Vassar College in the city of Poughkeepsie, New York is a small liberal arts college in the heart of the Hudson Valley with the resources of a small city and only two hours north of New York City by train. It’s a college that is the best of every world. You have a small liberal arts school with a tightknit community, the arts and culture resources of a city, and the ability to hop on a train nearly any hour of any day to get to a concert, event, or museum in NYC. There are 50 majors to choose from, including the option to “design your own” major. The school collects about 2400 students in “a diverse community of scholars, artists, writers, scientists, musicians, and thinkers.” There is an 8:1 student-to-faculty ratio on a stunningly beautiful 1,000-acre campus. The Open Curriculum encourages creativity, and attracts students from around the world.
Vassar receives 12,145 applications each year, and there is a 17.7% acceptance rate overall. If you’re a male-identifying applicant, you should know — though — that you have a better chance. Two-thirds of applicants are women, so the acceptance rate for men is actually higher than for women by nearly 4%. Once you’re on campus, there are students from 41 states and 56 countries.
Getting into Vassar takes impressive academics and a passion for learning, but you need to show what you care about, inside the classroom and outside the classroom. So, your transcript isn’t enough, and neither are the clubs and teams offered by your school. You need to think bigger, and push further to catch their attention, following your passions as far as you can. In this post, we’ll break down how you should be spending your summers if you want to get into Vassar.
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What does Vassar want to see from your summer?
Vassar is a college “fueled by an abundant energy, a creative force, a curious spirit.” That’s what they want to see in how you spend your time. They want you to lead with passion, act with enthusiasm, and see things through. They want you to take calculated risks that push you to try new things. We break this strategy down to four simple steps anyone can follow.
Emphasize Your Interests
Whatever you spend your summer doing, it needs to emphasize what you care about. If we look at who gets into Vassar, it helps us understand what kind of activities and interests they value most. In the class of 2027, 26% of accepted students play an instrument, 21% captained a varsity sport, 12% were leaders in student government, and 45% had a job. 22% participated in drama productions, and accepted students did Bolshoi and Joffrey summer ballet intensives, fostered dogs, taught windsurfing, and founded school clubs.
Instead of looking at this as a prescriptive list (‘because they did this, I should to’), think of these as big categories. Nearly 50% of accepted students were heavily involved in the arts (music, theater, fine art), and one-third of accepted students acted as leaders in their community. Nearly half also worked, either in a job directly connected to their interests, or in positions that may more loosely relate to what they are passionate about.
What does this all connect to? — emphasizing your interests. Leaning into what you care about, and pursuing it in ways that you can highlight on your application as emblematic of who you are. Vassar likes students with a global perspective, but they aren’t really into travel for travels sake when it comes to your college apps. That’s all well and good for your fun times (see “have fun” below), but going to Bali doesn’t help them see you. What you want, what you care about, what you are driving towards.
So, no, you shouldn’t be writing essays about travel if you want to get into Vassar. But you should be writing essays about pursuing what you care about, especially in the arts, in leadership, and through work. So, spend your summer giving yourself something to write about.
Augment Your Academics
Vassar expects applicants to have excelled in school. If you’ve struggled in a particular academic area, especially one connected to what you want to study in college, you need to use some of your summer repairing your transcript a little — quite literally, if at all possible. Talk to your academic advisor about if it would be possible for you to take a course in the summer through a university, camp, or other program, that could replace the low grade on your transcript.
Spending some of your summer on academics can also be helpful if you have a deep passion that your school can’t fully satiate through the courses they offer. Pursuing a language immersion program, engineering intensive, or summer arts camp would serve to underline your existing passion, and show how committed you are to it.
Have Fun
Not everything has to be summer jobs or extra academic courses, though. You can — and should! — have fun. It’s the summer, and Vassar doesn’t love students who don’t know how to enjoy themselves. Of course, what is fun is intensely personal. What is drudgery to one may be absolutely thrilling to another, so it’s more about how you talk about these experiences, and the enthusiasm with which you relay them, than it is about subscribing to a particular definition of ‘fun’. Do what lights your fire, then share that with Vassar through your application.
But Not Too Much
But don’t light literal fires unless they are controlled campfires in permitted settings. Students who get into trouble during the summer face massive hurdles when it comes to applying to top colleges. The worst thing you can have to deal with on a college application is explaining bad things, whether it’s low grades or problematic behavior. Everyone faces challenges and tough circumstances, and sometimes you can’t help that you found chemistry difficult — but you can stay out of more serious trouble. So, act smart.
Vassar looks for students who are like them, and “we are people who live out loud.” They want to see who you are in how you choose to live your life, and the summer is the best chunk of time, the biggest chunk that is in your control each year, to show them how you live life to the fullest, pursuing what you care about to the ends of the earth (sometimes literally).
If your excited to use your summers to help you get into college, but don’t know precisely how to make it happen, email us. We craft acceptance-winning strategies for top students.