Hi, my daughter is considering Vassar, Skidmore and Conn College (as a student athlete) and is wondering what the social scene is really like … with no Greek life or ‘football tailgating’ what is a typical weekend like at these schools …? While she’s a hard worker, on and off the field, I’m pretty sure she is going to want to have some fun on the weekends too !
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I can’t tell you exactly what a weekend is like at those colleges, but I’ll make my best guess as to the general student vibe.
My D and I visited all three and I know kids at all of those schools. Vassar is the most intellectual of them, but students are arty and an eclectic mix. Skidmore had more punky types than any other college we saw (I’ve seen over thirty to date.) Plenty of creative, smart, laid-back kids. Conn College is probably a more low-key mix of all kinds of kids, probably arty, regular, sporty, preppy, etc… It was particularly friendly compared to the other two, but that’s just our experience.
I suspect all three will have plenty of fun going on at weekends. Hope that helps a little.
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Vassar>CC>that other school
The key thing - and the only crucial variable- is what does your daughter consider fun?
Is your framing of Greek + tailgating as the norm for a college social scene drawn from your experience / expectations or hers? Is that the sort of socializing that she would be naturally drawn to?
@Heading2HS, I’m not 100% sure that I understand your post, but I find it interesting that a 9th grader who attends a top prep/boarding school- the very epitome of an ‘institution of by-gone years’ - is dismissive of this set of colleges, all of which were founded to allow women access to third level education (at times when options were very limited) and all of which are respected academically…
And for form, the question is not whether you would ‘go near them’: the OP was asking if anybody in the CC community has any information that would be helpful to somebody who is being recruited by them. Do you have direct information, or anything helpful to add about the social life at these colleges?
Vassar does not have greek-style tailgating or parties.
If that is her expectation, she will hate it.
But–it does have plenty of fun things to do on the weekends. Students have parties in their dorms. But zero Greek-style parties. As the school is founded by a brewer, they are not prejudiced against drinking or other things, but if you don’t partake, you will still have fun (ice cream socials with Vassar devils and gremlins) and if you do like to use alcohol, there’s plenty of room for that as well. There are also lots of creative arts, from dances that are student choreographed, to plays that are student written, to poetry, to the official non-official absolutely non-Greek Non-fraternity party called the Mooses (or at least when I was there they were quite active), to dance parties, etc.
Also it’s close enough to NYC that students can do a day trip in to see shows or whatever.
It’s an active happy campus, but not beholding to Greek life or a rah-rah sports scene.
Thanks for this…my daughter does like to party…obviously she has great academics to balance that out too…but i think as long as she will be able to find her own fun she should be just fine…she knows there’s no Greek life or football tailgates…but I have a feeling she’ll find any parties going on ?
Painting with a very broad brush (always dangerous here on CC), Conn is probably most likely of those 3 to have what she might think of as a traditional college party scene (with alcohol) if that’s what she prefers.