<p>Which one do you think has a better student community/professors/athletics/academics/overall campus feel?</p>
<p>Any details will be appreciated!</p>
<p>Both are excellent. It's a matter of personal preference.</p>
<p>wellesley, i think. i looked into vassar for a while, but when i visited it seemed like the campus wasn't very nice and the buildings weren't maintained as well. also, a lot of vassar students only go there because it was their 2nd choice and they didn't get into their first choice. and keep in mind that vassar is coed, and wellesley is all women!</p>
<p>How do you think both compare to each other?
These are my top two choices but I'm really want to choose one to apply ED. I'm having trouble deciding so I need some help! :)
thanks rhov and mythmom for responding.</p>
<p>phiststicks: Have you been to visit? If you don't have a clear choice perhaps you shouldn't apply ED?</p>
<p>Wellesley is near Boston so you have access to a city. Wellesley is a women's college. </p>
<p>Vassar is an hour and a half from Manhattan. Not impossible, but expensive. Vassar is coed.</p>
<p>I think the student bodies, well the female ones at Vassar anyway, are fairly similar. This is just a stereotype, but in general Wellesley is looked at as more career oriented, Vassar artier. Not true across the board, but that would be the best way to separate them beyond the gender make-up of the schools.</p>
<p>Both my children applied to Vassar. One ended up at Barnard, the other Williams. Neither applied to Wellesley, but since one is a boy, not such an important anecdote.</p>
<p>I don't mean to suggest that Wellesley isn't a wonderful school. It is.</p>
<p>I would be careful basing your choice on generalizations and stereotypes offered by other students and board contributors. I think everyone will have a very personal reaction to each campus, and I think your impression of a college may change simply because of the skill and enthusiasm (or lack thereof) of the upperclassman leading your campus tour! One obvious area to consider is the curriculum. My daugher is a sophomore at Vassar this year (she was admitted ed1 last year; Vassar was definitely not her "second choice"). We visited Wellesley and a large number of other Massachusetts colleges on various road trips. We loved the student center at Wellesley (and that juice bar!), but the absence of much of a dance program at Wellesley (surprising for a women's college) was not attractive to her. She is not a dance major, but wanted a college that had a dance program.</p>
<p>I think she preferred a co-ed college, but was seriously considering applying to Mount Holyoke before her ed1 admission to Vassar made it unnecessary. I'm not sure how she came up with her list of colleges to apply to, and why Vassar became her first choice, but it was very helpful to visit each campus and see what was going on. I was impressed with Smith and the activity we saw on campus, but she never added Smith to her list. It's obviously a personal thing.</p>
<p>Hope this helps, and good luck!</p>
<p>I have the distinction of having attended both schools (one as an exchange student), so can give you an inside look from both perspectives. There is no comparison between a coed school (Vassar) and a all-women school (Wellesley). Vassar has a self-contained, healthy (relatively speaking) social environment. Wellesley becomes a ghost town on weekends (everyone in Boston or Cambridge), and there is nothing happening during weekday nights. Academically, both are great schools with excellent teachers -- but the students at Wellesley are less likely to engage in classroom discussions, or challenge their instructors (but more likely to study harder outside of class). Wellesley is beautiful, but so is Vassar (totally disagree with the poster who bashed the condition of the buildings at Vassar -- older dorms are tired looking, but are in the process of a dorm-by-dorm rehab, and with a few notable exceptions, the academic buildings are in great shape, with lots of new and state-of-the-art facilities). Vassar is in Poughkeepsie, Wellesley is in metro Boston -- stated that way, one might think the advantage goes to Wellesley, but it all depends. Because it does not have a local urban "draw," Vassar has to work harder to make campus life interesting and self-sufficient, and it shows. There are some departments at Vassar that are better than their corresponding departments at Wellesley, and vice - versa. You will have to check that out on your own. Overall, I don't think a person who would be happy at Vassar would be happy at Wellesley, and the converse holds, as well, so this is a choice you are really going to have to sort out. Good luck!</p>
<p>In response to mythmom: Due to financial circumstances, college visits, unfortunately, are not an option.</p>
<p>I know that it's not a very good thing to apply to a college ED if I haven't visited it. But, in my defense, I have read everything there is about Vassar and I've spoken to several current students. It's hard to explain it (and really weird!) but the [virtual] vibe I get from Vassar (I don't get the same vibe from any other college) is of somewhere where I'd truly like to be for the next four years of my life, even if I've never visited. Vassar has been my number one for months now up until two weeks ago when a teacher of mine brought up the idea of applying to Wellesley. I don't mind that it's an all-women college and I love the opportunities it offers, especially in the field I want to study. But, I've been doubting the overall feel of the students. I've heard horror stories about academic competition from a Wellesley student herself. Today Wellesley held an online chat and whenever I asked a question about how intense academic competition is I was ignored.
I'm really looking for a more laid-back kind of a place. As mawmer wrote, "Overall, I don't think a person who would be happy at Vassar would be happy at Wellesley..." I think you're completely right! No matter the opportunities and prestige Wellesley offers, it's really not the right place for me. I don't know what I was thinking.</p>
<p>Thanks to those who replied. :)</p>
<p>We'll see where life leads.</p>
<p>Phishsticks, when my DD and I visited Wellesley, I asked a random student we met on campus about the competition among students. She said it depended on what your major was. If it was government/international relations, etc, it was more competitive; if it was humanities, it wasn't. She was a business major and had seen the distinction in some of her classes. We also know a young woman at our church who just graduated a year ago who adored her experience there, who found it extremely supportive from both students and profs, etc. I believe she was a Medieval and Renaissance Studies major. So it all depends!</p>