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Vassar College ( ) is a liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie Town, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by , it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college became in 1969. The college offers BA degrees in more than fifty majors. Vassar College's varsity sports teams, known as the Brewers, play in the NCAA Division III as members of the . As of 2023, there are close to 2,500 students.

The college is one of the historic Seven Sisters. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings. A designated , the campus features more than 200 species of trees, a native plant preserve, and a ecological preserve.

History
Vassar was founded as a women's school under the name "Vassar Female College" in 1861. Its first president was Milo P. Jewett, who had previously been first president of another women's school, Judson College; he led a staff of ten professors and twenty-one instructors. After one year, its founder, , had the word Female removed from the name, prompting some local residents of Poughkeepsie, New York, to quip that its founder believed it might one day admit male students. The college became in 1969.

Vassar was the second of the Seven Sisters colleges, higher education schools that were strictly for women, and historically sister institutions to the all-male colleges. It was chartered by its namesake, brewer , in 1861 in the , about north of New York City. The first person appointed to the Vassar faculty was , in 1865.

Vassar adopted coeducation in 1969. Immediately following World War II, Vassar accepted a small number of male students on the G.I. Bill. The formal decision to become co-ed came after its trustees declined an offer to merge with , its sibling institution, in the wave of mergers between the historically all-male colleges of the Ivy League and their Seven Sisters counterparts.

In its early years, Vassar was associated with the social elite of the Protestant establishment. E. Digby Baltzell writes that "upper-class WASP families educated their children at colleges such as , Princeton, , and Vassar."

(1994). 9781560000488, Transaction Publishers.
A select and elite few of Vassar's students were allowed entry into the school's secret society Delta Sigma Rho, founded in 1922. Before becoming President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Trustee.

Approximately 2,450 students attend Vassar, and 98% live on campus. About 60% come from public high schools, and 40% come from (both independent and religious). Vassar is currently 56% women and 44% men, at national average for national liberal arts colleges. Students are taught by more than 336 faculty members, virtually all holding the doctorate degree or its equivalent. The student-faculty ratio is 8:1, average class size, 17.

In recent freshman classes, students of color constituted 32–38% of matriculants. International students from over 60 countries make up 8–10% of the student body. In May 2007, Vassar returned to a admissions policy without regard to a student's financial status.

Vassar president Catharine Bond Hill departed in 2016. She was succeeded by Elizabeth Howe Bradley in 2017.

The college was listed as a census-designated place (Vassar College CDP) in 2019.

Presidents
The following persons have served as president of Vassar College:

1 Milo P. JewettFebruary 1861April 1864
2 John H. Raymond1864August 14, 1878
3 Samuel L. CaldwellSeptember 12, 18781885
acting J. Ryland Kendrick18851886
4 James Monroe Taylor18861914
5 Henry Noble MacCracken1915June 30, 1946
6 Sarah Gibson BlandingJuly 1, 1946June 30, 1964
7 Alan SimpsonJuly 1, 1964June 30, 1977
8 Virginia B. SmithJuly 1, 1977June 30, 1986
9 Frances D. FergussonJuly 1, 1986June 30, 2006
10 Catharine Bond HillJuly 1, 2006August 15, 2016

interim Jonathan ChenetteAugust 16, 2016June 30, 2017
11 Elizabeth H. BradleyJuly 1, 2017present

Table notes:

Campus
The campus is in Poughkeepsie Town, adjacent to Poughkeepsie City. The area around the campus appeared as a census-designated place (CDP) in the 2020 U.S. census, with a population of 2,472.

Architecture
Vassar's campus, also an , is and has more than 100 buildings, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International, with several buildings of architectural interest. At the center of campus stands Main Building, one of the best examples of Second Empire architecture in the United States. When it was opened, Main Building was the largest building in the U.S. in terms of floor space. It formerly housed the entire college, including classrooms, dormitories, museum, library, and dining halls. The building was designed by Smithsonian architect James Renwick Jr. and was completed in 1865. It was preceded on campus by the original observatory. Both buildings are National Historic Landmarks. was purchased by the college in 1915 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

made designs for several Vassar dormitories, but only one, the Emma Hartman Noyes House, was completed in 1958. Built for roughly 160 students, it was the first part of a circular construction that was to be continued in "Noyes II." The starkly modernist building's high cost and structural difficulties with the windows, however, led administrators to leave it at one. The dorm's common area is famous for its futuristic design; readings and concerts are held there regularly. The Noyes building was also the home of an all-female football team, the Noyes Nymphs, who competed against Ivy League teams in the 1960s and 1970s.

