Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCUM parents are kind of the worst.

Why? Because their kids don't go to Vassar!! Interesting

Because they demean kids not going to vassar. Why? Williams is hardly full of finance bros. Get real. (Also - who cares)

Anonymous wrote:DCUM parents are kind of the worst.

Why? Because their kids don't go to Vassar!! Interesting

Va Tech !!

Vassar is only 1 hr 30 minutes from midtown NYC.

I don’t think the actual education quality is very different, but Williams is more famous, has a higher rank, and enjoys a larger endowment.

My husband and I went to Williams. My cousin my age and her husband went to Vassar. (Surprisingly we both met and started dating our spouses our freshman year of college.)

Neither my husband nor I were serious athletes (I played a JV sport fall of freshman and sophomore years and he played on the ultimate team) and neither of us ended up in banking either. He’s a PhD scientist and I’m a federal analyst. My cousin is a policy researcher for a foundation and her husband is an attorney.

Although Williams is 3 hrs to Boston and 3 hours to NYC, the only people I knew who seemed unhappy were those who left to go to one of those cities most weekends. I get the sense that Vassar is a lot less rural (I haven’t visited). I went to see a play in NYC once while I was in college for a class but otherwise it wasn’t a trip my friends and I were making.

As a senior in high school I spent a night here applying and was assigned to room with freshman from LA. She said she hated athletic events, went to one party and didn’t go to any others because they served alcohol and that made her uncomfortable, and had hoped to go to Columbia because she preferred cities but that Williams gave her better financial aid. I asked if she was considering transferring. She looked at me, baffled, and said “Are you kidding? The classes are amazing - the professors are all so accessible - and the students are so motivated and interesting.” Her pitch was a big factor in me applying early (and she did stay and graduate from Williams).

DCUM parents are kind of the worst.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current Vassar parent here. Though Vassar has a long tradition of strength in the arts and humanities, the most popular majors these days are in STEM. See p. 10 of the Factbook linked below

https://offices.vassar.edu/institutional-research/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2023/04/Fact-Book-2023-24-1.pdf

There is no shortage of non-artsy kids on campus.

If your kid is interested in finance or management consulting, I suspect Williams has much better placements in that world. But Williams is a much tougher admit than Vassar.

If your kid is international (you mention you are not from the U.S.), my kid's many international friends at Vassar indicate that Vassar puts a lot of effort and resources into helping international students integrate into the campus community.

This. If you want your son to be a boring corporate drone with a skinny wife with long straight blond hair, no ass, and an expression like she just smelled a dead fish, send him to Williams. If you want your son to be interesting, send him to Vassar.

Well, this made me laugh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Current Vassar parent here. Though Vassar has a long tradition of strength in the arts and humanities, the most popular majors these days are in STEM. See p. 10 of the Factbook linked below

https://offices.vassar.edu/institutional-research/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2023/04/Fact-Book-2023-24-1.pdf

There is no shortage of non-artsy kids on campus.

If your kid is interested in finance or management consulting, I suspect Williams has much better placements in that world. But Williams is a much tougher admit than Vassar.

If your kid is international (you mention you are not from the U.S.), my kid's many international friends at Vassar indicate that Vassar puts a lot of effort and resources into helping international students integrate into the campus community.

This. If you want your son to be a boring corporate drone with a skinny wife with long straight blond hair, no ass, and an expression like she just smelled a dead fish, send him to Williams. If you want your son to be interesting, send him to Vassar.

You sound like fun. So welcoming! So inclusive!

Anonymous wrote:Current Vassar parent here. Though Vassar has a long tradition of strength in the arts and humanities, the most popular majors these days are in STEM. See p. 10 of the Factbook linked below

https://offices.vassar.edu/institutional-research/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2023/04/Fact-Book-2023-24-1.pdf

There is no shortage of non-artsy kids on campus.

If your kid is interested in finance or management consulting, I suspect Williams has much better placements in that world. But Williams is a much tougher admit than Vassar.

If your kid is international (you mention you are not from the U.S.), my kid's many international friends at Vassar indicate that Vassar puts a lot of effort and resources into helping international students integrate into the campus community.

This. If you want your son to be a boring corporate drone with a skinny wife with long straight blond hair, no ass, and an expression like she just smelled a dead fish, send him to Williams. If you want your son to be interesting, send him to Vassar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It makes a difference to have proximity to NYC though, even if students don't go into the city often. Especially for the arts, it's much easier to bring in speakers, visiting professors, lecturers who are NYC based.

I mean, Williams is as close to Boston

Nobody is choosing either bcs of access to city. Loads of other schools do that.

You can zip down to NYC on MetroNorth. There’s no similar way to get to Boston. Western Mass doesn’t have that sort of infrastructure. It’s beautiful, no doubt. But so isolated.

Current Vassar parent here. Though Vassar has a long tradition of strength in the arts and humanities, the most popular majors these days are in STEM. See p. 10 of the Factbook linked below

https://offices.vassar.edu/institutional-research/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2023/04/Fact-Book-2023-24-1.pdf

There is no shortage of non-artsy kids on campus.

If your kid is interested in finance or management consulting, I suspect Williams has much better placements in that world. But Williams is a much tougher admit than Vassar.

If your kid is international (you mention you are not from the U.S.), my kid's many international friends at Vassar indicate that Vassar puts a lot of effort and resources into helping international students integrate into the campus community.

My daughter is at Williams - and would have also been thrilled to attend Vassar. Both are amazing schools. The athlete/bro stereotype at Williams *is* kind of true, but if you are an artsy kid at Williams (fine, performing, etc), that is the other very large, robust community there. We love Williams, but it is not right for our younger kid because he would probably not play varsity sports or engage heavily in the arts. For the right kid, Williams is the best place they could imagine, but I can tell you I think my child would have been so happy at Vassar.

Anonymous wrote:My cerebral, anti-sports, no-interest-in-finance son would 100% prefer Vassar over Williams. Asking about the "better" school when we don't know anything about your child is impossible to answer.

there are more straight non-sports guys at Williams than Vassar.

not sure about "anti-sports" - that sounds pretty extreme

I went. Assad and we used to go onto the city easily on metro north. I went to visit my friends at Columbia and Barnard. It definitely has much more of a city/artsy/hollywood feel than Williams. Art History and English are amazing. There is a huge network of writers and tv execs because of generations of people who have gone into publishing, television, documentaries, the arts, etc. it’s a very hard academic school. No one is giving away grades there at all. It’s not as preppy as Williams. Prob more straight guys at Williams.