Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Click the Register link in the upper right-hand corner of this page, and register in four easy steps:

1. Enter your current last name and class year and click the button to find your record;
2. Click on your name from the list of names found;
3. Enter your Vassar ID and click the Validate button; and
4. Fill in all the requested information on the form and click the Complete Registration button.

Your Vassar ID is a unique nine-digit number that we use to identify you. The number will start with either A0 or 99. (Each 0 in the number is a zero, not the letter O.) It appears above your name on the address label of your Vassar Quarterly (see image below). If you do not have an issue of the Vassar Quarterly at hand and need to know your Vassar ID, click here to submit a request form to the Alumnae/i Directory administrator in order to obtain your Vassar ID.

Every login box for the Online Community has a "Retrieve it" link to recover your user name and/or password. All you need to enter is the email address that we have on file for you, and the information will be sent to you at that email address. Click here to go directly to the form to retrieve your user name and/or password.

You do not have the ability to change your user name. If circumstances warrant it, we can change a user name. Please email us with the reason you wish to have your user name changed, three choices for a new user name (alpha-numeric characters, hyphens, underscores, and periods allowed, must be at least 6 characters long), AND the information listed in the answer below to the question "What do you need to verify that I'm an alumna/us?"

To change your password, log into the online community using the "My Profile" link in the upper right corner of this page. On the My Profile page, just above the "Welcome back" text, there are several links in bold, red text. Click the "Change Password" link and follow the instructions.

Send an email to aavcweb@vassar.edu with your full name and class year, plus at least THREE of the following items:

1. Your current mailing address, telephone number, and email address
2. Your current employer and position
3. Your Vassar major
4. Last four digits of your social security number
5. Your Vassar dorm affiliation
6. Your birth date

If we do not have some of these items in our records, we may ask for other information for verification purposes.

We need your full name and class year and at least THREE of the following items:

1. Your current mailing address, telephone number, and email address
2. Your current employer and position
3. Your Vassar major
4. Last four digits of your social security number
5. Your Vassar dorm affiliation
6. Your birth date

If we do not have some of these items in our records, we may ask for other information for verification purposes.

By default, your name, address, class year, Vassar major, "blind email" link, and graduate degree information will be shown, if we have that information on record for you. If you have asked us to mark your record as "confidential," then no information about you will be visible to other alumnae/i.

Once you have registered with the Online Community, you can go into your directory profile and hide or show any of your information, as you choose. The "blind email" links allow other alumnae/i to email you without revealing your email address(es) to them.

It is possible that our records do not have your current name or have a different spelling of your name. Try entering just your Vassar last name and class year. In addition, the fields you are searching must be set to "show" in your directory listing in order to be displayed in the search results. If hidden, the search results will indicate that there are results that cannot be displayed.

If you still get no results and no indication of hidden results, please contact us at aavcweb@vassar.edu, providing us with the exact search criteria you used.

Click on the "My Profile" link in the upper right-hand corner of this page, and log in if prompted. On the page that appears, click the "View/Update My Listing" link in the top of the page. Scroll down and click the gray "Click to Update" button next to the type of information you wish to update. Remember to click the "Update" button at the bottom of the form to save your changes.

Click on the "My Profile" link in the upper right-hand corner of this page, and log in if prompted. On the page that appears, you can change your broadcast email preferences by clicking the "change preferences" link that appears next to your Broadcast Email Status at the top of the page.

To change your privacy options (what information about you is shown or hidden in the alumnae/i directory), click the "View/Update My Listing" link in the top of the page. Under the heading "Directory Listing Privacy Preferences," click the "Hide/unhide information from view in your directory listing" link.

Click on the "My Profile" link in the upper right-hand corner of this page, and log in if prompted. On the page that appears, click the "Simple Search" or "Advanced Search" link in the top of the page. Enter your search criteria and click the "Search" button at the bottom of the page.

You can call or email us, and if we have a mailing and/or email address for the person, we will give you that information once we verify your status as an alumna/us. (See Online Community Access questions and answers above for information we need to verify your alumna/us status.)

Please advise the person who is listed as lost that she/he needs to provide us with her/his new contact information via telephone, mail, or email.

Contact us via telephone, mail, or email with your current contact information and we will update your records. You may also register for the Online Community and update your information yourself in the alumnae/i directory, by clicking on "My Profile" in the upper right-hand corner of this page, then click the "View/Update My Listing" link in the top of the page.

