<p>^^FWIW, its my understanding that Wesleyan’s endowment was on par with AWS a few decades ago -as was its reputation/rankings/prestige. Over that last twenty+ years, all have lagged. There is probably some correlation.</p>
<p>^^Well, that’s off topic, but, since you brought it up, it does illustrate the very phenomenon some of us have been trying to explain. I was at Wesleyan “several decades ago” and here’s some useful comparisons:</p>
<h1>of Applications: 1973: 1900 ; 2013: 11000</h1>
<p>Selectivity: 1973: 32% ; 2013: 19%
%Students Outside Northeast: 1973: 30% 2014: 50%</p>
<p>In other words Wesleyan’s prestige has actually been out of all proportion to the direction of its endowment over the last several decades. Oh, but, you’re probably talking about the USNews poll.</p>
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<p>Thank you @BrownParent. In other news, I just returned from Swarthmore and I am not struggling to choose between Brown and Vassar. Seeing swat made me appreciate all the diversity and the larger size of Brown. </p>
<p>Interesting. My daughter was turned off by ADOCH at Brown; despite being chock full of events and parties, she found it rather cliquey and intimidating socially. But she is on the quiet side and had an apathetic host student, so I would take that with a grain of salt. I wonder how that compares to your experience there. Perhaps a visit to Vassar is in order for you? </p>
<p>@spayurpets While I’m a little more on the outgoing side, I do have some introverted tendencies and I felt that at Brown, there was just too much going on and it wasn’t me. I also just wasn’t a fan of the campus. I’ve been to Vassar twice, actually, and Both times I didn’t want to leave. I loved the students, faculty, and of course the campus. My second visit was on admitted students day, and I had a great time and couldn’t find a single thing I didn’t like. However, that was before I visited Swat and Brown so I wasn’t sure yet how the rest would make me feel. Thanks so much for your comment! :)</p>
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<p>AquarianExpo, did you mean, “<em>now</em>struggling”?</p>
<p>Yes, I did. I believe that was the work of autocorrect. </p>
<p>^^He sure gets around!</p>
<p>FWIW, my D has always had Brown as her top choice and the visit to Brown went so badly she has now brought back a couple of other schools back into consideration, including Harvard, and now there’s only a week to decide. I hesitate to have you draw any conclusions from this, AquarianExpo, because my D sounds very different from you; you seem to be drawn toward things like the open curriculum which are not that appealing to her. It sounds to me like Brown is still the right school for you, but only you know what your field of study and what you want to get out of college. </p>
<p>^^How would you compare your daughter’s visits to Brown, Swarthmore and/or Vassar…and Harvard? She is fortunate to have lots of choices.</p>
<p>The Brown visit or the Viasco, as I call it, was probably unique to my D so I would hesitate to draw too many conclusions from it. The student host was a disaster (aloof and even hostile) and my D was abandoned to make her own way during the visit (The host didn’t even have a single meal with her). My D is also at a high school where there are a lot of quirky and non-academic students who seem to draw an inordinate amount of attention to themselves, and she felt like there were a lot of those types among the Brown admitted students. My D visited Vassar and Swarthmore more than a year ago but didn’t apply to either. Swarthmore was too small and seemed like an academic hothouse, which is both good and bad. Vassar wasn’t appealing because of the size, gender split and also because of Poughkeepsie. Vassar was also not as strong in the sciences, so for my D, it wasn’t the right fit, and she limited the LACs on her list to Smith, Wesleyan and Amherst, which were all better in the sciences. And for family reasons, my D wanted to be in New England, so that was also a factor. My D visited Harvard several times, only once formally, and was turned off by the elitism and competitiveness of the students (we’re the smartest guys in the room attitude); it was both intimidating and unwelcoming. Also, the Harvard campus is very spread out and large, and she felt it had a lack of cohesion to the student body. But she’s suddenly had a change of heart after seeing the Brown incoming class, and realising that maybe she does want to learn in that rarified, competitive atmosphere in Cambridge. I should note that my D is waitlisted to Harvard so it’s quite a longshot, but she’s redoubled her efforts to get in. Brown is a still her probable destination. </p>
<p>@spayurpets That’s very interesting that she found the incoming students at Brown to be non-academic. Do you know what made her think that? </p>
<p>@AquarianExpo, I don’t think she was generalizing about the whole group and maybe I shouldn’t have used the term “non-academic”; she was just saying that there was a noticeably larger cohort of students who seemed to be in artistic fields of study.</p>
<p>I think I noticed that as well. Anyway, after discussing it with just about everyone I know, I am committing to Vassar 
their financial aid is outstanding and I can’t find a single flaw. Thank you all for contributing, and if any current juniors have any questions about any of these three schools in terms of my experiences visiting and deciding, feel free to pm me as that has consumed my life for quite a while! Thanks again everyone–I really appreciate your weighing in on this important decision. </p>