Libraries
Vassar is home to one of the largest undergraduate library collections in the U.S. The library collection today – which actually encompasses eight libraries at Vassar – contains about 1 million volumes and 7,500 serial, periodical and newspaper titles, as well as an extensive collection of microfilm and microfiche, with special collections of Ellen Swallow Richards, , Mary McCarthy, and . Vassar has been a Federal Depository library for selected U.S. Government documents since 1943 and currently receives approximately 25% of the titles available through the Federal Depository Program.

The interior and exterior of the Van Ingen Art Library was renovated from June 2008 – May 2009 in an effort to restore its original design and appearance. This was the library's first major renovation since its construction in 1937.

Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center
In November 2016, the gallery opened the Hoene Hoy Photography gallery on the second floor, named after Anne Hoene Hoy from the class of 1963.

Capital improvements
In 2011, Vassar embarked on a $120 million project to improve science facilities at the college, centering on the construction of a new Bridge for Laboratory Sciences.

Housing
The majority of students in their first three years live on campus in the nine . Main House occupies the upper floors of Main Building, constructed at the college's founding. To accommodate a growing student body, Strong House was constructed in 1893. Strong was made all-women's housing after the college went coeducational in 1969; the house now also accepts nonbinary and other gender-nonconforming students. Similar Elizabethan-style houses—Raymond, Lathrop, and —were built from 1897 to 1902 to form a residential quadrangle. A nine-story Tudor-style dormitory, , was constructed in 1907 on the north end of the quadrangle. The second largest dormitory, Josselyn House, was built in 1912 to Jewett's east. was constructed outside of the quadrangle in 1927. In a departure from the architecture of the other dormitories, Noyes House was built in 1958 in a distinct modernist style, curved around a large .

Most fourth-year students live in groups of four or five in on-campus apartments. Vassar has three apartment complexes: the Terrace Apartments, the Town Houses, and the South Commons. A house, Ferry House, opened in 1951 and houses 20 students. Vassar guarantees housing to all full-time students.

As part of a master plan to renovate all the dormitories, Jewett, Davison, and Josselyn were renovated from 2002 to 2011. The college opted for minor improvements to the rest of the dorms due to cost.

Vassar maintains housing for faculty; the current complex opened in 2023. The previous faculty housing facility, Williams House, was to be demolished after 2020. School-age dependents living on the Vassar faculty complex, as well as other areas in the Vassar College CDP, are within the Arlington Central School District, which operates Arlington High School.

Academics
The most popular undergraduate majors, based on 2021 graduates, were:
  • Biology/Biological Sciences (40)
  • Economics (37)
  • Political Science and Government (36)
  • English Language and Literature (33)
  • Biochemistry (25)
  • Neuroscience (25)
  • Computer and Information Sciences (23)

Admissions
+ Enrolled fall freshman statistics
* SAT out of 1600

For the class of 2027 (enrolling fall 2023), Vassar received 12,145 applications and accepted 17.7%. The combined average SAT scores of those who opted to submit their testing data was 1489 and the ACT composite average was 33. The middle 50% ranges for the SAT were 1450-1530 and 33-35 for the ACT. Of the matriculants whose high schools provided rankings, 79% were in the top ten percent of their class. For the class of 2026 (enrolling fall 2022), Vassar received 11,412 applications and accepted 18.7%. For the class of 2025 (enrolling fall 2021), Vassar received 10,884 applications, a 25% increase over the previous year, and accepted 2,068 (19%). For the class of 2023 (enrolling fall 2019), Vassar received 8,961 applications and accepted 2,127 (23.7%), with 691 enrolling. For the class of 2025 (enrolling fall 2021),the middle 50% range of scores for enrolling freshmen was 710-760 for evidence-based reading and writing, 710-780 for math, and 1420-1540 for the composite. The middle 50% ACT score range was 28-33 for math, 32-34 for English, and 32-34 for the composite.

