Vassar recruiting: Not so mysterious

Alana Melton Guest Writer

For most students, the admissions process is shrouded in mystery and secrecy. All most students know is they are at Vassar and someone in the Admissions Office must have liked something about them.

With only a 28% admission rate for the class of 2009, admissions must have really liked the 650 new freshmen. However, a fairly small group of students know that they had a little something extra in their favor—they are recruited athletes.

Generally, Vassar is home to 400 varsity student-athletes across the four classes, many of whom were specifically recruited to play their respective sport. Though it may seem that potential student-athletes have a significant advantage over the rest of an applicant pool, this isn’t necessarily the case. Vassar is a Division III school and offers no athletic scholarships.

“Unlike what happens at, say, UCLA, there are no inducements, so to speak, in encouraging students to apply,” said Senior Associate Director of Admission and Director of Transfer Admission J.C. Tesone. For the coaches, it’s more about selling the College as a whole. Coaches “go out and they try to sell Vassar in the same way the Admissions Office would sell Vassar, with the additional component of talking about being able to compete as a student-athlete,” said Tesone.

Most applicants who wish to be recruited begin the communications process themselves by contacting Vassar and filling out an on-line questionnaire, which asks for information like position played, other sports played, and sports statistics, in addition to academic information.

Coaches also recruit proactively. For example, former Athletic Director and current men’s soccer and women’s golf coach Andy Jennings can find names of potential Vassar student-athletes through the American Junior Golf Association. Of the 300 or so golfers he might find and send letters to one year, ten percent of those people would respond, but only about five percent would qualify to be a potential Vassar student.

Coaches also go to events like soccer and basketball tournaments and try to identify those athletes who are talented both athletically and academically.

The Admissions Office enters the names of applicants who listed a sport as an interest on their application into a database for the Athletic Department. A coach then sends out a letter, brochure, and questionnaire to the people in the database interested in his or her sport.
Over the past 15 to 20 years, the Athletic Department and the Admissions Office have developed what Jennings calls “a good, working relationship” based on “communication and understanding.”

Both sides know that, for Vassar, academic quality comes first.
“Vassar is not known as some athletic powerhouse, nor do we necessarily want to be known as an athletic powerhouse. We want to be known as an academic powerhouse,” said Tesone.
The reason Vassar recruits, he says, is “essentially to convince somebody that this is a great place to compete as well as do your academics.”

The admissions officers, said Jennings, “educate us on what they’re looking for and I think most of the coaches take that aspect really seriously in that they understand what is required by the College.”

Tesone emphasizes that athletic recruits are held to the same academic standards as the rest of the applicant pool. Athletes must also fight for the same spots as everyone else; there are no spaces reserved for athletes.

The one advantage that student-athletes have is that a Vassar coach can write a recommendation for them, but even this does not provide a tremendous benefit.

“The same process goes on for every other area; a member of the music faculty could do the same thing” for an applicant with exceptional musical ability, said Tesone. Also, Tesone noted that athletic ability or lack thereof has absolutely no effect on financial aid.
Even with acceptance to Vassar, however, the athletic journey is not complete. According to Director of Athletics Sharon Beverly, “For the most part, recruited student-athletes must [still] try-out for their respective teams.” Furthermore, “there are athletes that were not recruited that make the squad as well.”

“There’s definitely no doubt that a student who has a strong academic background who is also a very talented athlete has a better chance of admission than a student who doesn’t have that in their portfolio,” added Tesone.