MyContacts is a place where you can keep a list of your frequently contacted friends, add notes about them, and easily connect to their profiles without having to conduct a search. You can add up to 100 contacts to your MyContacts list.

Community Search allows you to conduct a keyword search in one or more of the following areas of the Online Community: Alumnae/i Directory, Calendar of Activities, Class eNotes, V-NET, Résumés. Community Search is accessed via the Alumnae/i Directory.

Click on the "My Profile" link in the upper right-hand corner of this page, and log in if prompted. On the page that appears, click one of the "Upload a photo" links that appear in the Your Profile section of the page, and follow the instructions for uploading a photo.

All photo uploads are reviewed by an AAVC staff member prior to posting, thus it may take one to two business days for your photo to be reviewed and approved for posting. Check again in a few days.

If an image is not of you or your family and you were unable to provide proof in writing that you own the copyright of the image, have permission to republish the image on this website, or the image is in the public domain, then the photo will not be approved. In addition, AAVC reserves the right not to approve for posting any photo that it deems to be inappropriate for the Online Community.

You must first be registered with the Online Community. (See Online Community Access questions and answers above for information on how to register.) Once you are registered, go to the Email Forwarding page (in the Connecting with Alumnae/i section of the website). Follow the instructions to create your email address and set your destination (forwarding) email address.

Your alumna/us email address (ending in @alum.vassar.edu) does not have an email account associated with it. Rather, it is a forwarding email address, and any emails sent to the address are forwarded to the destination email account you specified when setting up the email address. You should log into that forwarding/destination email account to see your alumna/us email messages.

Yes, there is a file size limit of 10MB for emails with attachments sent to an alumna/us email address.

Many email programs and internet providers allow you to set up your destination email account to send emails that appear to come from your @alum.vasssar.edu email address. Consult your program's help documentation or contact your Internet service provider for assistance.

Go to the Email Forwarding page (in the Connecting with Alumnae/i section of the website), enter a new forwarding/destination email address in the box, and click the "Update Forwarding Info" button. Please note that it may take up to 48 hours for any changes made to your permanent email address to take effect.

Log into your Gmail account and add your @alum.vassar.edu email address to your Contacts list. Do not attempt to "test" receipt of an @alum.vassar.edu email by sending to that address from your Gmail account, if Gmail is your forwarding/destination address, as Gmail will treat the message as spam and not deliver it.

V-NET (Vassar Career Advisory Network) is a database of Vassar alumnae/i and some parents (of students and alumnae/i) who have offered their volunteer services as "Career Advisers." This means that they have made themselves available as volunteers to offer mentoring, internships, advice, or guidance.

Yes, in the Alumnae/i Directory, you can search by industry/occupation in Advanced Search, or do a keyword search in Community Search.

Go to V-NET in the Career Center section of the website, log in if prompted, then click on "My V-NET Profile." Click the "Update" button next to Profile Status, and follow the instructions to make your profile inactive for a specific or undetermined period of time. Don't forget to click "Update" to save your changes.

Unfortunately, at this time V-NET does not support saved searches. If you have found someone in one of your searches, however, and wish to remember how you found that person, add her/him to your Bookmarks in V-NET. In the Comments field, enter the search criteria you used to find this person, and save your changes.

Go to the Career Center section of the website and click on Résumé Post and Search, or go to your "My Profile" page, and click the link below Résumé Upload in the "Your Profile" section of the page. Then follow the instructions to upload your résumé.

It takes about 24 hours for an uploaded résumé to be indexed by the search engine, after which it will show up in search results.

Only other Vassar alumnae/i and current seniors can find/see your posted résumé.

Go to the Career Center section of the website and click on Résumé Post and Search, scroll to the bottom of the page and enter your search terms in the search box.

Go to the Career Center section of the website and click on Job Post and Search, then click the "Create Job Postings" link on the page and follow the instructions to post your job/internship opportunity.

It depends on whether you targeted your posting to a specific geographical area and/or limited it to just Vassar alumnae/i and students, when you posted the job opportunity. By default, there are no geographical limitations and listings may be found/seen by users across the network of other colleges and universities that have contracted with our vendor to offer this service to their alumnae/i, which includes many peers, Ivies, and Seven Sister schools.

Go to the Career Center section of the website and click on Job Post and Search, then click the "Search Job Postings" link on the page and enter your search criteria.

