Currently she is thinking about Vassar and Hamilton, both great schools. While the decisions is hers to make, I am trying get some input from the wisdom pool here on CC…
About D:
Downtown NYC girl, kinda hipster but not hardcore so. Strongest character trait is her emotional intelligence, a true ‘people person’, a ‘nice’ girl. Leaning towards psychology and perhaps becoming a child psychologist, maybe Sociology, maybe French minor - but is not so set on that path that it will be the defining factor of her choice of school. Creative and visual but not an artist. She has had a few work experiences that I think may continue to play out in her preferences for career: intern at cosmetics company, worked at a mens streetwear fashion showroom in Paris during fashion week, interned at a high end Interior Architecture firm, assisted still life photographers. Goes to a very progressive private in NYC.
Hamilton Pros/Cons:
Loved the physical qualities of the school on the one tour she recently did: the dark side/ light side contrast of a traditional campus and a utopian retro campus, the size.
Liked the location somewhat. She is looking for a school that is a ‘bubble’, where people want to be at the school and form close knit community. However she owns zero polarfleece garments, does not hike or ski, and does no sports.
Liked the warmth and openness of the people, that they seemed honest and unpretentious without being too crunchy. Liked how SO many people said Hi to her tour guide (who was just elected class president) when walking around campus.
Slight concern that shes very urban and most everyone she met seems to be from that stereotype of “just outside of Boston” or other suburbs. She’s very into style and she saw a few people she related to but a lot of prepsters too. However, when she visited Wesleyan she hated the ‘uniformity of the non-conformity’ so she is looking for a range of people.
Liked the emphasis on sports as a campus school spirit activity. At the outside of her college search when asked what she was looking for in a school she said “Hipsters and Football”. Her dad is from Alabama where college football is a religion; I worry that all schools she likes will not have as much of that as her fantasy.
Not into huge parties where people hook up and puke. Yes that at every college certainly but it felt more like that at Hamilton than Vassar.
Based on Naviance has a better chance of acceptance. But then she worries if she gets in that she locked in too quickly and schools she loves and are big reaches (Amherst, Bowdoin) will never really be in play. I honestly think she has very little chance of those schools accepting her, but its a concern of hers.
Vassar Pros/Cons:
Gorgeous campus, really she was blown away by it. Liked how refined it felt, there is a feminine vibe that she loved. Loved the library, food hall, and other common/study spaces. One of the few schools where the interiors were as nice as the exteriors.
Neutral about the location. Easy train back to NYC. Does not care about the town either way. Really wants a bubble. Did not feel as much like she is going “away” to school, liked the isolation of Hamilton more as it felt more unique.
Overall felt less warm and optimistic than Hamilton; there’s a sense of protest and anger?
Misses watching sports being a social unifier. As she put it “my idea of a great social activity is not sitting in a dark room together watching people on stage”. Not interested in being in plays or dance performances or a stagehand etc and that seems to be a big thing socially. As stated earlier I think she will be disappointed with the reality of Sports in all of the schools she liked (felt Colgate was too mainstream and I think the sports/mainstream vibe kind of travels in tandem)
Felt that there are more people “like her” - visual, creative - who are not ‘artists’ they are just people who have that visual side as an adjunct to their other traits. Was not as non-conformist as she had anticipated (like Wes), which was a plus.
Seemed like there was less integration across the wide socioeconomic band socially, seemed to group more into have/have nots.
Less cute guys; many guys seemed gay. Shes not in any way anti gay but she didn’t feel like the dating had much potential. She is currently dating the captain of her HS football team, thats her “type”.
Loved the academic quirkiness of the course offering, the outspoken nature of the students - felt more like her progressive high school.
Feels that if she decides to go into a ‘style’ based career there will be a much better alumni network.
Based on Naviance it’s more of a reach, feels she needs the bump of ED if she is going to get in.
From an academic profile perspective they are almost identical, but as Hamilton also has a strong athletic focus that may be skewing the Naviance results - idk.
High School Ranking: 85% of accepted students ranked in the top 10% of their high school class.
Middle 50% testing ranges for accepted students:
New SAT: 1420-1510
Old SAT: 1430-1540
ACT Composite: 32-34
Vassar - https://congrats2021.vassar.edu/about/
High School Ranking: 74% of accepted students ranked in the top 10% of their high school class.
Middle 50% testing ranges for accepted students:
New SAT: 1460-1510
Old SAT: 1470-1540
ACT Composite: 31-34
Other than that, they are very different as you noted above - both great, just different.
Our DD’s both chose Hamilton after having 7 similar schools to pick from in RD - they both were Deferred/Denied from their ED1 - one Brown, and one Bowdoin with 35 ACT’s.
