Vassar College Top Questions

Its a great school with really interesting students on a small yet beautiful campus

Vassar is one of the county's most prestigious institutions, and for good reason. Some of America's most intelligent students receive some of the best undergraduate instruction in the country. It's a small school, which means you can develop extremely close relationships with faculty and with the community. It's very easy to get involved and earn leadership positions in extracurricular life. But there's just this sense of pure love that students and alumni have for the place. That love is really hard to define. But I could not have chosen a more rigorous, launching education. Vassar is incredible.

The most important thing about Vassar is that, as we used to joke when I was there, it is a place where "square pegs in round holes" can build themselves a square - i.e., normal is not the norm.

Vassar is a wonderful place to go to college—I honestly could not be happier. There is definitely a lot of pressure and a lot of work, but it is also incredibly fun. The people are so interesting and so motivated; I never stop meeting fascinating people who have accomplished amazing things and yet are very down-to-earth. Poughkeepsie gets a bad reputation, but personally, I don't think it's so bad. Within a 5-minute walk from the campus, we have countless restaurants, barber shops, HSBC, Bank of America, an amazing bakery, clothing stores, coffee shops (Starbucks is not too far either!)... the list goes on. The Hudson Valley is an area with much history and character. Vassarions are all basically in love with their school—it's just a very happy place to be. I would describe it as a "work hard, play hard" kind of place: people are driven and devoted to their schoolwork (obviously...we all got into Vassar after all), but there is also time to relax with friends and attend literally hundreds of lectures, parties and events each week. Sports may not be as big as at state schools, but even in the past few years, athletics have really come into their own. Our Men's Soccer and Men's Basketball teams are doing especially well. The residential life system is one of the most unique and special things about Vassar. It provides the familial feel of a smaller community within the larger college. Overall, I highly recommend Vassar. It's an incredible school that can offer students so many opportunities for academic and extracurricular success. Plus it has a strong alumnae/i base, which proves helpful in the hunt for jobs and internships.

The best thing about Vassar is, hands down, its students. Everyone has a story, and if you take the time to talk to them, you'll gain a huge appreciation for the breadth of experience of the student population. There are very few people on campus who actually present justifiable reasons for dislike. The worst thing about Vassar is the Poughkeepsie. The area around campus, while "developing," is disappointing. There have been (somewhat misguided) initiatives by the administration to increase offcampus foot traffic, but there are fewer than 10 businesses around the campus that are actually worth a visit.

The best thing for me was the sense of community and the amount of academic choices. Many colleges or universities have a core curriculum, but Vassar doesn't really. The college only has 3 curriculum requirements, which are in addition to your specific major requirements. It really is a liberal arts college, in which you can take all sorts of different classes, in different disciplines and be really well rounded. For instance I took music, art history, film, sociology, and philosophy classes, while I was a psychology major. I also loved the sense of community. I have always been a liberal, but I am from a fairly republican, Christian suburb. While conflicting views and debate can help clairify your own views, it is nice to not have to defend your beliefs. Vassar was a place where I could be myself, and I was surrounded by people like me.

When you tell somebody that you go to Vassar, they will either say, "Wow! That's an amazing school! You must be really smart!" or they'll say, "Huh? Where?" Vassar is a great place if you are liberal. Everyone has the freedom to be who they want to be, and interact with people from different cultures and backgrounds. We are a very welcoming bunch, Vassarions. BUT! Careful with joining some of the clubs in the ALANA center. They take self-victimization very seriously.

Like anywhere you go, you have your BAMFs and your assholes. There's lots of pretension floating around in some circles, but most kids are just looking to make genuine friends, laugh a little, maybe smoke. There's a big drug using population but no judgment taken against the drug-free. You can find your people whoever they may be, it might take time.

People's reactions were always interesting becaues I live in Oklahoma. Some people were like "hey, well done!" and some didn't even know where or what kind of school it was. The best thing about Vassar is the community. We have a really tight knit student body, (sometimes called the Vassar bubble). I actually really like the size of the school, because it's big enough so that students don't feel confined, but small enough so that you can obtain the one on one relationship with the professors and administration.

Vassar is a self-satisfied liberal arts college that trains its students to pride themselves on being smart enough to carry on an academic conversation, and lazy enough to imply that they have other things to be doing (namely, blowing lines off of their dresser). An accurate description of Vassar can range anywhere from a rich kids' playground to a really freeing intellectual space in which to explore a wealth of ideas and experiences--it really depends on what faction of Vassar that a student associates themselves with. (Yes, I mean faction. Not clique. Faction.)