How to Write the Vassar College Supplemental Essay 2019-2020

Vassar College was originally founded as an all-women’s college, but has been open to all genders since 1969. The college is located in Poughkeepsie (pronounced Puh-kip-see), New York, just two hours north of Manhattan. As a liberal arts college with an enrollment of 2,500, Vassar offers an intimate and engaging learning environment.

 

For the Class of 2023, Vassar’s acceptance rate was 23.4%. Of all accepted students, 75% ranked in the top 10% of their high school class, and the mean admitted GPA was around the A/A- range. It’s clear that you need a strong academic profile to be admitted to Vassar. 

 

However, we at CollegeVine are here to take one less stressor off your mind: the essay. Keep reading to learn how to tackle Vassar’s supplemental essay for the 2019-2020 application season! Want to know your chances at Vassar? Calculate your chances for free right now.

 

How to Write the Vassar College Essay

 

This is a standard “Why school?” prompt. The key to this type of essay is to avoid generic statements such as “the campus is beautiful,” or the “students have a tight knit community,” as those could apply to literally hundreds of schools around the country. Admission officers want to see that you are genuinely a strong fit for the school

 

Accordingly, in your essay, you want to refer to factors that are specific and unique to the school. We at CollegeVine have provided a brief list of unique characteristics of Vassar, but strongly suggest you personally research the school to come up with more personal and tailored reasons for wanting to attend it.

 

• Vassar has a multidisciplinary major in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Program that allows students to examine science and technology in a social, cultural, and historical context.

 

• Columbia partners with Vassar for a BA/MPH 4+1 program, where students get a 4-year BA from Vassar, then a 1-year MPH from Columbia. There is also a BA/BE program with Dartmouth for students interested in engineering.

 

• Vassar has a synchronized skating team and quidditch club.

 

• There is a farm/ecological reserve located on campus with wooded trails, open meadows, and sports fields for bucolic exploration.

 

• For language fanatics, Vassar offers the Self-Instructional Language Program, which allows students to become proficient in languages such as Irish/Gaelic and Swahili.

 

Whatever you decide to reference, be sure to connect it to your goals and who you are. For example, maybe you’re a science and tech enthusiast, having participated in your school’s robotics club, but you also read sociology and history books for fun; that would be a compelling reason to major in Science, Technology, and Society at Vassar.  

 

Finally, be sure to mention 1-2 academic aspects of Vassar and 1-2 extracurrricular ones. Admissions committees want to not only make sure you’ll thrive inside the classroom, but also within the larger school community.

 

This submission is optional, but we highly recommend that you complete it, especially if you have a creative hobby. This is a place to share any meaningful aspects of your identity that you weren’t able to share in the rest of your application. It is also a chance for you to showcase anything you did mention first-hand. 

 

For example, maybe you discussed in an essay how writing poems helped you get through your mom’s passing, and you could share some of those poems here. Or, maybe you listed winning a short film award on your application, and you can share the film here. Perhaps you have a comic book collection that you didn’t get a chance to mention, so a photo and description of it might be fitting for this section. 

 

Whatever you choose, be sure that it’s meaningful to you and reveals more about you as a person. If you submit something more creative, such as a short story or photography samples, be sure that it’s high-quality. Sending in something that’s mediocre, or not very good, may hurt your application. 

 

This is similar advice we give to students considering submitting an arts supplement; there will be many students who share extraordinarily-developed skills, so samples at a lower level of expertise will only pale in comparison. We recommend getting a second opinion from a trusted mentor, just to be sure!

 

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.