Vassar College Top Questions

These stereotypes are not completely true. Yes,there is a hipster population but there is a huge and sizeable sports team population, drama geek population, Econ nerd population.. honestly it's a socially diverse campus. You don't have to smoke pot to fit you. You, however, probably do have to drink. But everyone from all social groups play beer pong with one another. You usually have a lot of Dorm Pride and foster a lot of connections with people you live with.

Yes and no. There are truths and falsehoods to all stereotypes. Yes, there are many suburbanites trying to escape their money and yes, those who'd like to hit you over the head with their own intellect, but that isn't all of the Vassar community. On a side note, there really are not that many hippies here anymore...hipsters, yes. Hippies, not so much.

To an extent yes.

The truth is that there are a wide array of students at Vassar, and while we do share some characteristics that connect us together, such as high academic achievement, the above stereotypes do not fit all of the students. One of the reasons our school is known for its homosextual population is because students feel comfortable being who they are at Vassar, and are open about their feelings, beliefs and sexuality. In the same context, some describe Vassar students as tree hugging hippies because of the school's overall environmental consciousness. Not only do we have a campus wide recycling program, but also a composting system. Additionally, the school strives to purchase local foods and be as sustainable as possible. Vassar makes it very easy for students to be enviromentally aware and responsible.

-yes, although we are sadly starting to attract a more mainstream applicant pool

Fairly

Not really. I've found that the majority of Vassar students do not dress like hipsters or hippies or anything and most of them are actually pretty ignorant about current events and etc. The drug thing is true though- drugs are big here.

YES.

No: there is a large gay community, mostly because Vassar is such an accepting environment. The ratio of guys to girls is getting very close to 50/50. A lot of people smoke hookah on the quad when it's pretty outside, and yes, people wear a lot of crazy clothes, but its no different from other liberal arts schools I've vistied

Sort of. Vassar students are typically very privileged and very 'hipster,' but the vast majority of them are very interesting, friendly people. Any race/class biases usually result from pure ignorance, almost never malice. As for the college, it is very segregated from the community, but luckily that has been prioritized for change by the students and administration in the past few years. And yes, Vassar is very liberal when it comes to drugs.