Vanderbilt University Area Apartments for Rent

Vanderbilt University is a private research university of about 6,500 undergraduates and 5,300 graduate and professional students. The university is located in the heart of Nashville, only one and one-half miles from downtown. Despite its urban surroundings, the campus itself is a national arboretum and features over 300 different species of trees and shrubs.

Vanderbilt offers undergraduate programs in the liberal arts and sciences, engineering, music, education and human development as well as a full range of graduate and professional degrees. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt provided the endowment that founded Vanderbilt University in the spring of 1873. Methodist Bishop Holland McTyeire of Nashville, a cousin of the commodore’s young second wife, won the commodore’s support for a university in the South that would strengthen the country’s bonds after the Civil War.

The original university was situated on 75 acres; today’s campus sprawls across 330 acres and includes six undergraduate and four graduate schools, as well as several research centers and institutes including the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies, Freedom Forum First Amendment Center, Dyer Observatory, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. With the exception of the off-campus observatory and satellite medical clinics, all of university’s facilities are situated on its campus.

In its 2011 ranking of universities, US News and World Report placed Vanderbilt 17th among national universities, and the schools of education, law, medicine, and nursing were ranked among the top 20 in the country. Notable alumni include Dinah Shore, Rosanne Cash, Amy Grant, James Dickey and Tipper Gore.