All Guy/Girl School Yay or Nay

College Search & Selection
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<p>Women who are famous today generally went to college when these schools were all-male. It's only been 25 years in Haverford's case. Are the future Hillary Clintons of this high school generation still flocking to Wellesley, as opposed to Princeton? Not if the Yale Law School enrollment figures are accurate.</p>

<p>I'd also bet that most on this thread would be hard pressed to name ANY famous graduates of Wesleyan and Haverford, period.</p>

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<p>Look at Yale's numbers alone: the number of Yale undergrads attending either law school or medical school upon graduation have dropped 63% and 66% respectively over the past decade. Do I think the quality of Yale students has dropped? Not one bit. But the quality differential has dropped radically.</p>

<p>I graduated from Williams in the year it became co-ed. That's 35 years ago...(which would make students from that era 53-58 years old) and I still can't name a well-known female graduate from the period - and I'm an alum! (But I can name a host of the male ones.) </p>

<p>Anyway, it's a thought exercise. Just off the top of my head, from the same period, besides Hillary, I can name Wendy Wasserstein, Susan Lori-Parks, Lauren Lazin, Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Molly Ivins, Tammy Baldiwin, Sheryl MccCarthy, Margaret Edson, and Yolanda King. </p>

<p>I don't think the women's colleges have to make the case that the education they offer is better. I think the others have to make the case that - for women - the education they offer is as good.</p>

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<p>And I can name, off the top of my head, co-ed college graduates Maya Lin, Elizabeth Dole, Erica Jong, Pamela Thomas-Graham, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O'Connor, Janet Reno, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Carol Moseley-Braun, Condoleezza Rice, Ann Richards, Nadine Strosser, Patty Murray, Olympia Snowe, Constance Baker Motley, Oprah Winfrey, and Maureen Dowd.</p>

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<p>If the number of graduates enrolling at Johns Hopkins med, Yale Law, Wharton, and the like doesn't give you your answer, look at the number of Bryn Mawr and Smith women transferring to Harvard and Penn versus the reverse. It's simply naive to suppose that when they opened Yale up to women, Yale wasn't going to skim off a lot of the cream. But perhaps you think that the caliber of students you live and work with doesn't have much to do with the education offered by a college, in which case you and I are in the midst of a disagreement so hopeless that it's pointless to continue.</p>

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Just as an interesting thought exercise: try to name a famous female graduate of Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, Haverford, Yale, Princeton - it can be done, of course, but I'll bet most of you have to work at it.

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<p>Where's Larry Summers when we need him? I'm sure that he could hypothesize about some obscure research demonstrating that women are not genetically capable of being famous.</p>

<p>Oh, wait. That kind of gets to the point you were making about Historically Male Schools, doesn't it?</p>

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<p>My daughter was advised against the same-sex schools by a fairly young friend of my wife's who is a Bryn Mawr graduate. It was her opinion that the social situation that she experienced there was not good. Those other schools around there that you cited, proud2beherdad: all of these schools are themselves coed. This makes the odds for the Bryn Mawr female very poor. In this person's experience.</p>

<p>Daughter overnighted at Wellesley, and did research. Social scene did not seem too great from what she saw.</p>

<p>Two great schools though, academically. Both seriously damaged when the male schools went coed, IMO.</p>

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<p>I was strongly considering Smith and Spelman. I know Spelman's engineering classes were held in another school so I could meet guys there. I really don't have any guy friends so I would not mind it that much.</p>

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<p>I am a girl, and I would attend a single-gender college. Early on in my college search, I dismissed all single-gender schools from consideration. However, as I delve deeper into what I want out of my college experience, I have come to realize that an women’s college would be just as likely to be a match for me as would a co-ed institution. I admit that this would be a completely different experience from that which you would have at a co-ed school, but I don’t think that this is necessarily a bad thing.</p>

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<p>When my daughter was 1 or 2 years old
her two cousins were students @ Bryn Mawr.
Yes, they also complained of the "social scene"
or the lack thereof. These two women graduated
from Bryn Mawr in the late 80's, obtained advanced
degrees, are career women, happily married &
raising a family. </p>

<p>BTW, my D made Bryn Mawr her # 1 choice
even though she was accepted @ Syracuse U.
and her boyfriend lives in Syracuse.</p>

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<p>Exactly. I wouldn't characterize the social scene at Bryn Mawr or any other women's college as "lacking" per se; I'd characterize it as different. It's only "lacking" if you're missing out on something that you want. If what you want is a more intimate, low-key campus life, then you'll find exactly what you're looking for.</p>

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<p>This other person I mentioned apparently had a different experience. She would, and did, characterize it to us as lacking. Not only because of the guy thing, but also she found the people there generally not very social, in her opinion. She spent a lot of time at Haverford which she found somewhat better, but the net result of the whole experience is that she did not recommend it for my daughter when asked. For these reasons.</p>

<p>Others may have different experiences from what she had. It's important to get as many perspectives as one can, but this is one of them.</p>

<p>There are undoubtedly differences due to the gender issue, however "a more intimate, low-key campus life" can be found at a number of LACs I would think, not just same-sex ones.</p>

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<p>Well, don't get me wrong, I found it lacking, too -- so much so that I started making transfer plans on my third night there. My social life improved about a thousandfold after I transferred! But I know that many of my BMC classmates there were better off there, socially and otherwise, than they would have been at a coed LAC or university, because they really wanted an atmosphere that was quiet, safe, and cozy. I honestly think that it's the best school for some women. I'm just not one of them!</p>

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<p>Being at an all girls' high school now, I wouldn't mind attending an all women's college. The benefits outweigh the losses.</p>

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<p>D, who attended an all-girl sch from k-8, would pref women's college to purpotedly co-ed college where the women outnumber the men 2:1 (ie Goucher, Wheaton)</p>

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<p>I think it just depends on the person, but i say nay</p>

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<p>I would go to Wellesley b/c it's close to a bunch of other colleges where I could meet guys. And it cross-registers with MIT.</p>

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<p>No for me too -- though if I was I guy, I'd've looked pretty hard at Deep Springs. Sometimes there's nothing worse than a group of girls -- if there's even one bad egg, there're just so many under-the-surface tensions that nobody REALLY talks about (except to people who aren't at all involved), and I hate that sort of thing. This is especially bad when there are SOME guys around, but not nearly enough to "go around." Ugh.
But I think what's most important to me is this: I want to be a physics major, and I'd better learn to work with (and not be intimidated by) the boys NOW, 'cause if I can't figure that out, I'm not gonna be a very successful physics grad student or physicist, am I? So while a girls' school might be more comfortable in some ways, I'd much much much rather go for the co-ed college experience.
...Except for the coed bathrooms. Thank God Stanford doesn't do that.</p>

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<p>YET! The good thing about SSS is you don't have to worry about that sort of thing.</p>

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<p>sorry for the ignorance...
but is Wellsley prestigious???</p>

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<p>
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I have to make an exception to my earlier post - Deep Springs - that place is the only one cool enough so I can forego girls while at school.

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<p>Yeah, I really wouldn't even consider going to an all-male school other than Deep Springs. However, I recently attended Boys State, so I'm envisioning Deep Springs as the people in my wing of the dorm, roughly 20 (compared to Deep Springs' 26 students), for four years, in a flat plains instead of forest setting.</p>

<p>My god, I don't know if I could stand that. Four years. At least there were 350 people in all at the program...I don't know...Deep Springs is awesome, no doubt, but I don't know if I could pass up certain other colleges, less in prestige, if they accepted me.</p>

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<p>after going to an all guys high school- Hell no</p>