<p>Faline,
Thank you for your detailed and well-reasoned post. My knowledge of Vanderbilt comes from 3 sources. A close friend spent over a decade there very high up in the administration. My niece recently graduated. I toured Vandy when my son was considering it. (He chose to attend Swarthmore.) My niece, not from the south, joined a sorority and enjoyed the “dress up” culture at Vandy. My son, her cousin, was turned off by the “vibe.”
I don’t know how to advise the OP since the schools are so different and he can’t visit. Many people like a school model where all the freshmen live together-Vandy and others prefer the Swarthmore model where the classes are mixed in the dorms and upperclass students become informal advisors to the freshmen.</p>