Vassar vs. William & Mary

IzzoOne
Wed, 29 Apr 2020 18:50:19 +0000

Here is my summary.

I’d say “resume” value is pretty similar. Forbes and WSJ combine LACs and National Universities and one has William & Mary higher and one has Vassar higher. Forbes has always seemed closest to a resume prestige ranking to me.

ROI / NPV / Value Add / Income data all appears to favor William & Mary over Vassar. William & Mary perhaps has business and some STEM majors that contribute to this.

I don’t think the “High School 2.0” concern about William & Mary is really valid. Even say Thomas Jefferson, the science magnet school that sends quite a few to William & Mary, is only about 2% of undergraduate student body and even large high schools are probably less than 1% on average.

Vassar would be more of a “change of scenery” compared to William & Mary if that is what she is looking for. It will be more oriented to NYC and will have a higher percentage from out of state. Still, with 35% plus from OOS, William & Mary will have about as many from OOS as Vassar will have in students.

I don’t think the creative opportunities will be different between the two.

Princeton Review can be a good source for getting a sense of the school and what the students are like (which she probably couldn’t get from attending admitted student days). My sense is Vassar has a more open curriculum, William & Mary has more of a core. At both, she’ll probably be living on campus for most of her time there, which is a plus in my view. William & Mary seemed a bit more integrated into Williamsburg than Vassar with Poughkeepsie, but I haven’t been there in a while. A plus with Vassar is NYC is relatively accessible. Both have beautiful campuses.

Good luck.