Generally coaches recommend taking a test, and ask to see scores. If the athlete progresses to pre-read and then offer, admissions will tell the coach if the student should apply TO or not. I know a number of Wesleyan recruits who have been told to apply TO in the recent past, including one ACT 33.
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They don’t want the lower scores represented in their official stats for the class – got to keep up appearances.
(Which I get: even though USNews doesn’t count test scores in their ranking formula, some kids still let the admit stats impact their opinions of school quality. Ironically, showing a lower 25% score average would likely invite more apps, which would decrease the admit %.)
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In our case (female, team sport),
no test scores were required to be submitted for any of the pre-reads—7 highly-ranked LACs (including Vassar).
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Thank you for the info @YoLo2 @cinnamon1212
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Individual sports and coaches may differ but here is our experience for my D’24
MIT and JHU both had high entrance bars of 1500+ to have serious conversations.
Among NESCAC, UAA, NewMAC, and Centennial schools:
Most coaches for her sport asked for test scores but specifically did not want them submitted as part of the pre-read materials if they were submitted via a portal. One coach actually asked for a copy to show the AO liaison for the team. The comment was that admissions could not “unsee” them if they went in via the portal and weren’t a help but if they were in the coaches hand they could just shake their head.
In the end every coach asked for them to be submitted.
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My student athlete did not end up applying to Wes or Vassar but had favorable pre-read at both and was NOT instructed to submit scores. She ended up as an ED admit TO at a similar school.
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Thanks to all who’ve shared their experiences so far! Bumping this back up to see if there are any more Wes/Vassar TO admissions stories to share. Kid will be finalizing both apps in the next few days and welcomes any suggestions….
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I work at a boarding school and last year we had two students accepted to Vassar TO.
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Son applied TO and was admitted at Wesleyan, Vassar, Grinnell and numerous others. He’s just finished his first semester at Wes and loves it. Joined the rugby club, auditioned and will be in the main stage theatre production next semester, is challenged by but loves his classes and profs. Also, his world has expanded exponentially through interactions from kids from all over the world. As parents, we’re very happy for him. As additional background, he’d applied to Yale early action and was bumped into regular round and then not admitted.
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Wonderful! I’m so glad to hear he’s enjoying Wes. What’s he studying? And do you mind sharing a little more about him/his application? GPA, rigor, ECs?
Thanks again for chiming in.
Hi! Resurrecting this thread because my kid has an interview with a Vassar alum this weekend. He’s excited and has a great list of questions. Question for you: how much/what type of information does the interviewer have about the applicant? Just curious how much she’ll know about him….
I’ll just note that Vassar does not consider the interview at all in their admissions decisions so he should use this as an opportunity to ask his own questions and learn more about the school and not stress about the interviewer. My D22 did a bunch of interviews at schools that considered them but didn’t even request one at Vassar even though it was far and away her top school (accepted ED).
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Sorry should have read the whole thread first - catcher seems to think interviews can be considered and he would know better so I stand corrected. Glad we didn’t know that when my kid refused to request one 
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I don’t think you and Catcher are that far apart:
And FWIW, that was my experience as a Wesleyan alum interviewer for many years.
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Apologies for the delay and good luck. I was given very limited info. Name, contact info, high school.
As stated previously we would fill out a follow up questionnaire and scoring.
I didn’t view my scoring as influencing the ultimate decisions particularly in terms of getting kids accepted. Lots of great kids and some surprising results. I do suspect a lousy score could raise concerns because they were scarce.
We were given a list of accepted students whom we had interviewed contemporaneous to decision time.
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Thank you!
I know the interview won’t carry much (if any) weight, but my kid likes Vassar a lot and really thrives in this setting, so he’s eager to make the most of it.
Vassar is also one of only two schools he applied to that conduct interviews. Finding out that Wes stopped doing interviews this year was a disappointment, although he did do a student WesChat.
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Ya know, its funny. When I read @Juno16 's post, I went back to old emails from Vassar, as I was also an alum interviewer and we were asked to provide feedback to the school. How they used it may vary, but they did take feedback from interviews, even though the interview is generally intended to be a way to give the student more information about the school. So… I logged into my old interviewer account, and WOWEE have they added a whole bunch of criteria, procedures, exclusions!
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Has he gotten to practice at all? Just try simple questions like so tell me about yourself or what are your favorite classes or subjects. Have some good questions ready.
It shouldn’t be stressful but it is a new experience for some kids. Make sure he knows the interviewer just wants to get to know him and is proud to have attended VC so wants to share that enthusiasm.
Once again wishing him great results.
FYI I was once asked (by a male applicant) as a male interviewer about my day to day awareness as a student of the schools single gender background. I shared several relevant examples and the applicant then asked if and how I thought these experiences impacted me as an adult beyond Vassar. I thought it was a great line of questions as it was presented as a way of finding out about VCs uniqueness and the candidate interspersed that what I was sharing was what appealed to them about the school. It was a conversation that made me introspective and made me feel like the applicant was truly concerned about fit.
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Agree that rehearsing an interview is a great idea. And having several specific questions is also important. They may ask him what in particular he likes about Vassar, if he has visited campus, what he likes to do in his free time, etc. Will the interview be face to face or zoom?
ETA: I remember one young lady I interviewed who had been on campus and stayed with a friend. I asked her what she liked about the school, and all she could say was “the diversity”. I would have liked to have heard more about her impression, what she considered getting involved with, what she hoped to take away from her years there, etc.
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Thank you (and @jym626) for following up. He’s had one college interview (on zoom, as this one will be) that went very well, and he’s done a number of other similar zoom-based conversations with adults through various activities, so he’s comfortable with the format. And because I’ve interviewed hundreds of people over the years in my work, we’ve discussed how to perform well in an interview. We brainstormed questions last night—I love a candidate who has good questions, as it tells me they’re really interested and have thought a lot about the opportunity they’re pursuing—and he is doing some structured thinking about how he’ll answer the sort of questions you mention.
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