Announcing that Vanderbilt intends to recruit Jewish students, the University's chancellor explained, "Jewish students by culture and by ability and by the very nature of their liveliness make a university a much more habitable place in terms of intellectual life"--The Wall Street Journal
We are currently engaged in assembling the most intellectually curious, accomplished, dynamic student body in the United States of America. We value those who esteem scholarship and are motivated to succeed. Our prospective applicants have that indefinable quality, that little something extra that sets them apart from the crowd. They're highly verbal, gregarious, opinionated, and they love to learn.
Do you enjoy films, be they the comedies of Woody Allen, the dramas of Steven Spielberg, or the documentaries of Frederick Wiseman? Do you particularly relish documentaries about your own people? Do you dream of writing, starring in, directing, reviewing, or merely discussing films about your own people (or any other people, for that matter)?
Do you love to laugh and to make others laugh? Do you have the same gift of laughter as Groucho Marx, Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Albert Brooks, Ben Stiller or Jon Stewart?
Is your surname a color: Gold, Silver, or Green? Or perhaps a variation on a color: Goldfine, Silverman, or Greenspan? Is your surname Rosen or a version thereof: Rosenberg, Rosenfeld, Rosenbaum, Rosencrantz, or Rosenquist? If so, we have exciting news: our university may well be for you.
We're rolling out the red carpet for those who hail from major metropolitan areas or suburbs with strong public school systems. We look for students with varied interests: if you play chess, organize and run an investment club at your school, have volunteered on a kibbutz, or have interned in a hospital where one or both of your parents is a specialist, please consider us.
We cherish strong communication and writing skills. If you possess the zeal and talent to become a columnist like Thomas Friedman or William Safire, an investigative reporter like Seymour Hersh or Jane Mayer, or are equipped with the business savvy to helm a major news organization like Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., we eagerly await your application. Whether you hope to contribute to society as a titan of literature like Bellow, Roth, Ozick, Mailer, or Salinger, or merely to give back philanthropically like Annenberg, Zuckerman, Bloomberg, Geffen, and Tisch, we urge you to apply.
Our ideal candidates have a solid background in math and science, four years of English and foreign language, and three of four grandparents who are Jewish. An applicant is expected to submit SAT I and II scores, an official transcript, two teacher recommendations, and proof that his or her birth mother is Jewish. (Please note that mothers who have converted to the Jewish faith may not have done so in a reform synagogue.)
We realize in a diverse society such as ours that members of minority groups are often sensitive to special treatment. Let us be perfectly clear: no one is being "targeted." We're simply trying to raise the intellectual tone on our campus, to stimulate thought, and to gather a group of individuals who prize the old-fashioned art of conversation.
We strive to select those who feel deeply, can be counted on to cry at weddings and other social occasions, debate issues well into the night, and above all, care. We're searching for what might be termed the "creative personality," who not only plays a stringed instrument, sculpts or paints, writes and performs monologues, but who expresses a zany, urban sensibility that captivates others.
We want catalysts: people who intend to be pioneers in law, medicine, business, journalism, entertainment, and academia. We hunger for those who ultimately will augment, transform, and dominate these fields.
If you're boisterous and effervescent, we want you. If you're feisty, combative, argumentative, outspoken, and controversial, we want you. If you're dynamic, explosive, formidable, and larger than life, we want you. We covet aesthetes, activists, and aspiring anesthesiologists. We applaud those who are passionately involved in this great enterprise called life.
If you've ever felt marginalized, misunderstood, denigrated, unappreciated, unfairly maligned or otherwise victimized, we are your promised land. We herald both your past and future accomplishments and bid you welcome. We implore you: consider yourself a member of our club.
