<p>How would you differentiate these two? Is the workload at Wesleyan greater? Are the students more outgoing? What is the difference (if any) between a Wesleyan student and a Vassar student? How would one guage these two schools as to fit? Any comparisons and contrasts would be helpful.</p>
<p>The location is very different. Vassar is in the middle of nowhere!
I think the student body at wesleyan is much more diverse if that's something you want.</p>
<p>Wesleyan and vassar are some of my top choices as well! Both colleges have a lot of diversity but wesleyan has a average SAT score 40 points lower than vassar (1340 vs. 1300) Anyway, yeah they are both very liberal and cool. I'm going to visit both over the summer (along with trinity so i'll write more about it.</p>
<p>Where did you get the SAT score being 40 pts lower info from?
I'm pretty sure the median for wesleyan is a 1430.</p>
<p>Hi,
Check out the page below .... For info you're looking for:</p>
<p>in today's argus, there's an article that pertains:</p>
<p>the interesting part is that vassar is very heavily female even after going coed many years ago, and anecdotally, i have heard from friends that straight men are particularly scarce. wes is much more balanced gender-wise, although the demographics of the college-bound population in general stipulate that there will be a few more women than men. the point is that wes is trying to keep things even, vassar isn't.</p>
<p>how you feel about this issue might have a whole lot to do with your gender, but i just thought i'd throw it out there.</p>
<p>the old cliche is that brown rejects end up at wesleyan, and wesleyan rejects go to vassar. there's a little bit of truth to that.</p>
<p>Class of 2009:</p>
<p>Wesleyan:</p>
<p>The link to the Wesleyan site shows a 1430 median SAT (720V, 710M) for accepted students. For those who actually enroll, the median is 1400 (700V, 700M). </p>
<p>The College Board site gives the middle 50% SAT range for enrolled students:</p>
<p>V 650-750
M 650-740</p>
<p>1300-1490</p>
<p>Vassar</p>
<p>The middle 50% range for enrolled students:</p>
<p>V 680-730
M 660-720</p>
<p>1340-1450</p>
<p>The median for entrolled students:</p>
<p>700V
690M</p>
<p>1390</p>
<p>See:</p>
<hr>
<ol>
<li><p>So, the numbers tscogrady cited are the 25% figures for the Vassar and Wesleyan 2009 Classes (enrolled) -- not the median (50%) figures.</p></li>
<li><p>The Vassar 25% number (1340) is rather high: Williams was 1330; Amherst and Swat was 1350. But the Vassar range is very compressed, with 1450 as the 75% number. (Williams: 1520, Swat:1530, Amherst: 1560.)
Data on AWS from College Board for enrolled class 2009.</p></li>
<li><p>As a general matter when looking at this stuff, you have to keep distinct accepted student data and enrolled. The Common Data sets give enrolled student data and that is what gets picked up by US News, Princeton Review, College Board etc.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>...oops, hit the submit key too soon. Too finish:</p>
<ol>
<li> But when looking at early information for, say, the Class of 2010, you will be getting information for accepted students -- as enrolled decisions haven't been made yet. (ED is different.)</li>
</ol>
<p>The 50% range for students accepted to Vassar for Class of 2010 ia 1350 to 1480. <a href="http://admissions.vassar.edu/about_admitstats.html%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.vassar.edu/about_admitstats.html</a>. That will inevitably go down -- most particularly on the high end, as the kids with the higher scores will likely have options at other schools they may prefer.</p>
<p>If you visit over the summer when no students are around, Vassar will win. It has a more enclosed park-like campus. If you visit now or in the Fall, things are on a more level playing field as the students at both colleges are lively and intelligent. I just think Wes has the more interesting ambience.</p>
<p>You have all pointed to Wesleyan's vigor and energy --but alternatively, I am wondering if Vassar might be somewhat of a gentler ride. Is Vassar a drop less rigorous? Can you get through Vassar with less work? Is Vassar a gentler place --in terms of student personality and the actual academics-- for the student who could benefit from that?</p>
<p>I realize this is the opposite question usually asked on this board, where people seek more and more. I am wondering if Vassar is a bit "less" in a way that might be gentler or kinder for some kids who would do better in an atmosphere a little lower-key? </p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I don't think so.
Neither of the schools are going to be easy, and both foster a gentle/personable learning environment.
