In my opinion (with which others might disagree) I think asian kids do fine here. Although the school’s in the south, the majority of the student body is not from the south, so you can expect them to behave in a similar way to your peers wherever you are now. Some asian kids join frats and have a good time there, and some asian kids stay in less mainstream circles, like the asian students associations.
That being said, if you come here expecting it to be like California or UC Berkeley or something, you might be disappointed because asians aren’t a huge group of students here. Also know that greek life is a major part of social life. If you are super culturally asian (like you’re a 1st/2nd gen immigrant and you have very few white friends) you might not fit in so well with greek life. Some kids will get on and tell you that if you’re asian you’re “banned from the frats” or something, but anyone can get a bid if they actually rush.
The people who I see dumping on asian life at Vanderbilt most vocally seem to have what I have named “disaffected premed syndrome.” Basically, premed here is hard and to be successful at it, you often give up your social life. Then people make up excuses about how it was inevitable and they had no choice, rather than accepting that they themselves chose to study all the time. The excuses that people come up with are endless: I’m too short, I’m jewish, I’m asian, etc. I’ve seen it a million times. It also usually comes down to the fact that for some reason guys come here thinking that they are entitled to hook up with hot sorority girls, and are really salty about the fact that those girls typically associate with guys who go out and are social, rather than those who are studying orgo all day. Asian kids who are not pre-med seem to have a lot less complaints, so this is why I have the theory.
That’s not to say that there are no racial problems here (there are at any college campus, and the U.S. in general) but I just want to pre-empt the potential barrage of ridiculous hyperbole. I’ve seen people get on here and say that asians are banned from frat parties, that they are forced to sit alone in class and at lunch, that they were systematically excluded from social events starting on move-in day, and all kinds of stuff about asian girls being “traitors to their race” and stuff, all of which I have found to be untrue.