<p>How uncomfortable do you think Vassar would be with reading certain personal things in the essays? Is there anything that you think would really make them squirm? Like, squirm enough to reject you?</p>
<p>yes, I think there are some issues they would view with caution and hesitation --including such things as drug use, alcohol, suicide, and psychiatric disease. Vassar is liberal but it is, in the end, mainstream on issues like these in my opinion.</p>
<p>Damn. Those four examples seem to just about sum things up for me. We'll see how everything goes.</p>
<p>I doubt they'd mind about psychiatric diseases as long as you showed how you overcame them and aren't pinning all your problems on them but personal drug and alcohol use is stupid to mention imo. If you've ever read the book The Gatekeepers which is a book that outlines the admissions process at Wesleyan (arguably an even more liberal and laid back school) there was a girl who would have probably gotten in but the admissions committee put her on the waiting list (and ultimately rejected her) because it was put on her record that she DID smoke pot.</p>
<p>I definitely had no intention of mentioning drug and alcohol abuse (although in my case, those were kind of consequences of psychiatric illness, but still, I'm not looking to make excuses here). The psych issue was mainly what I was concerned about. I've gotten some pretty varied responses on this issue, but like I said, I'm not trying to use anything as an excuse for glaring holes in my app, there really are no specific glaring holes in my app. And I've looked through the gatekeeper, it's a pretty interesting book at times. Are there any other opinions on this? (And yeah, I guess a school having a laid-back atmosphere only applies to certain specific issues... prob doesn't count for much in terms of admissions.) Anyway, thanks.</p>
<p>the girl was waitlisted, then ACCEPTED. she ended up turning down wesleyan for a spring spot at cornell.</p>
<p>also important to note is that she admitted to ACCEPTING a pot brownie, and turned herself in for it. she did not eat it. it was very courageous of her to do the right thing.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, I haven't read it in a year, she was waitlisted, and then when she went to wesfest during 4/20 she was able to smell pot all over the place and was so angry and sickened by the whole thing that she asked them to take her file out but the admissions counselor said there wasn't much hope anyway. I thought it was implied that since she took the pot brownie, she ate it. Wasn't it that everybody took a BITE?</p>
<p>Considering the fact that Vassar's student sex association publishes a magazine titled <i>Squirm, well, I think you're kinda alright.</i></p><i>
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<p>I believe that girl ended up at Cornell -- just as well off.</p>
<p>I just read that book, she took a bite of the brownie. Also, she did go to Cornell, but she was accepted for the spring semester. After waitlisting her Wesleyan actually offered her a place in the next year's class, one year afetr the class she applied for, but she was annoyed by the hypocrisy of the weed and she just liked Cornell better.</p>