Students of color (including non-citizens) made up 45.5% of the incoming class; international students were 8.8% of enrolling freshmen.

Rankings
The 2025 edition of U.S. News & World Reports "Best Colleges" ranked Vassar as tied for the 12th best liberal arts college in the U.S. out of 211 rated. In previous years the college was ranked by U.S. News & World Report as high as tenth. In 2024, U.S. News & World Report ranked Vassar second for "Best Colleges for Veterans", 29th for "Best Value", 15th for "Top Performers on Social Mobility", and tied for 20th in "Best Undergraduate Teaching". It also ranked Vassar tied for fourth among top liberal arts colleges for economic diversity as measured by low-income students receiving federal .

In its 2021 edition, Washington Monthly ranked Vassar 11th among 215 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service.

In its 2020 edition, The Princeton Review rated Vassar first for "Best Financial Aid" of all colleges and universities in the United States. In its 2018 edition, The Princeton Review rated Vassar second best for financial aid and 41st best for "best value". In 2025, rated Vassar 26th among liberal arts colleges and 102nd overall in its America's Top Colleges ranking, which includes 500 military academies, national universities, and liberal arts colleges. Kiplinger's Personal Finance places Vassar 11th in its 2019 ranking of the 149 best value liberal arts colleges in the United States. Money magazine ranked Vassar 145th in the country out of 739 schools evaluated for its 2020 "Best Colleges for Your Money" edition.

In an article in The Christian Science Monitor, Vassar president emeritus Catharine Bond Hill argued that rankings "will always be limited in what they can tell consumers. Part of higher education's role about the rankings should be to remind students and their families that these are only one piece of information that they should take into account in deciding where to go to college. Intangibles will and should play a role in these decisions, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't also look at the tangibles".

Post-graduation outcomes
Over half of Vassar graduates pursue advanced study within five years of graduation, including one-fifth immediately post-graduation. Of the seniors who applied to medical school in 2017, 76% were accepted; to law school, 96% were accepted.

Student life
Traditions
Founder's Day is an annual campus festival at Vassar College that usually takes place in late April or early May. It started as a surprise birthday party for college founder 's seventy-fourth birthday and evolved into an annual celebration. Originally, Founder's Day was a spontaneous event consisting of lectures, but was soon replaced with plays, pageants, and more recreational activities. Circus and fair activities followed, with the eventual addition of the modern day music events over the course of two days. More recently themes have been added, including Alice in Wonderland, Dinosaurs, Vintage 1800s Vassar, , , and . Recent artists at Founder's Day have included , Edan, DJ /rupture, , Jel, Toro y Moi, and .

Extracurricular organizations
  • The Night Owls, established in the 1940s, are, as of 2017, one of the oldest extant collegiate groups in the United States, and one of nine vocal music groups at Vassar.
    (2026). 9780738504544, Arcadia Publishing.
    Other groups include the Vastards (specializing in the music of the 2000s), Broadway and More (BAM; showtunes), the Accidentals (the Axies; the sole all-lower voices a cappella group at Vassar), Beauty and the Beats (focusing on music from Disney movies), Home Brewed (formerly Matthew's Minstrels, the college's first mixed-gender a cappella group), the Vassar Devils, Measure 4 Measure (both themeless groups), and AirCappella (an all-whistling ensemble). Some a cappella groups tour and compete, including the Vassar Devils, who competed in the 2015 International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella.
  • The Philaletheis Society, which was founded in 1865 as a literary society, is the oldest theater group on campus. It has now become a completely student run theater group. Others include Unbound (experimental theater), Woodshed (a troupe focused on ), and Idlewild (an ensemble for people of marginalized genders). Britomartis, Vassar's only theater group exclusively creating devised theater, was founded in 2011. Further groups include the Future Waitstaff of America (for ), Ebony Theatre Ensemble (focusing on Black theater), and two Shakespeare-specific troupes, Shakespeare Troupe and Merely Players. The college also hosts the Powerhouse Summer Theater workshop series.
  • Happily Ever Laughter ("HEL") is the college's oldest continually active group, founded in 1993. Another comedy group, Big K!dz (formerly No Offense), which was started by two former members of an earlier group called Laughingstock (for which recognition by the student assembly was withdrawn in March 2000, as a result of a controversial sketch), was started in September 2000. Another sketch comedy group, The Limit, was started a few years later. Indecent Exposure, an all-women's troupe performing both sketch and , was founded in 2004. Comedy Normative, which began in 2009, performs exclusively stand-up comedy. Vassar has a tradition of groups, which continue today.
  • The Vassar Greens are Vassar's environmental group.
    (2026). 9781118233832, San Francisco : Jossey-Bass. .
  • Vassar College Television (VCTV) is the college's first student-run video production company.

