students of color enrolled in its first-year class compared to last year. 

Vanderbilt was one of many universities across the nation to experience a drop in the racial/ethnic diversity of its first-year class. In light of this year’s outcomes, the university added a supplemental essay prompt to its undergraduate application, effective for the Class of 2029 and beyond, that allows students to elaborate on experiences related to their identity and culture. 

Racial diversity post-affirmative action ban

Compared to the Class of 2027, Vanderbilt’s Class of 2028 saw a 14% increase in its share of white students alongside 47% and 27% drops in its shares of Black and Latinx students, respectively. The share of Asian American and Pacific Islander students dropped by 3%, while that of students identifying as two or more races dropped by 10%. 

“We can use [race and ethnicity] on the yield side once they’ve been admitted; we have MOSAIC and other programs that really help with the yield,” Vice Provost for University Enrollment Affairs and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Doug Christiansen said. “Our yield on regular decision went up really nicely in some of the areas. But then, in the selection process, in history, we used to use [race and ethnicity] as one of many variables in our holistic admissions process. We couldn’t do that this year anymore.”

The drop brings Vanderbilt’s overall undergraduate class composition to 39% white, 19% Asian or Pacific Islander, 11% Hispanic, 11% international, 9% Black, 6% bi- or multi-racial, 4% unknown race/ethnicity and less than 1% Native American. 

Gender and socioeconomic diversity

Christiansen emphasized that, despite the drop in racial and ethnic diversity, the university made progress in recruiting students from diverse backgrounds. This year, 23% of the undergraduate class is Pell Grant-eligible, compared to 20% last year and 18% in 2022. He added that 15% of the undergraduate population are first-generation students versus 12.9% last year and 11% in 2022. 

Furthermore, 27.3% of first-years from Tennessee hail from small-town or rural backgrounds, compared to 10.4% for the Class of 2027. Christiansen pointed to gender diversity as well, claiming that the proportion of women in the School of Engineering is over 50% for the third year in a row. However, Vanderbilt’s publicly available Student Factbook lists the number of male engineering students as 817 and female engineering students as 681 — meaning men make up 55% of all undergraduates, both full-time and part-time, in the School of Engineering. This percentage increases to 59% male when including graduate and professional students. 

More women apply to college than men, making up a larger proportion of first-year applicants each year. Previous data has shown it is more difficult for women to get into Vanderbilt than men due to an attempt to maintain a gender balance on campus. Christiansen confirmed that the university continues to factor gender into its admissions process.

“When we think about gender, we’re also thinking about the classroom. We’re thinking about women in engineering, women in the STEM area,” Christiansen said. “We’re thinking about men in education, particularly non-coaching — that there [are] role models of men in first, second and third grade for younger students.”

Changes to admissions process, marketing

Though the Supreme Court ruling forbids the consideration of race in the admissions process, Christiansen said that it does not prevent the use of race or ethnicity in advertising the university to certain demographics of students.

“We do a lot of targeted marketing on the front end for students in high school, and it can be based on if they’re small-town, rural [and by] looking at their race or ethnicity,” Christiansen said. “And then we can use it on the yield side once they’ve been admitted.”

In addition, Vanderbilt’s new 250-word supplemental essay prompt asks prospective students to “reflect on how one or more aspects of [their] identity, culture or background has played a role in [their] personal growth, and how it will contribute to our campus community as [they] dare to grow at Vanderbilt.”

“We're really trying to get a deeper understanding of the experiences of the student as it relates to who they are,” Christiansen said. “An example might be, someone might say, ‘I'm a Latinx female student and went to a predominantly white high school, but I started the Latinx Cultural Club, and I wanted to bring my culture to the campus or to my high school.’” 

Christiansen emphasized that the admissions committee is specifically looking at how the prospective students took risks, brought new ideas to the table or other facets of their experience that aided in their personal growth. 

“It's not because they were Latinx that we can look at that, because the Latinx [identity] would be looking at race, but you can have an experience because of your race,” Christiansen said. “What we're really looking at now is trying to dig deeper to understand the contextual experience of every student in the information that we collect, so we have a better understanding of how they will bring those experiences to Vanderbilt and be part of our community here.”

Vanderbilt compared to peer institutions

Most of Vanderbilt’s peer universities saw a drop in the proportion of students of color that comprise their first-year classes, but there was wide variation by racial/ethnic group among these changes. 

Among Vanderbilt’s peer institutions examined by The Hustler, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology saw the largest drop — with 45% fewer Black, Latinx and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students in its Class of 2028 as compared to the Classes of 2024-27. MIT’s share of Asian American students, however, increased by 15% from its classes of 2024-27 to its Class of 2028.

Similarly, Columbia University saw a 30% increase in its proportion of Asian American students from its Class of 2027 to the Class of 2028, while its proportion of Black and Latinx students dropped 40% and 14%, respectively.

Cornell University saw a 3% decrease in its share of white students from its Class of 2027 to Class of 2028. Its proportion of Black and Latinx students dropped 34% and 37%, respectively, and its proportion of Asian American students saw a 0.6% increase. 

While MIT had the largest drop in representation of Black, Latinx and Native American students among the Class of 2028, Vanderbilt has the lowest overall representation — 15.5% — of these racial and ethnic groups in its first-year class among the selected peer institutions.