Abstract Name Student no. Study Program Department Title : Herlinawati : 1409200080035 : Magister Degree in English Education : English Education : Vocabulary Learning Strategy used by EFL Private University Students in Banda Aceh ____________________________________________________________________ Keywords: Vocabulary learning strategy, Schmitt VSL taxonomy. This study was aimed to find out the preferred vocabulary learning strategies applied by the private university students in learning English at Serambi Mekkah and Muhammadiyah university. Besides that, the most and the least frequently used vocabulary learning strategies for each group was also examined. This quantitative study employed a cross-sectional survey method for data collection. A total of 70 students from The English Department of two private universities; Serambi Mekkah (USM) and Muhammdiyah University (UNMUHA) Banda Aceh Indonesia took part in this study. The questionnaire was adopted from a previous study by Al-bidawi (2018) using Schmitt vocabulary learning strategies taxonomy. Five main catagories were tested. They were memory, determination, social, cognitive and metacognitive strategies. The results of the study revealed that social strategies were the most strategies that students employed in learning foreign language with mean of 2.4731 and standard deviation of .0573124. While the least preferred strategy was cognitive, with a mean score of 2.0177 and standard deviation of .558912.