Campus publications
  • The Miscellany News has been the weekly paper of the college since 1866, making it one of the oldest college weeklies in the United States.
    (2009). 9781440126833, iUniverse, Inc..
    It is available for free most Thursdays when school is in session
  • Squirm "is a submissions-based magazine about sex and sexuality. Squirm seeks to create a sex-positive forum on campus for the artistic, literary, and creative exploration of sex." The magazine, published annually since 1999, typically runs around 60 pages and is only distributed to the campus community.
  • Boilerplate Magazine is a student-run publication that calls itself an "alternative news source... that aims to publish radical pieces and creative works which address issues through a socially conscious lens." Due to its independence from collegiate funds, Boilerplate Magazine is generally more critical of the college than other student-run outlets.
  • Unscrewed (October 1, 1976 - April 1, 1989) was a student-run consumer report on campus residential and classroom safety, local food and drug price comparison, an annual local pizza delivery survey, and long-term topics such as the college's endowment and staffing.

Radio station
, 91.3 FM, is the college's radio station, established in 1971.

Student government
In March 2016, in a 15–2 vote, the Vassar Student Association (VSA) passed a resolution calling for the support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and the boycott of Israel. In April 2016, the BDS resolution went to a school-wide referendum, where it was defeated 573–503.

Athletics
Vassar teams, known as the Brewers, compete in Division III of the , as a member of the . The nickname originates from the college's founder and namesake , whose family ran a in Poughkeepsie and would later amass a sizable fortune in the industry.

In 2008, the Vassar men's volleyball team made the school's first appearance in a national championship game, beating UC Santa Cruz 3–0 in the semifinal before falling to Springfield in the championship game.

In 2007, the Vassar cycling team hosted the Eastern Collegiate Cycling Championship in Poughkeepsie and New Paltz, New York. The competition included a road race over the Shawangunk Mountains in New Paltz as well as a criterium in Poughkeepsie just blocks from the school's campus.

In a controversial move, on November 5, 2009, the athletics department leaders decided the men's and women's rowing team would transition over a two-year period from a varsity to a club sport as a cost-saving measure.

In 1940, 1941 and 1942, Vassar athletes won national intercollegiate women's tennis championships each year in both singles () and doubles (Hubbell, Carolyn "Lonny" Myers). ( Boston Globe, 1929-1953. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1954-1963.)

In 2018, the Vassar women's rugby team won the school's first team national championship, beating Winona State 50–13 in the final of the USA Rugby Women's Division 2.

Notable people
File:Elizabeth Bishop, 1934 yearbook portrait.jpg|, -winning poet File:Anthony Bourdain 2014 (cropped).jpg|, -winning author and File:Mary Steichen Calderone.jpg|, public health advocate and "mother of sex education" File:Jane Fonda Cannes 2018.jpg|, -winning actress File:Anne Hathaway in 2017.png|, -winning actress File:GraceHopper2.jpg|, inventor of the first compiler for a computer programming language File:Mrs Kennedy in the Diplomatic Reception Room cropped.jpg|Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, former First Lady of the United States (transferred to George Washington University) File:Lisa Kudrow 2.jpg|, -winning actress File:Edna St. Vincent Millay original.jpg|Edna St. Vincent Millay, -winning lyrical poet File:Nordiske Mediedager 2010 - Thursday - NMD 2010 (4583813556) (cropped).jpg|Elisabeth Murdoch, media executive File:Mark Ronson and Jennifer Su, 2011 (cropped).jpg|, -winning musician and producer File:Meryl Streep by Jack Mitchell.jpg|, -winning actress File:Anita Florence Hemmings (cropped).jpg|Anita Florence Hemmings, first graduate of Vassar with African Ancestry

