I’m trying to decide whether or not to attend Vassar and so far all I’ve heard are good things! Can anyone please share anything bad they’ve experienced at the college? Or any important information that’ll factor into my decision?
Thank you!
What is good or bad is relative, so if everything you’ve heard is good, then it might be the place for you. Some prospective students would NOT like the small campus, the liberal atmosphere, the setting that is not in a big city, the lack of a greek system, the Division III athletics, the smart and quirky student body, and on and on. I think you may have found the college for you.
Their bookstore needs more merchandise.
Seriously, I tried to find someone, anyone, that would say something bad about their experience at Vassar. Good luck. Depending on your view of the greek system, you may feel that the lack of one is a negative. The vast majority that I have talked to feel that the harm that greek life causes in bifrocating the student body far outweighs any positives. My D is very happy that there isn’t a greek system.
I guess the biggest, and only negative we came up with is that to get home, you have to catch the train to NYC. This is no different than most colleges that aren’t in a large metropolitan city but it will add an extra 90 minutes to the time it takes our D to get home when she starts in the fall.
I think if you are a high Type A personality looking to work on Wall Street, this environment is wrong for those people. Vassar is friendly beyond belief.
Agree with wherezwallace on the bookstore stuff! I don’t know if it’s that Vassar kids just aren’t that into it, or what,but the choices for Vassar gear are pretty limited.
(also, @wherezwallace, glad to hear your D is on board for the fall term! there’s another parent- stepay I think who has a a D starting in the fall as well. Looks like a great incoming group :-))
S1 graduated in 2012 and S2 is a junior there now. Obviously our family likes the school - a lot! Complaints I have heard: the food is not the best and it is challenging to find space to practice playing loud rock music in (something both my kids wanted to do a lot of). Maybe that’s it, aside from the occasional criticism of administration or college culture that are part and parcel of every college experience as far as I can tell. From a parent’s perspective, it is a stimulating, supportive, culturally-rich environment where both of my children have grown tremendously. I love visiting, though I don’t get to do that very often.
It all depends on what you are personally looking for in the school. I visited the campus, and I would say one of the worst things for me is the surrounding city Poughkeepsie. It’s not often that you would want to venture there, so you may end up feeling trapped - but there will be a lot to do on-campus anyways so you’ll keep busy socially and academically.
I’ll just list some things:
1)If you’re conservative, you’re going to be surrounded by a lot of liberal people.
2)Vassar doesn’t really have any core requirements, so you may feel stressed to pick the right major off the bat. Or you might love the free-ness of your choices.
3)Getting into some introduction classes can be difficult because they fill up fast or require auditions, such as the Creative Writing class.
4)The math department isn’t the school’s strongest asset.
5) At times, you can feel like you keep running into the same people over and over - part of the “vassar bubble”
6) If you’re a girl and you’re interested in dating a guy, you’re going to have a harder time because over the 60/40 gender split.
7) At least for your freshman year, you get assigned to a random dorm - there’s no grouping based on personality/major/etc. Again, this may or may not be a good thing because of diversity yada yada yada
8) Not a bunch of on-campus parking
Of course, I think a lot of this negative things are vass-tly outweighed by the great things about the school. You are getting guaranteed housing, a (mostly) accepting community, and a great education with really great fin-aid! Honestly, the school is a gem in most aspects, but a lot of people definitely think that there’s a “Vassar fit” personality so it’s all about your preferences.
Can’t speak for everything but neither of my kids has ever had to “audition” for a class and while there may have been a class or two they didn’t get the first time they tried to register for it they were able to take all the classes they wanted to at some point. We didn’t mind Poughkeepsie - both kids saw shows or played in them off campus, did field work in local schools, and ate in the restaurants in the blocks close to campus. They didn’t have cars and of course it’s not a major city - so if you want rural it’s not that and if you want something like NYC or Boston it’s not that either.
@collegemom3717 - Yep, my daughter starts in the fall. She can’t wait.
After about the 39th or 40th comment from DSs’ HS friends and teachers about Vassar’s “favorable” F/M ratio, we compiled a list of colleges with similar “gender splits.” (numbers from a couple of years ago)
Guess what?
Grinnell 54/46
Kenyon 54/46
Colgate 55/45
Oberlin 55/45
Georgetown 55/45
UCLA 55/45
Vassar 56/44
Oxy 56/44
Brandeis 57/43
Whitman 57/43
Emory 57/43
UNC-CH 58/42
NYU 60/40
Boston U 60/40
Macalester 61/39
Obviously, there are also tons of examples of colleges with more males than females, but Vassar isn’t quite the estrogen capital of the collegiate world that a lot of people make it out to be. (I guess whether that makes it better or badder is open to individual interpretation).
