Hi everyone!
I am currently a junior and am excited to begin the application process during the upcoming summer. I’ve taken a lot of interest in women’s colleges and am infatuated with the sense of community and empowerment that they foster. I hear that each college has a pretty distinct vibe and “type” of personality. Could anyone recommend a WC that has its share of artsy/creative types but is equally as academic and hardworking? I’m primarily looking for schools in the northeast, but any suggestions would be helpful.
The Seven Sisters colleges are in the Northeast and all have their share of artsy/creative types and excellent academic reputations. They certainly have their own personalities, which are shaped in part by their location and association with other colleges. [ul]
[li]Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley: Offer creative arts majors on their own campuses[/li][li]Barnard: Adjacent to (and part of) Columbia University. [/li][li]Bryn Mawr: Music and fine arts classes held at Haverford, a nearby co-ed LAC[/li][li]Vassar: Formerly a women’s college, it is now co-ed but still 60% women. Offers creative arts majors on their campus.[/li][/ul]
If California is an option, you might also consider Scripps College. It also has an excellent academic reputation and is part of the Claremont Consortium, a group of five undergraduate colleges and two graduate schools with adjoining campuses and shared facilities and services.
If possible, visit each and see where you feel most at home. Tip: visit while classes are in session so you can attend a class and interact with students. It’s a very different experience if you visit during the summer or other breaks.
Good luck!
As noted above, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, Barnard, and Bryn Mawr (in the northeast), and Scripps (in California) are probably the top choices for women’s colleges. All of these schools will have strong academics and hard-working students, including artsy/creative types.
Although these are all women’s colleges, there will be a more noticeable male presence at Barnard, Bryn Mawr, and Scripps. These schools are in consortiums with coed schools that are located in close proximity (walking distance), with a relatively high degree of academic and social intermixing. Mt. Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley also have links to coed schools, but those schools are further away (bus distance), and there is less intermixing.
At Bryn Mawr, music and fine arts classes are actually at coed Haverford, as noted above. On the other hand, Bryn Mawr has its own creative writing, dance, and theater programs, which draw students from Haverford. Note that 100% of Bryn Mawr students and 52% of Haverford students are female, so even in mixed Bi-College programs, women are likely to substantially outnumber men.
Vassar is a former women’s college that still has a significant female majority, and still retains some of the women’s college atmosphere. If former women’s colleges are acceptable, then two similar (but slightly less selective) schools in the northeast would be Skidmore and Connecticut College.
Mills is arty and it would work as a safety. It also has cross registration with a very good art school. It has a fine music program and cross registration with Berkeley. Also it dropped its tuition by about a third this year.
I’ll also add that Bryn Mawr has a stellar Art History department, You’ll definitely find artsy types on campus.
Bryn Mawr (if no one mentioned this before) is arty in the sense of having theater and dance on campus. it also has a studio arts STUDIO but the classes for studio arts are at its twin campus, Haverford. A very arty person I know welcomed this arrangement because she wanted to have a reason to go to Haverford as a break from her studies at BMC and she was fine with not submitting a studio art portfolio to BMC even though hers is quite good. When touring she set out to find both the studio at BMC, which is a little off to the side in a pretty building, and then at Haverford, which has more facilities.
Hello! I am a current student and tour guide at Bryn Mawr College and I would be happy to answer your question. Like you, I was also very interested in women’s colleges - I visited all of the five sisters schools! Bryn Mawr was definitely my favorite out of all of them.
We have a very tight knit community (1300 undergraduates + those in graduate school) and I think that our traditions are the most unique out of all the women’s colleges (We have 4 main traditions - Parade Night, Lantern Night, Welcome the First-years Week, and May Day).
Bryn Mawr definitely does have an “artsy” aspect to it! We have an art studio and a great art program as well (https://www.brynmawr.edu/arts ). And as a student at BMC, you have the ability to go to Haverford College (only 10 min away by using the free transportation within the Bi-Co) and take art classes there, participate in theater, or major in art!
And in general, our community is very welcoming and empowering. At Bryn Mawr it isn’t a competition between students, but it is a competition between ourselves (the Academic and Social Honor Code are very prominent in our community - https://www.brynmawr.edu/deans/academic-and-community-integrity ).
If you have any other questions, feel free to contact your Admissions Officer for your region. Their contact information can be found here: https://www.brynmawr.edu/admissions/regional/officers . I hope this helps!
Although no longer a women’s college, Bennington sounds like it could for the bill for you as both an arty and intellectual community. Similar to Vassar, it’s still about a 65/45 female/male ratio.
