<p>Reed is a fine college, but in my opinion not to the caliber that Vassar is. If both are equal in your mind, then I would go with Vassar. If you wanted to really step it up, Early DECISION at Vassar is Nov. 15th, so you could hurry up and get things ready for that. If you are applying for financial aid, that is also the deadline if you are doing Early Decision. In any event, it appears you are a strong candidate for either school, and without a doubt, a motivated student could be very successful at either one. Good luck.</p>
<p>EDIT - Oh…I see you haven’t taken the SAT Subject Matter tests yet…never mind then on the Early Decision idea. As others have pointed out, Vassar does VERY well at sending students on to Graduate school too. In re-reading your initial post, it seems to me that Vassar is your place. One final thing is that Vassar is really amping up in science. They’ve got a new building in the works and are really making strong moves to get even better in the sciences. </p>