Why does the lack of core requirements cause stress re choosing a major? Just curious.
With core requirements, there is more of an emphasis on taste-testing everything before you make decisions. With none, it can be a little daunting knowing what you like/dislike going right into college.
The core requirement is actually favored among a lot of students. There have been proposals recently to change it so more restrictions are added so that students are required to take classes in a certain amount of departments, but the proposals have received a lot of negative feedback.
Poughkeepsie isn’t too fun, but usually the campus keeps students occupied. Some say the food isn’t that great–which I agree to a certain extent–but it’s not too bad either. Some of the departments are a little weak (math and physics… based on a lot of hearsay) but there are plenty of strong departments to choose from (biology, english, psychology, etc.). Also, I find that (in a course) a great professor usually matters more than the supposed reputation of the department.
Courses can be competitive to get into, such as some 200-level English, Biology, or Neuroscience classes. They’re pretty competitive. For example, for the 209/210 Narrative Writing class in the English department, students need to submit a couple of writing samples (short stories) and are admitted based on the quality of their writing. However, if you really want to take a class, most professors are willing to take on more students.
Vassar’s 60/40 split is getting a lot more even now, just an fyi. Also, while many people are satisfied with the dorm they are placed in, it is still very possible to change dorms throughout the school year.
So there are some drawbacks, but in the overall scheme they’re not too bad at all.
Sorry if it seems defensive, but maths and physics at Vassar seem to always get slapped down, and based on my (limited but close-to-hand) experience, it’s not entirely accurate.
My D is a physics major / math minor, and two of her very good friends are math majors They would agree that there is one math teacher (who unfortunately teaches 2 gateway classes) who is truly a bad teacher. And no-one would argue that Vassar physics offers the wealth of options that a large university would be able to offer.
But (based on a random sample of 1), the Physics department does not look weak. My D started with standard Physics 101 in 1st year. The summer after 1st year she had a 10 week, paid research job through URSI (Vassar’s funded UG research program). From that work she got her first publication in a peer-reviewed journal during 2nd year. Vassar also sent her to 3 physics conferences during 2nd year: local, regional and national. At the national conference she presented a poster on the research from the previous summer, and attended many sessions on what is happening in physics now, as well as sessions on what you can do with a physics degree. This summer she has a 10 week paid research job through an REU (National Science Foundation funded grants for UG research) at the University of Chicago. She is a pretty normal student- definitely not a physics savant or a lab rat holed up studying all the time.
Just trying to balance the perspectives a bit!
I know you can’t name names, but collegemom3717, could you give a few hints about which gateway math classes to avoid?
lol- if there was a way to do it, I think my D would have! let me ask her, and I will pm you an answer…
@collegemom3717, can you please include me on the PM? D2 likely physics or math major!
My D is deciding for the Fall 2015 between Vassar and Lehigh. Her goal is to become an actuary. At Vassar she
would be majoring in math and computer science and minor in economics. Do you know anyone that does this? Does the school seem too small socially? @collegemom3717 can you PLEASE PM me the prof to avoid? Any other info is appreciated!!
I do know people who do math + cs. Minors (called correlates at Vassar) are so frequent and variable that you can go lots of directions (my D has a math correlate b/c with the physics major requires/recommends enough math that she only needed I think 2 extra classes to get the correlate- and bar that one teacher she has really enjoyed the math).
Honestly, I wouldn’t make a college decision based on there being one bad teacher- it will be the rare college that doesn’t have at least one! my point was that I think that b/c that teacher teaches a class that a lot of people, including non-mathers, are required to take, a lot of people get the idea that the math department is terrible, which is not a fair representation of the department.
For your D, though, I would be a LOT more concerned about the nature of the two colleges, which are very different environments- so different that it is hard to imagine that she will be as happy at one as the other. Comparative academic intensity, diversity of the student body, Greek v non-Greek, sports emphasis, partying (amount, type, prevalence)- all are nearly opposites.
Has she visited both? If not I would move heaven and earth to get her there before she has to deposit on the 1st.
@ilovelabradors - Lots of differences between Vassar and Lehigh, but if all things are equal for your daughter (and as colelgemom3717 pointed out, it is difficult to imagine that she could be equally happy at both), Vassar is a better school, so if I were her, I would choose Vassar.
THANK YOU @collegemom3717 and @stepay, I think she is leaning towards Vassar. We did visit both, actually, going back to Vassar today again. They are totally different schools in every respect. At the present time, she is not a “partier” and not interested in Greek life. Her hobby is the theatre and went to a performing arts high school. So Vassar is the obvious fit. Neither of you found the small student body an issue (my husband is worried about that)?