Notable Vassar alumni include:

  • Harriot Stanton Blatch (1878), writer and suffragist
  • Elizabeth Hazleton Haight (1894), feminist and Classics scholar
  • Anita Florence Hemmings (1897), their first graduate of African ancestry
  • (1902), suffragist and leader of the National Woman's Party
  • (1903), lawyer, journalist, suffragist, member of the National Woman's Party, co-author of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), and founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
  • (1908), the first female electrical engineer
  • (1909), labor attorney, suffragist, public speaker, and member of the National Woman's Party
  • Ruth Starr Rose (1910), artist
  • Edna St. Vincent Millay (1917), poet
  • (1925), physician, public health advocate and "mother of sex education"
  • (1928), computer pioneer
  • Mary McCarthy (1933), critic and novelist
  • (1934), poet
  • Ann Cole Gannett (1937), politician
  • Carol F. Jopling (1938), anthropologist, and chief librarian of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
  • Frances Scott Fitzgerald (1942), journalist
  • (1944), physician
  • (1944), composer and
  • Frances Farenthold (1946), politician and activist
  • (1948), astrophysicist
  • (1951), art historian
  • (1955), member of development team
  • , American-born Australian art writer and historian, an art collector of the avant-garde, and a prominent art critic.
  • (1959), Broadway lighting designer
  • (1963), Zagat Survey co-founder
  • Bernadine P. Healy (1965), physician and National Institutes of Health director
  • (1965), feminist and abortion-rights activist
  • Geraldine Laybourne (1969), Nickelodeon President and Oxygen Media founder and CEO
  • (1969), writer and prosecutor
  • (1969), publisher
  • (1969), -winning executive producer of Masterpiece on PBS
  • (1971), three-time Academy Award-winning actress
  • (1971), Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer
  • Paula Williams Madison (1974), executive and author
  • Michael Wolff (1975), journalist
  • Richard L. Huganir (1975), neuroscientist and Director of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Brain Science Institute
  • (1977), CBS News Chief and White House Correspondent
  • Jeffrey Goldstein (1977), former World Bank CFO and Undersecretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance
  • (1977), The New Yorker magazine science writer
  • (1978), president
  • (1979), MSNBC president
  • (1981), astrophysicist and MacArthur Award Fellow
  • Pamela Mars-Wright, (1982), former board chairman of Mars Inc.
  • (1983), politician
  • (1983), economist and Federal Reserve Board Vice Chair
  • Mark Burstein (1984), President of Lawrence University of Wisconsin
  • (1984), Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
  • (1984), Seventh President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
  • (1985), actress
  • (1986), actress
  • (1988), journalist
  • (1990), ABC News Chief White House Correspondent
  • (1990), physician and MacArthur Award Fellow
  • (1990), Academy Award-nominated Screenwriter
  • (1991), writer and director
  • (1991), Emmy Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated film and television producer
  • (1991), founder
  • Elisabeth Murdoch (1992), Shine Limited CEO and Chairman
  • (1994), writer
  • (1994), novelist
  • Joe Hill (1995), novelist
  • (1995), actress
  • (1997), Emmy Award-winning comedy writer-producer
  • (2000), writer
  • (2001), Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and The Wall Street Journal reporter
  • (2001), Academy Award-nominated film director, screenwriter, and producer
  • (2003), political philosopher
  • (2003), musician and songwriter
  • (2003), screenwriter of Mortal Kombat
  • Jonás Cuarón (2005), screenwriter and director
  • (2009), winner of RuPaul's Drag Race Season 9
  • (2012), Tony Award-nominated actress
  • (2014), Tony Award-nominated actor
  • (2017), runner-up of Big Brother 18 (UK)
  • , film director and screenwriter
  • , (2014), journalist and correspondent for

Notable attendees who did not graduate from Vassar include:

Notable Vassar faculty include:

See also
  • List of coordinate colleges

Further reading

External links

: , , , , , , , , ,
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