Vassar is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, NY, a small city about an hour and a half north of New York City by train. The college has an open curriculum, which gives students opportunities for both broad exploration and deep specialization once you land on what you love most. There are about 2,500 undergraduates and the student to teacher ratio is only 7:1. The average class has only 19 students. They receive about 12,500 applications annually for less than 700 spots in the first-year class. Students come to Vassar from all around the world, and share a passion for learning in a creative environment that is nurturing, encouraging, and challenging. The acceptance rate is under 19%.
Students can choose to apply Early Decision I, Early Decision II, and Regular Decision. If you really like the sound of Vassar, we highly recommend applying in one of the Early Decision rounds, as the college highly prioritizes ED applicants. If you pick them, they’ll be more likely to pick you. When you apply, you should also know that it is test-optional. You are not required to submit an SAT or ACT score, but we advise students to not use this as an excuse to skip studying. A strong SAT/ACT score underlines an impressive application. Ideally, you would be able to submit a 1500+ on the SAT, or a 33+ on the ACT.
In this post, though, we’re going to focus on the parts of your application that can’t be quantified — but that are also still in your control. You can’t change what classes you’ve taken or what activities you’ve done, but you can control how you tell your story. Below, we’ll guide you to your best strategy.
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The Vassar supplement isn’t intense, but it does demand a chunk of your time. You need to plan well ahead for it. If you are aiming for the Early Decision I deadline, you need to start today — seriously.
The first piece of the supplement is the written answer. This is one short essay of up to 300 words, and you have two prompts to pick from. Let’s look at each one, and what your best approach may be.
PROMPT 1
At Vassar, we aim to foster an inclusive community through our philosophy of engaged pluralism. Engaged pluralism is rooted in “the conviction that collaborating across differences is necessary for social transformation and critical for the well-being of any community and its members.” In short, we believe it's our differences that make us stronger. Tell us a little bit about an important part of your identity and how it has shaped your life and/or interactions with others.
The prompt is long, so let’s pull out the most important bits — namely, the last sentence. “Tell us a little bit about an important part of your identity and how it has shaped your life and/or interactions with others.” The intro before this doesn’t really matter except that they like people with a diversity of perspectives. There isn’t one type of student they are looking for, and there is no ‘right’ answer to this prompt. Instead, what matters most is being you. But how do you best do that?
Start with identifying a story. What is something that has shaped you in your life? Note that this is not a hardship test. It may be a struggle, but it could also be a relationship with a sibling, a role in your community, a long-term service commitment, or a hobby you are passionate about. It can also be something that you have experienced culturally, or that you were born into. We advise our students, though, to focus on something that they have some level of control over. For example, if you are going to write about a cultural community you are part of, you didn’t pick to be part of that culture, but you did decide to devote time to the community. That aspect of choice is really important.
Once you have your story, you need to pinpoint two or three characteristics about yourself that you want to spotlight through the story you picked. These could include things like leadership, community-mindedness, patience, empathy, drive, or resilience, but you’re not limited to this list by any means.
With your story and the characteristics you want to highlight in hand, it’s time to write. You have 300 words. That’s a great amount of space to work with, and there is no excuse not to truly write it as a story. Use things like imagery, dialog, and symbolism to bring your story to life.
PROMPT 2
Vassar is a diverse community that inspires positive change through open inquiry, deep dives into society’s most difficult challenges, and collaborative problem solving. We care deeply about one another, the communities that have forged us, and the community we build together on campus. Tell us about the community (or communities) you come from and how it has shaped your lived experiences and identity.
This is the other prompt that you can pick from, and the approach isn’t all that different from the previous one. You need to pick a story, in this case focused on a community that you are part of, and again select a few characteristics about yourself to highlight.
For example, if you are a passionate member of (and leader of) the Debate Team, you could write a supplemental essay focused on how you’ve found confidence, leadership skills, and a role as a mentor through debate. Those three things could also have been found through a faith community, a service community, or any other place where you gather with, and lead, others you care about.
YOUR SPACE
The Your Space is for sharing something that makes you, you, through a creative lens. Students in the past, Vassar says, “have shared poetry, short stories, cartoons, digital images of art projects, photography, and collages, and/or links to videos, and short films.” Vassar emphasizes that it is optional, but it is really? No. Yes, applicants have gotten into Vassar without submitting something for the Your Space section, but we don’t advise making that gamble.
You aren’t being judged on whether you are the next famous artist here, after all. What they want to see is you in an authentic, enthusiastic, and creative way. And you have made things, whether it is an art project, a poster for a fundraiser you organized, or a playbill from a show you were in. It could be a picture of a robot you are super proud of, or a piece that relates to what you wrote about in your supplement. Get creative — that’s the point.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Vassar also invites students to submit an uploaded resume. While you can attach almost any document here, that isn’t an invitation to add whatever you want. We advise our students to upload a one-page professional resume crafted to highlight the things that will make you a strong addition to the Vassar community. We have a step-by-step resume guide to help.
Vassar cares deeply about accepting strong students who are also strong community members. The most important thing to convey in your supplement, then, is that you will strengthen campus. This is why they aren’t asking what you want to study. It isn’t because they don’t want you to study. They can tell from your transcript that you will work hard academically. What they need to see here is that you won’t succeed alone, but will bring others along with you.
A strong application outcome requires strong strategy. Get yours.