Was looking at the athletic rosters for Vassar. They put up a little bio of each kid. I actually like when schools do the bio as not all schools do. But what I found a little off-putting about the Vassar bio’s, was that for many of the kids they would write something to the effect “Chose Vassar over Wesleyan, Haverford and Wellesley” “Chose Vassar over Colgate and Hamilton” “Was recruited by Bowdoin, but applied to Vassar ED” Struck me as a little obnoxious, a little too much bragging - as if they had something to prove. What do others think? The most common school mentioned was Wesleyan btw. I saw that one over and over again.
My first reaction is, “from hunger.” Nothing else interesting about the kid? (Or they think they need to brag where else the kids got in, to convince us Vassar is good?)
Poor Wes.
I agree. To me it would seem like a top school should not need to put down other top schools.
Does seem a little too much. Press releases/announcements of incoming recruiting classes generally include a player quote about why they chose that school, and is usually something about the team culture, tradition, blah blah. Not about why they chose it over other, specific options. When my kid was going through recruiting, I did appreciate the schools that included info on the player’s high school athletic achievements and major, as it gave us a sense of the level of recruit they bring in and whether athletes were doing double majors, pre-med etc.
My sense has been that Vassar is specifically focused on improving the success and visibility of its Men’s teams. During recruiting communications with Vassar, it was apparent that Vassar would was go deeper into the academic pool (ie. lower test scores) for athletes they wanted than some other peer schools.
These bios seem one more way that Vassar is marketing its Men’s teams to prospects.
@Midwestmomofboys fwiw- I saw the mention of schools turned down on both male and female rosters. And for some kids where they didn’t list other schools, they included a blurb about why the kid chose Vassar, which imo is more appropriate than listing other schools.
Then there’s the question of verifiableness. Prove it.
It is obnoxious. Period. It reads defensive chip on shoulder school
I never used to think of Vassar as a “sports” school, but Vassar has been increasingly strong in my kid’s sport over the past five years.
The roster info seems like part of a concerted communications strategy to change perceptions.
Northwestern did the same thing with it’s wrestling press release about new recruits, not sure if it is in the website bio’s or not.
I found it a bit weird and off putting. It’s not a deal breaker, just struck me as odd.
^^ I’ve seen newspapers run articles where they list the other schools the athlete was accepted at, but hadn’t seen colleges do so
It is really not that uncommon in sports bios. Lots of schools do it, at all levels, and honestly I never thought anything of it. But yeah I guess it is kinda weird
I’ve seen it on a coach’s bio (for a club), how she was recruited to School X, but then couldn’t play for medical reasons so transferred and was on the club team at School Y, and I have to say I found it odd. It was as if she was making excuses for how good she could have been and was really a bulky read and didn’t really give me any information about her as a coach.
I’ve seen it, but never cared for it. I guess it is supposed to mean that since Johnny preferred Notre Dame to Stanford, it’s a better program and you should prefer it too.
Of course this is nonsensical. Why an individual person prefers one program over the other involves countless variables, including how close the school is to home, merit or needs based assistance, whether the person really was being recruited to the other program, whether a school offers a particular major, and the list goes on.
To me, it always meant that the school had a chip on its shoulder, such as “believe me, Vassar is every bit as good as Colgate.” I am going out on a limb, but I’ll bet you will never see something like “Sally preferred Vassar over Center County Community College, where she was actively recruited.”
It’s rude. It’s disrespectful.
It also reads as kind of needy-- I SWEAR I’m really good, see who else wanted me?
Would it help to wonder what particular sport, athletic program or facility at Vassar is superior to what is found at
D1 Colgate?
Probably not.
Go 'gate!
TACKY !!!
I’ve seen this a lot more with non-athletes. High schools that list all the acceptances or scholarships.
If a student is accepted EA/ED to Stanford and that’s his only acceptance, should he be embarrassed that another in the class was accepted to 20 schools? If an athlete ED’s to a school, is he ‘entitled’ to list the schools where he did an OV and ‘was sure to get an offer?’
I think it sounds desperate as well and it makes me want to rewrite all the “why they came here” entries.
“Chose Vassar over Colgate and Northwestern to be closer to NYU boyfriend who broke up with me over freshman Thanksgiving.”
“The coin flip landed on tails. Oberlin lost.”
“Because my idiot parents won’t let me go more than 30 miles from home.”
“Didn’t get into Brown or Wesleyan.”
“Because my grandmother is paying my tuition. She wouldn’t pay for Brandeis because, well let’s not go there.”
“Because it was ranked higher than Grinnell by USNews.”
“The Bowdoin coach told me I’d ride the bench.”
“I want large gay dating pool.”
“Because I want to go to medical school and I think I’d get better grades at Vassar than Yale.”
(I think Vassar’s a great school and I’m a legacy there. I just don’t like the “Look who we beat out!” smugness of the bios.)
Is it clear who wrote the bios? if it was the kid, most likely it was when first making the choice, in which case they are still on the senior high. If it was the school you would expect them to have a similar format for all of them.
They do seem to have the same format. I interpret the absence of rival school names as meaning the student either didn’t have other acceptances in the RD round or, more likely because they’re athletes, applied to Vassar ED. My guess is that they had the kids fill in a worksheet (parents, siblings, major, other acceptances, why Vassar).