I just looked at Vassar’s CDS and it looks as if for Oct 2021 they were less than 40% male. Can that be right?
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For a supporting source, IPEDS shows male enrollment at Vassar at 38%.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=Vassar&s=all&id=197133#enrolmt
We visited today and the school said 60/40. I have no idea what it is like on a day to day basis but walking around there did not seem to be a big gender imbalance. S24 was very impressed by the school and it is high on the list.
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Yes, that is right. Vassal’s male-female ratio has hovered around 40:60 fir a long time, and it’s not unusual for their percent of males to drop under 40% as it is now.
Un fairness to Vassar, the ratio of males to females in college nationally is about 40:60, so Vassar is no different than the national average. Our boys and young men are in trouble and no one seems to want to talk about that.
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Hamilton used to have the reputation of being more of a “jock” school, and Vassar more of a “crunchy granola” school. Back in the day, when I was at Vassar, it was wonderfully diverse and accepting of uniqueness.
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Oh, c’mon. When are we going to stop gilding the lily here? This largely apocryphal story of two “fully resourced liberal arts colleges” merging in the 1960s gets increasingly fantastic with each retelling. First of all, Kirkland College was hardly an independent college. It had a small endowment, but I am old enough to remember when it consisted basically of a half-dozen interconnected buildings housing the only art department between the two colleges as well as the only women’s dormitories. It was Hamilton’s attempt at co-educating without really calling it that. While other men’s colleges (e.g., Williams, Wesleyan and Amherst) were accepting women applicants directly, Hamilton was still operating under the “coordinate college” fig leaf. Hardly a progressive concept by the 1970s.
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You are misinformed. Kirkland was a distinct liberal arts college of 688 students with more in common with Hampshire (current enrollment: 472), Bennington (771), Sarah Lawrence (1529) and perhaps UCSC than with the Hamilton of that time. Those who would like more information on this era can read Coordinate Colleges for American Women (Morice). This New York Times article also may be of interest:
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So… basically, the single biggest innovation Hamilton can claim over the space of the past half-century is that it absorbed a women’s college?
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A reminder that CC is not a debate society. Make your point once and move on. Thank you.
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My dd is a current sophomore at Hamilton. She is a varsity athlete who has friends outside of the “athlete group.” She attends their events (plays, concerts, etc.) and they will attend her games. She also has friends who are in sororities and fraternities and states that the overall presence on campus is not “in your face.” I’ve been to campus numerous times to watch her games and honestly can’t recall seeing any students walking around with Greek letters on - very unlike the college I attended where Greek life had a big influence. She wound up living on the “dark side” as a freshman where the athletes tend to not live. She described it as being much more quiet on that side of campus which she liked, unfortunately for her it was just too far away from the athletic facilities to enjoy the walk to practice in the dead of winter.
She is currently focusing on declaring bio as her major but has found a love for her liberal arts classes. Her writing has come a long way from what it was in HS and her writing intensive classes are the ones she finds extremely interesting.
I agree that although the campus is in a very rural part of upstate NY, the surrounding community embraces the students as many student groups will be found performing community service events locally and in nearby Utica. Utica also has several ethnically diverse restaurants which we love to frequent when we visit dd. As previously mentioned, there are the common big box stores and chain restaurants nearby, so Hamilton is hardly isolated.
I will admit, I know absolutely nothing about Vassar so can’t comment on the experience or student body there.
If Hamilton is a school at the top of the list, I highly recommend applying ED.
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Both colleges are great options to receive a fantastic education.
I graduated from Vassar and what surprised me was how well known Vassar is globally compared to most of its LAC peers. Global reputation was never a criterion for me when selecting colleges, but Vassar’s brand recognition certainly helped me when living/working in the UK, Scandinavia, and the Middle East.
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Or, since I know we’re both committed to the objective view on matters such as these, we can also recommend the book by Kirkland’s only ever President, Samuel Fisher Babbitt, Limited Engagement, and get his take on the whole experience:
Planners envisioned a female counterpart of Hamilton which could introduce women without distressing alumni, and allow needed curricular expansion. But Kirkland’s advisors and administrators wanted innovation. Its openness, inclusiveness and curricular choices affronted many Hamiltonians. When, at last, Kirkland sought further support to undertake a necessary endowment campaign, Hamilton let the young college go under in a contentious and wasteful way. It closed in 1978.
Maybe Babbitt’s as much of a dishonest jerk as that Chace guy who was President at Wesleyan for 15 minutes and went on to scandal and shame at Emory. But, Babbitt was there, and I wasn’t. Student accounts of the end result are here: Kirkland College - Kirkland Generation Survey - Hamilton College
My take is that Hamilton didn’t want to bankroll KC anymore because times were tight, and because there were factions within the broader Hamilton stakeholder group that didn’t like or approve of Kirkland and thought it to be an inferior school. Again, from Babbitt himself:
The Hamilton Board heard from its [Hamilton’s] President that Kirkland was an inferior educational institution—–essentially a flash in the pan, which had a brief vogue in the ‘60’s, but which could no longer attract students which would seriously compromise Hamilton’s academic reputation if allowed to continue.
So, I don’t think @circuitrider is misinformed; I think he’s right. Whatever is left of Kirkland College is mostly in the buildings ironically defining “the dark side” of campus. Maybe something else crept over into Hamilton’s DNA, but it was hardly a merger of “interesting equals.” That’s a seriously optimistic stretch.
In any event, none of this should surprise anybody. Wesleyan has the distinction of having gone full-in with co-ed and then changing its mind, which helped inspire the founding of Conn. Most schools have some explaining to do for the past. Best to be up front about it rather than lip-sticking the pig.
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Both of my kids, and I, felt that Hamilton was a little more traditional and buttoned down as compared to a school like Vassar, where we also spent a good amount of time.
They’re both fine schools, but they mark two of the schools in our travels that felt rather different. The Greek piece seems to be all over the place in terms of perceptions. As evidenced by this thread, there are those who say you don’t feel it. There are just as many who say you do.
We didn’t spend enough time to take that one in because, for mine, it wouldn’t have mattered much. In fact, one of my Ds would have likely participated in Greek life (the other decidedly not). Location was the primary concern, and one of them didn’t like the coach recruiting her.
Both very pretty schools.
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