S24 is applying TO to Wesleyan ED2 and Vassar RD, and I’m interested in others’ recent admissions experiences. Obviously these are both highly selective schools, so we have realistic expectations, but hearing some other TO admissions stories would be helpful.
Thank you!
No story but per 2022/23 Wes CDS (so year old data) section c9 76% submit. You may have a few that submit both. But you likely have athletes or other hooked as part of the 24%.
At Vassar it’s only 48%. So a much higher percentage of enrollees are TO.
Good luck to him.
Edit. Hooked (not unhooked). Thx @thumper1
Thank you!
Wes’s class of 2027 profile page has 58% of admitted students submitting last year: Class Profile, Admission & Aid - Wesleyan University
Not apples to apples with the 2026 CDS stats, since those are enrolled students (vs admitted), but it’s definitely a more comforting number!
I think this means “hooked” not “unhooked”.
Also should be noted that at many if not most competitive LACs , athletes are instructed by coaches to provide test scores to ensure academic suitability.
Duh. Yes. Thx
Hoping @YoLo2 or @cinnamon1212 will be able to comment…but I thought D 3 athletes were often required to submit test scores, and in many cases needed to reach a certain bar. I could be wrong…but these tagged folks can answer. I didn’t think athletes in many cases had the option of going test optional.
If this is the case, the %ages of TO folks at Vassar and Wes would not include athletes. Hopefully the above tagged folks can clarify.
Obviously and hopefully OPs student applies to the one they prefer vs giving best odds…regardless of anecdotes.
Yup, Wes is definitely ED2. It’s the favorite. Vassar is next on the list, preference-wise.
I of course don’t know what Wesleyan’s policy is; my son submitted his SAT score for his prereads at all schools (and it wasn’t great – taken once sophomore year, during covid). He passed all prereads (incl. at schools like Williams and Bowdoin). He was advised to apply test optional at the school he committed to, even though the AO had already seen the score during the preread.
Vassar men’s team coaches in recent history have been asking for test submission for all pre reads I am told.
OP I am a Vassar alum who also interviewed for VC for a long time. Happy to offer any help I can. For what it’s worth I also think highly of Wes as the schools have a lot in common.
Good luck.
Thank you! That’s very generous of you to offer.
If you have tips for the interview you’d like to share, I’d be grateful. Kid has toured Vassar and has a friend there now, so he’s pretty well-informed. He loves open curriculum, and he’s a theater kid, so the active theater scenes at Wes and Vassar are hugely appealing. The one drawback for Vassar (based on a visit of just a few hours last year) is Poughkeepsie and the seeming lack of activity outside of campus; if you have any thoughts there, that would be great.
Stats are very competitive (4.0 uw, highest rigor, top 5-7% of large public school class, strong ECs/leadership), so I think he’s positioned as well as possible. But it’s obviously hard to feel confident anywhere without test scores.
Reality is the interviews are very much intended as a two way discussion. The interviewers feedback while considered has very little real impact in my experience. Over 12 years I only really was able to help one kid off a waitlist by advocating for them. Otherwise results versus my scoring seemed non correlated.
For the interview be yourself but have some solid and sincere questions. We weren’t given a set of questions but did have a scoring sheet to fill out. I found the best candidates to be the ones who understood what made Vassar a bit unique and could express how it fit their interests. Tell him to be relaxed those interviewing are doing so because they loved their experience and want to share it. Ask the interviewers about what they experienced, and watch them wax on nostalgically.
As far as Poughkeepsie it doesn’t really offer much of anything. Vassar students very rarely stray beyond Raymond avenue. The campus itself is huge (1,000 acres if memory serves) with lots of activities every weekend. I had a bit of an advantage in not feeling constrained as an athlete we travelled a fair bit but we also went to NYC periodically.
It really is what it is in terms of social life. By my senior year I was so socially ingrained in VC, I didn’t feel like I missed anything by not having proximity to a city. I compare this to my son who went to Brown (more students and a smaller campus) and he describes very rarely going into the city of Providence but instead attending parties just off campus in students homes. So I write it off as your student knows what will work for themselves and should trust their gut feeling.
Hope this helps.
Thank you very much. This is really helpful. The kid is very comfortable in interviews—in fact, he might be one of the few who is sorry most schools don’t do them anymore—so he will welcome this insight and put it to good use.
And your perspective on Poughkeepsie/campus life aligns with my instinct, and the kid has come around to this viewpoint as he’s heard more from his friend, who is very happy at Vassar. Thanks, again.
Another Vassar alum here. There are some shops/eating establishments just off campus, but most don’t do much in town. There used to be an adorable cider mill up past the Vassar farm but that’s long gone. Some do take the train to NYC (especially if your kiddo takes any art history classes) but most college life is on campus. Good luck.
*eta I was also an alum interviewer for quite some time.
Deleted at the risk of offending a friend and fellow Brewer.
Ok. All good.
Lots of Vassar friends accepted test optional! Seems like they’re going for about 50/50 to see what happens over the first few years of the policy.
On Poughkeepsie:
Agreed, it’s not for everyone, and it’s on the smaller side, especially when compared to Hartford. Saying that there’s nothing to do isn’t fair at all though. I mostly hear the “nothing to do” narrative from people who just have no idea what’s happening and aren’t making an effort to find out.
So I say this in part for other people who might be reading –
In the week before finals, groups from dorms went down to NYC to see Cirque du Soleil and a few different Broadway shows (paid for by Vassar). I know many others who went down to NYC for Christmas stuff – Rockafeller tree, etc. Another group took a trip to Bard to see an art installation. There are at least 4 galleries in Poughkeepsie currently showing art. The convention center has an ice skating rink that’s up right now, which orgs also go to. The mall is pretty lively, with movie theater, restaurants, etc. There were two different Christmas celebrations/parades – one in Arlington (right where Vassar is) and one in Poughkeepsie, which was a larger lighting-of the tree type thing. Students attended and volunteered with these. There were a few other volunteering things going on – with high schoolers, migrants, local food bank preparing for the holiday season, etc, that students were involved with, and more. Folks also can take the bus for free to nearby cute towns like Beacon and Rhinebeck, which decorate for holiday season.
I don’t say this trying to compare to Wes – Hartford looks awesome, and I have no doubts that there’s more going on there. I just don’t want other folks to read this and buy into the narrative that Poughkeepsie is a tiny dying empty place in the middle of nowhere.
Thank you for this thoughtful response.
My kid’s reaction to Poughkeepsie was really just to the sense that it felt very very quiet outside the campus gates. Wes is in Middletown (not Hartford), which is by no means a thriving metropolis, but there’s more of a sense of campus/town integration (at least based on our couple of visits and what we’ve heard), with lots of restaurants and shops nearby. Your perspective as a student is really helpful—thank you.
(Also great to hear about the high rate of TO acceptances!)
So my daughter just committed as an athlete to Vassar ‘28. We had pre-reads at Franklin and Marshall, Swarthmore, Haverford, and Vassar. Most coaches stated “unless you broker 1400, don’t submit” and Swarthmore used "1500’. Transcripts were submitted in July, and we added one more AP at Vassars request in August when my daughter verbally committed to the admissions process. Admission biggest question was the strength of her public high school, since no student from our suburban Philadelphia HS ever attended Vassar (per our Principal) Admissions needed to find the scale of her classes were challenging by their standards.
In short, TO is going to be around for a few years, and it will help the strong students that don’t stand out on a standardized test.