They really appreciate the very smart/but not overly competitive, diverse and very caring students and supportive faculty. Yes, our DD’s say the really friendly and caring vibe you felt is real - the adcoms seem to spend a lot of time finding this combo of smart AND caring.
One is a student-athlete and is a passionate Gov major, the other is a Neuroscience/STEM major and is very active in the Outing Club - she never spent any time hiking/camping prior to, but feel in love with it during Freshman Orientation.
DD’s do seem to attend a mix of football, lacrosse I am sure basketball in the Winter and Lacross come Spring, soccer, ice hockey (HUGE!), but mostly because they know many student-athletes and they want to support their friends. That said the NESCAC conference is very strong with many Nationally ranked D3 teams, so the competition for those that are student athletes is fierce.
Both were also accepted at Colgate, but they never felt it was for them; they felt it was too polished - I thought the campus was stunning. Both were also accepted at Colby and had similar, but different issues as they felt it was also too preppy, campus was too uniform/not like the old buildings at Colgate, just too similar, and they felt the campus was isolated given distance to town.
DD’s have friends from everywhere from Darien CT to Portland, Oregon, from the Bronx to Chicago to Rochester NY, from Hong Kong to Ubekistan. They don’t seem to fit a demographic stereotype, although all of the NE LAC’s have big % from Mid-Atlantic, the NE, and California.
They both love the campus size - it feels bigger than its 2000 student population, the layout with multiple quads, and mix of architecture - light and dark sides.
Vassar: English major/artsy veneer, recently offset by an investment in an impressive new science building. Beautiful chapel and library. The gender imbalance, though real, does not differ significantly from the national average. A convenient train ride from New York City, though the Hudson Valley also has attractions to offer. Irrespective of its surface atmosphere, Vassar is a mainstream college at its core, with a broad curriculum, excellent resources and accomplished students.
Hamilton: Woodsy, somewhat spatially luxuriant, student-focused school with a flexible, accessible curriculum. Academically, architecturally and culturally enhanced through a legacy of having once been two colleges of different characteristics, emphases and attributes. Can with good reason be considered a writers’ college, but is even more notably impressive for a curriculum evenly balanced across the humanities and fine arts, natural sciences and math and social sciences. Receives winter snow suitable for the adventurous.
I have a daughter who is a Hamilton senior, double majoring in Sociology and French. She loves it. She spent her junior year in Paris (Hamilton’s own program), with side trips all over Europe, and loved that too. As a parent, I am very impressed. The welcoming, friendly attitudes of the students were evident from the minute we stepped on campus as a prospective applicant/parent. From a parent perspective, the administration has been responsive and great to deal with over the past four years whenever there was an issue that needed to be addressed (a rare occurrence) or I had a question. If financial aid is a factor, run the Net Price Calculator on the website to get a good estimate of what will be made available (assuming accurate data is entered). Our experience was that Hamilton was more generous than several other peer schools that were also considered. I’ve never been to Vassar, so I can’t offer any comparisons based on personal experience.
@Chembiodad Your stats recap is helpful, it helps to see things from a neutral perspective (vs just her schools students). A few years ago Vassar admitted 11 from her school and zero matriculated, since then it has been a very difficult school to get admitted to - I’d posit that affects Naviance more than sports.
D had similar reactions to Colby and Colgate - too homogenious - and preferred the diversity of architecture at Vassar and Hamilton (and Bowdoin).
@4junior - it seems as from what you say, that Hamilton really checks more of the boxes for your D. It’s hard to find a school that checks off every single wish, but H seems to have more of what your D is looking for than V. Both excellent schools though. After reading your post, I would have said Wesleyan all the way, but I see that your D had a bad reaction there. As for stats, Hamilton is a bit easier to get into if you are female. From the last common data sets available, it looks like the female admit rate is 26% at Hamilton and 15% at Vassar.
@wisteria100, agree that female admit rate is more difficult at Vassar as they are trying to equalize a gender imbalance of 58% female and 42% male - Hamilton is 51% female and 49% male (which is more much balanced than the National college student population which is 57% female; we need more males in college - come on guys!).
@4junior, Bowdoin has similar stats, but is a much tougher acceptance rate at 13%, and with ED applications up 25% this year the RD acceptance rate should plummet to around 7%.
Middle 50%: SAT CR 710-770, M 700-770; ACT 31-34
@Chembiodad Bowdoin was one of her original ED1 choices (in the end she chose Midd and was denied). Then when she walked out of her interview at Hamilton a few weeks ago she exclaimed “I like this better than Bowdoin, this is where I want to Ed2” I do think part of that was exhilaration of the moment at feeling she did well in the interview. So, she will apply RD to Bowdoin but our family knows thats a super long shot and its nice to know that she will be quite happy however it ends up.