Go to the Career Center section of the website and click on Alumnae/i Yellow Pages, then click the "Search Alumnae/i Yellow Pages Listing" link on the page and enter your search criteria.

Class eNotes are online Class Notes, viewable only by other Vassar alumnae/i and current seniors who are registered with the Online Community. There are a number of categories into which a user can place her/his class eNote, and it also allows the user to upload a photo with her/his class eNote.

Go to Class eNotes in the Connecting with Alumnae/i section of the website and click on the "Submit/Edit a Class eNote" button in the right-hand corner. Follow the instructions for typing in your text and clicking the button to "auto-generate" the eNote and be sure to click the "Submit This Note" button at the bottom of the page to submit your eNote.

All class eNotes are reviewed by an AAVC staff member prior to posting, thus it may take one to two business days for your eNote to be reviewed and approved for posting. Check again in a few days.

Not automatically. We advise all class correspondents to check for any eNotes posted online by their classmates if they are in need of news for the printed Class Notes. But if you specifically wish something to appear in Vassar, the Alumnae/i Quarterly, please submit it directly to your class correspondent, or send your news to vq@vassar.edu (include your full name and class year).

Your class eNote will stay online indefinitely, unless you choose to remove it. To delete (or edit) a class eNote you submitted, go to Class eNotes in the Connecting with Alumnae/i section of the website and click on the "Submit/Edit a Class eNote" button in the right-hand corner. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a list of eNotes that you have submitted. Click on the appropriate note and follow the instructions to edit or delete it.

The eNotes appearing on your class website (on the Class eNotes page) are only those of your classmates, while the Connecting with Alumnae/i section of the website contains the eNotes posted by all Vassar alumnae/i. The eNotes listed on your class website will also appear on the Class eNotes page in the Connecting with Alumnae/i section of the website. You do not have to do anything for this to happen.

Classifieds and Discussion Groups are group email lists. Members of a classifieds forum or discussion group can post a message to the entire group via a group email address. They can be used to talk to fellow alumnae/i about topics of interest to you (hobbies, professions, etc.), search for apartments for rent or items for sale, or post your own classifieds to find a roommate or sell your belongings.

• Browse groups until you find a group you'd like to join. You can browse by topic or click "View all groups" to see a comprehensive list.
• When you've found a group that interests you, click on the group image or "View group home page" link.
• In the "Subscribe to this group" section, fill in your full name and select an email address to which postings should be sent.
• If you wish to subscribe to a group using a different email address (e.g. you want to receive classifieds for services needed at your home email address instead of your work email address) you can click "Modify my default subscription settings" to add other addresses to this list.
• Choose how you wish to get emails of posts to the group using the "Delivery Mode" option—you can choose to receive individual emails of all posts, daily digests of posts, or receive no emails but instead read posts on the website, like a more conventional message board.
• Click "Subscribe", and you will receive an email confirming your subscription, with the email address of the group in the subject line. You do not need to reply to this email.

You must first subscribe to the forum or group. (See instructions immediately above.) To post a message to the forum or group after subscribing, either:

• send an email from your email program to the email address for the group (this is in the subject line of the Welcome message that you received upon subscribing to the group); or
• go to the forum or group's online website, and use the "Post a Message" link within the group to post a message to the group.

If you just submitted the post, wait half an hour and then refresh the Message Archives page. It can take up to a half hour for your post to appear on the website. If you submitted your post some time ago and don't see it, it may have been removed by the discussion manager because it was out-of-date or contained material that was prohibited by our Online Community member agreement or deemed inappropriate.

Classifieds postings will be removed once they are clearly out-of-date. All other postings will remain online indefinitely unless the poster requests that we remove the posting.

It depends on the group. You do not need to be subscribed to the groups/forums in any of the following categories to read the message archives on the web: Alumnae/i Happenings, Classifieds, General, and Networking Groups. You must be subscribed to a specific Affiliate Group, Class, or Clubs/Alumnae/i Networks group/forum to read its message archives.

The "Message Posts" link allows you to look at all prior postings.

If you wish to manage your groups or jump to a group that you visit frequently, you can click "View my groups" to see a listing of all groups to which you are currently subscribed. You can also see a list of groups to which you are subscribed by clicking the "My Profile" link at the top right corner of any page on the AAVC website and scrolling down that page to the "Your Discussion Groups" section.