I went to Penn and found it to be a supportive culture- not cut throat. From what I hear from current students- the culture remains very supportive.
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I am actually a fan of driving into the city. Mostly because the way home, if late at night, is SO much faster.
The trick is to minimize driving IN the city. I like to go in, park near wherever Iâll end my day, and make use of the subway from there.
NJTransit has gotten so pricey that it doesnât take that many people to cover the cost of parking.
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We stayed at that hotel last summer - a fun concept. The restaurant was good and very lively. We had lunch at a place called Prairie Canary in town, which I can recommend as well.
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I wonder how VPG feels about the gender ratio at VassarâŠ
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We ate at Prairie Canary last night!
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Not a conversation I plan to initiate!
But if it was me, I would be fatalistic in the sense I think either people will be interested in new options, or not. And if one or both of them are interested in new options, they will both have them regardless of where they end up.
But this is a pretty easy perspective for a parent to take. The kids may find it a little harder to see that way.
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Also my recommendation for Hamilton. But forgo the grilled cheese at that bakeryâŠ.theyre delicious, but D24 and I felt like we smelled like dirty socks for our Hamilton tour, after eating them. 
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Ha ha 
It seems like Vassar ends up with about the same gender ratio as a lot of LACs (i.e. around 60/40)âŠthey just have to work a lot harder/admit males at a higher rate to get there.
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So Class of 2027, Vassar reported 38% male, WUSTL 48%, Carleton 50%. As I understand it, you are right that Vassar is actually in line with the overall college universe these days, although I also recall that at least most of the highly ranked (private) universities and colleges were at or closer to 50%, such that Vassar being normal in the greater scheme actually stuck out in their peer group.
But if it comes up, I am going with your analysis.
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InterestingâŠso much variationâŠthe ones I had in my head were places my kids have gone to or looked at closely. Just checked and Macalester is 43% male, Emory is 43%, and UGA is 42% (which I would imagine has to do with sharing a state with Georgia Tech). So a big range of types of colleges, all with a similar (and just slightly closer to even than Vassar) split. But then Amherst is much closer to even. As is VanderbiltâŠwhich hits the limits of the ones Iâve looked at!
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Two of my sonâs options are Baylor and University of South Carolina-Columbia (Capstone Scholars). Does anyone have knowledge of these two schools? Iâm most interested in student experience, sports, academic rigor, and culture. thank you!
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Publics are also not allowed to exercise the same sort of gender discrimination as privates, so basically colleges like UGA just have to take what they get in terms of gender balance.
Donât hold me to this, but I also recall that in addition to tech colleges still being more male, Sun Belt colleges on average skew more female. The joke is usually that they are just afraid of freezing (and maybe that is not entirely a joke), but I believe there was also some complex explanation about how the population growth in those areas due to higher net migration rates, particularly among young adults, had interacted with the underlying factors behind the male to female shift in the college population.
But then Macalester is both private and Northern, so take all that for what it is worthâon an individual level these colleges can skew any sort of way for specific reasons of their own.
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We ate at Breakfast at Tiffanyâs near Hamilton. Donât let the name fool you, itâs a small cafe with great food. My son ate and then ordered food to go!
I finished my round of Financial Aid interviews. Swat was the most generous (many financial advantages not readily apparent from the FA award itself), Wes was really good,* Bowdoin was okay (they donât consider other schoolâs FA packages), and Dartmouth was the most meh. Dartmouth apparently matches FA awards from other Ivies, but it doesnât seem like they do so for other schools like Swat. I mentioned that Dartmouth was the only school whose FA package was substantially worse than the NPC estimate (30% higher), but I was told that doesnât really affect the appeal process. Anyhow, Iâll plead my case in an appeal and see what happens.
*Props to Wesleyan for being so generous with its financial aid despite having a much, much smaller endowment per student than the rest of these schools.
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If you really want to be close to Vassar, see if thereâs any convenient flights into Stewart Airport. Much closer. And they keep claiming itâs supposed to be NYCâs fourth airport, LOL.
Donât a lot of flyover places have airports not that close? I mean if you happen to live near the core metro with the international airport, great, but otherwise you could be hours drive from one. Whereas NYC is 30-45 minutes from 3 of them.
Hi! Congratulations to your son on having great options! I suggest trying a post on the College Search and Selection board or posting under the individual college boards so that you can get perspectives of current and former parents, too.
I donât know much about Baylor, but my S24 has decided to attend South Carolina and he really loved it when he toured - and he has toured twice and loved it both times. The campus is in the heart of downtown Columbia and within walking distance of lots of shops and restaurants. The campus itself is lovely with lots of green space and the students we met were all very friendly and seemed happy. The families I know with current students rave about it. I like that, even though it is a state school, itâs about 45% OOS students, so lots of geographic diversity and OOS students, like my son, wonât feel like an outsider at all. Greek life is prevalent, but there is plenty to do for students who arenât interested. SEC sports are a big deal and tailgating for football is supposed to be really fun, and the Womenâs Basketball team is incredible! My son will be in the Honors College and the Darla Moore School of Business, both of which have strong reputations. I canât speak to other academic programs.
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Thank you!
I could not get any of my usual search platforms to give me any options at all to Stewart, not even connecting! They said it still exists, but not as far as I can tell . . . .
So that raises an interesting issue. Most PEOPLE in âflyover countryâ actually do live in a major metro. If you look at the specific populations who would fly reasonably frequently, it is an even higher percentage.
But of course there are many PLACES not particularly near a major airport. It is just that most of those places have relatively few people in them.
Of course this is true in, say, New York state as well. You talked about the distance of those airports from NYC, not from Poughkeepsie/Vassar. And of course way more people live in NYC than Poughkeepsie.
But the difference I was alluding to before was that I was given around a 3+ hour plan to get to Vassar, whereas it was 15 minutes for WUSTL, and 40 minutes for Carleton. Even Grinnell, which is considered relatively isolated even by flyover country standards, is only about 1 hour from DSM.
However, there is of course also the issue of direct flights. NYC has a ton, including to DSM for that matter. We have no direct flights to DSM, and that was material to our S24 not ultimately considering Grinnell (although there was more to it than that). But we do have direct flights to MSP and STL.
So, we are used to our easy access to an airport in our flyover metro (which, again, is the rule and not the exception for airport users given where they actually live). And we are fine flying to flyover colleges where there is a direct flight and then a similarly close transferâwhich is actually most flyover colleges too.
Edit: Oh, random comment, but apparently Stewart sometimes has direct flights to the Faroe Islands? That is one of our bucket list destinations! If S24 goes to Vassar, maybe he can meet us there . . . .
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Some dining/food options near Hamilton:
-Alteriâs
-Symeonâs (Greek)
-Mangia Macrinaâs Wood Fired Pizza
-Taj Mahal in New Hartford
-Georgioâs Village Cafe in New Hartford
-Tons of well known chains about 10 minutes away in New Hartford including Panera, Chipotle, Core Life, etc.
-Tons of very good restaurants in nearby Utica (a âfoodieâ city); Tailor and Cook, Ocean Blue, Bone Yard BBQ, and many others
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