@wisteria100 I had the same feeling, which is why I brought it to these boards. She has seen Vassar twice - summer and fall - and wanting to ED is a relatively new development. I do think she is parsing which of her long list of desires are most important and vacillating between the two.
Personally I now despise the whole ED thing. Unless you have a true clear-cut single love its super hard to commit. She didn’t have a clear choice for ED1 and it became a whole strategy thing: which top 10 LAC’s do you like best, then CC tells you which school less classmates are applying to and/or you have a better shot at. It would be better for D if there was no ED2 and she could just apply and then choose from where she gets in. But she feels she ‘must’ ed2 because not to do so is giving up a boost and it just keeps getting more competitive each year.
@4junior, our DD’s were both Deferred ED1 and then Denied in RD, one at Bowdoin and the other at Brown - not certain that the ED Denial isn’t a better outcome.
Both of our DD’s were waitlisted at Midd in RD. DD that chose Brown for ED, felt that if she had chosen Midd instead of Brown in ED I she would have been accepted - who knows!
They have freshman classmates at Hamilton that chose it over Midd. They have brought it up, so they must engage in affirmation/postmortem/ of sorts - they definitely know they are surrounded by smarties!
Our DD’s thought they would really like Wesleyan as it seemed to check the boxes, but they too felt like a single mindset was way too pronounced.
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All of the similar highly selective LAC’s reflect a really high ED acceptance rate, but as we all know when you take out the hooked applicants its probably only 5% better, meaning 20% vs 15% (if the RD acceptance rate at Hamilton was 22% last year, and then you take out the remaining RD hooked applicants - URM and First Gen, its probably down to 15% - maybe lower).
Definitely getting more competitive every year, as Hamilton’s Avg. Accepted Student ACT for Class of 2021 was 33.
@4junior, they felt the exact same way coming out of their Hamilton interview in Summer 2016 - they still went the ED route at Bowdoin and Brown, but they knew that Hamilton was a really great choice. So after RD acceptances at Bates, Carleton, Colby, Colgate, Hamilton, Kenyon and Oberlin, and Waitlists at Middlebury and Wesleyan, they knew Hamilton was best choice for each of them individually.
And most importantly - they both absolutely love Hamilton!
D’s tour guide told us (we were the only ones on his tour so it was very personal) that he had Ed1’d Wes, then toured Hamilton and withdrew his Wes ED to ED2 Hamilton.
@4junior, agree! Our DD’s are smart (got it from their mom), down to earth kids - they are NYC Metro Area kids who are down the middle socially (love both cute hometown and NYC), and are very passionate about doing the right thing (that seems to be a common Hamilton thread) - they are Bernie Sanders all the way!
Both are very focused on doing big things (that’s typical at Hamilton, so not swimming against the current);
one is a Gov major, that’s already interning for a Congressman; she’s also a three-season XC/Track student-athlete, so very busy,
the other (id twin) is a Neuroscience or maybe another STEM major, that has also found that she loves both her weekly Art Studio Club and the Andirondacks - is even going ice climbing with the Outing Club when she gets back.
Re: Wesleyan - DD’s have a close guy friend who, after wavering, went the ED2 route at Wesleyan; then after going to Wes Fest/Accepted Student Day, he realized it wasn’t the best fit. He visited them over a weekend this past Fall for a Hamilton-Wesleyan football game - he said he didn’t want to leave.
@merc81 Thanks for sending that along, I had not seen it.
D has spent many a Saturday afternoon in the A+A building at Yale with her Dad, whose favorite architect is Louis Kahn.
Interesting to me to witness on college tours how many people are turned off by that genre of architecture but I (we) love it. On a Vassar tour several tour mates pointed out the ‘ugly’ dorm building that ‘ruins’ the landscape - its an early Marcel Breuer.
I find the architecture of the dark side especially resonant after looking at the ephemera in the lobby and reading about how women should be educated regardless of if they would end up married or in a career. So many womens colleges are ‘pretty’, and that was a very brave architectural (and branding) move at that time.
I’d say also that Brutalism, particularly in its earliest stages, was among the most honest of architectural forms. (Later forms of hyper-Brutalism – which could no longer be considered honest – may have affected the style’s public image, however.) As that goes, the case can be made that the classicists of previous centuries may themselves have chosen forms approaching Brutalist styles if they’d had access to the same materials and technologies that have made modern forms possible.