Hey @wondries – any updates on your application plans? I’m asking because you sound very similar to my D20 so I’m curious how your search process has gone!
Ohmygosh I’m sorry that I’m just now responding! This website gives me horrible application anxiety so I’ve been actively avoiding it for my senior year. And yes, I have finally curated a college list! After months of deliberation, I’ve decided to apply to Wellesley, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Brown, Wesleyan, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Sarah Lawrence. Every now and then I flirt with the idea of adding another school to the list but I am really trying to put my best foot forward with every application and not spread myself too thin. Right now I’m looking into studying architecture and urban studies, but I would also love to explore English literature and creative writing. All these schools offer varying versions of those programs, so woot-woot! Sometimes I wonder if I haven’t discovered the perfect school yet, and I often find myself looking at various lists and rankings of the top liberal arts schools online. I constantly have to remind myself that no perfect school exists, that even Harvard isn’t heaven, and I have 9 amazing options already picked out. It’s also hard hearing where my classmates are applying, which makes me question my picks even further. I know- it’s extremely silly. I know myself and I know what kind of environment is right for me, and yet I still find myself seeking validation from them and from my teachers. Last year I felt so sure of myself, and this year it feels like I am somehow moving backward. I feel constantly anxious, and the constant noise surrounding the application process doesn’t help. I just want to be accepted into one of these amazing schools and get on with my life.
Real quick- sorry for the random vent, but I really needed to spell it out to a random stranger on the internet.
Thanks for your reply @Itisatruth it means a lot. Hope your daughter is doing well (:
Urban Studies – Bryn Mawr has a fantastic program. Glad to see that on your list.
From your list you will be accepted somewhere. Best of luck.
Hop- “Although no longer a women’s college, Bennington sounds like it could for the bill for you as both an arty and intellectual community. Similar to Vassar, it’s still about a 65/45 female/male ratio”.
110%?
@wondries OK off you go, don’t hang out here if it’s giving you app/list anxiety, I totally get that! You have an awesome and very coherent list and are sure to find your people and your programs somewhere in there. Please come back next spring after all is said and done and let us know where you’re headed! We’re visiting Sarah Lawrence this weekend but I have to say as we look across my D20’s list I keep coming back to BMC and MHC as the sweet spots for her. Time will tell.
@Itisatruth Thank you for the kind words! I wish the best for your daughter as well.
@wondries: Although coed, did you consider Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York ?
Nocreativity1 - good catch and boy is my face red.
I’m not typically math-challenged, but must have been a long day…
I strongly encourage you to look at Mount Holyoke. It has an art museum that was founded in 1876 during the same decade as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts. It was ranked #11 of the best collegiate art museums by bestcollegereviews.org, just behind #10, the Yale University Art Gallery founded in 1832. The age of the museum is significant because it has been collecting diligently during all of the years since it acquired its first painting in 1876 by the then-contemporary artist Albert Bierstadt (he gave the two ladies who acquired it for the College a bit of a discount). As a result, the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum is something of a mini-Metropolitan Museum. It has significant collections of ancient coins, antiquities, Asian, Islamic and Italian Renaissance Art (a piece of the Maesta altarpiece by Duccio) as well as contemporary prints and drawings and American art. As a student there, I became fast friends with the masterpieces I studied. Today, there is a “Society of Art Goddesses” who have a great deal of fun supporting the museum and their T-shirts are coveted! All of the academic departments use the resources of the Art Museum. So, you might see a group of chemists analyzing the properties of the paint in a new acquisition, a group of neurobiologists studying the science of memory, and other students practicing their presentation skills as they discuss one of the works in the current exhibition. The museum is faithfully supported by a group of alumnae known as the Art Advisory Board that makes sure that the museum is getting the appropriate attention from the College administration. Graduates go on to significant careers in the arts and museums. My college roommate is the Education and Academic Affairs Community Arts Director at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Hope this is helpful.
@dc20016 yep, looks like MHC is on OP’s list! I agree it’s a fabulous school (and Museum!)
At the risk of overwhelming you, you might find these articles worth reading through:
The 10 Best Colleges for Creative Writers | The Freelancer
http://contently.net/2014/11/06/resources/10-best-colleges-creative-writers/
The 25 Most Literary Colleges in America | Flavorwire
http://flavorwire.com/409437/the-25-most-literary-colleges-in-america
And
https://education.seattlepi.com/university-united-states-creative-writing-courses-2243.html