You can get through anywhere with less work, you might just not do as well.</p>
<p>When prefrosh ask me to describe Wesleyan's student body, the first word I use is laidback. Yes, they are also passionate and intellectual, somehow - but they tend not to overstress about work and get overcompetitive, and they tend to be chill about most things (even politics, perhaps surprisingly, rather than militant). I don't know how it compares to Vassar, however. :)</p>
<p>Agreed.
Mad, I'll see you this fall. I send in my deposit today :-)</p>
<p>I'm a Vassar student. When I visited a friend at Wesleyan a few months ago, I was in awe at how similar the student body was. If you're going by the numbers, admissions standards between the two schools are not as different as many people on this board make them out to be. There are plenty of straight guys on campus. The existence of one all-girls dormitory renders life in the other dorms very evenly coed.</p>
<p>Well --aside from the geographic layout and possibly a preference for science (Wes), why would you choose one over another?</p>
<p>There is a certain rhythm to the life-cycle of a university, it has peaks and valleys just like any corporation -- or, natural person, for that matter. Vassar's high water mark may have been in the 1940s and 50s when Jacqueline Bouvier (later Kennedy) attended there and Mary McCarthy penned her acid limned novel, "The Group", clearly with Vassar in mind. </p>
<p>Wesleyan's may well be now. With half the endowment of its nearest rivals, Swarthmore and Williams, Wesleyan is widely recognized as perhaps the nation's premier progressive college. It has managed to produce three Academy Award nominated screenwriters, an NFL coach, the CEO of Sun Microsystems, and the host of public television's premier current affairs program ("Now")-- all within the last twenty-five years. Some, myself included, believe this may well be a product of Wesleyan's expansion following its decision to co-educate in the early 1970s (the other Little Three colleges, Amherst and Williams chose to cut back slightly on the number of male students in order to accomodate the influx of females.) </p>
<p>Wesleyan's combination of hot-house science research being conducted cheek-by-jowl with innovative programs in the performing arts has led to an intellectual synergy that is perhaps unique in the nation.</p>
<p>John Wesley --I do not refute anything you say about Wesleyan but regarding Vassar, I find it hard to believe that I should consider the 1940s environment as having high relevance in forming an opinion today. I think institutions live in the present and that current context is most important. BTW, Noah Baumbach wrote the Squid and the Whale while at Vassar working with his professors there. That was just recently --I cannot imagine giving a hoot what Jackie O did back when. I am sure what you say about Wesleyan is true --but am not so sure your characterization of Vassar comes from the same in-depth insider frame of reference. </p>
<p>I do not doubt that Wesleyan is more of a hothouse --and that was precisely my question. One person's hothouse can be another person's pressure cooker.</p>
<p>I admit I don't follow Vassar events quite as closely as I do Wesleyan's. But, you see, that is part of the problem: when I think of Vassar (post-Jacqueline Kennedy) all I can think of, is a nice college that reminds me a lot of Wesleyan.
:)</p>
<p>Haha, let's hope wes is as awesome as you say, or i'll be in debt for a long time. Ack!</p>
<p>What about Geraldine Layborne, the CEO of Oxygen Media, Lisa Kudrow and Meryl Streep? I don't think Wesleyan is doing anything that Vassar isn't. To say that Vassar reached its peak 60 years ago, or to say that Vassar lies at the bottom of a continuum underneath Wesleyan and Brown is, quite frankly, a little bit offensive, and more than a little bit untrue. </p>
<p>Wesleyan may well be very different as far as the whole "hothouse" topic is concerned, but I'll tell you a little about Vassar. I do not believe students regard the institution as a "hothouse," but more as a platform from which they can reach their personal academic and extracurricular goals. I know many students here involved in numerous extracurriculars and varsity sports, who still manage to maintain a high GPA with five classes per semester. I also know students who would rather smoke pot and play Halo. The two hardest workers I know attend Yale and Rutgers, respectively. </p>
<p>Something, however, must answer for the fact that Wesleyan has approximately twice as many official student organizations as Vassar. I don't think this reflects the budgeting of students' time, but it does reflect their drive towards establishing themselves as motivated towards their own ends. "The Gatekeepers" discusses a meeting of Wesleyan's "C*nt Club." You must be your own guide in deciding if this fits your personality. Once all of that is said, Wesleyan is an incredible school, and although it is similar to Vassar in many regards, there are differences to be found. And these do not all lie within the 1% difference in acceptance rate.</p>