Bryn Mawr vs. Scripps

College Search & Selection
21

<p>Bryn Mawr is a great place academically. Much less competitive a place to get into that would be suggested by this quality thanks to no men need apply. Scripps, though a upstart, actually has a student body with somewhat stronger admit stats than Bryn Mawr these days likely because of the consortium. Agree with points already made in this regard. Scripps feels (and is) more balanced male/female-wise sitting among 4 other schools (esp. with Mudd and CMC male dominant) than Bryn Mawr does in mixing it up with Haverford.</p>

<p>I’d also warn you look carefully into cross-reg between Bryn Mawr and Penn. My understanding is that on multiple levels this is technically very difficult to do and rarely utilized. If Hindi/Portugese are in the mix (and important) might be better served yielding to a large research u.</p>

22

<p>^ In addition, there are cooperative programs that don’t count toward off-campus limits. Philosophy, for example, is cooperative between Scripps, Mudd, CMC, and CGU, even though each has its own department/program.</p>

<p>Essentially, the off-campus course limits function to keep students from viewing one Claremont school as a “backdoor” into another. The policies are unlikely to stand in the way of your enrolling in any off-campus courses that you need or want. So know that the rules exist, pay attention to them, but don’t get hung up on them. One of the great benefits of a school as small as Scripps is flexibility. After my freshman year, I never took more than half my classes on-campus…one semester I had five off-campus and one Scripps audit. Technically, I think I was supposed to take half of my minor courses on campus, but I took 1/6 and never heard a thing about it. I took more off-campus courses than most people I knew, not to get away from Scripps or to push any limits, but just because it made sense for me. In any case, we all cross-registered pretty freely, and I don’t remember ever talking or worrying about limits. Just my own experience.</p>

<p>As for “finishing school” aspects, I think that they’re traditions held dearly by, but not necessarily reflective of, the student body. Weekly tea, for example, grew out of a daily formal tea, but is now pretty much just an excuse for free food on Wednesday afternoons. Most teas are themed or sponsored by different campus organizations. Sometimes there’s entertainment (e.g., live music/dancing), and if you feel like it, then it’s a chance to mingle with everyone from your friends to your professors to the college President. As another example, I think early Scripps students were required to learn to play the piano, and each dorm living room still has one. These days, they’re used by any student who feels like playing, and occasionally for a cappella rehearsals. The school hasn’t rejected its past, but it’s not lingering in it, either.</p>

<p>OP: Educational bargains or not, are these applications actually worth your time? Your parents are so turned off by women’s colleges that they’re limiting you to one application, and you yourself seem similarly unenthused. I think that both Scripps and BMC are fantastic schools, and I know that plenty of students (myself sort of included) wind up at women’s colleges in spite of rather than because of their being single-sex, but having read many of your posts, something just doesn’t feel right.</p>

<p>ETA: To clarify, Scripps Core is 3 semesters. There is also a one semester freshman writing requirement, but this is separate from the Core program.</p>

23

<p>Student615 - Believe it or not (from our previous correspondence), Scripps was on my list long before I visited Bryn Mawr and liked it. Despite all of my worries and the less-than-perfect academic fit, I’m somehow attracted to the Scrippsie vibe and I can’t bring myself to let it go. So maybe that’s a sign that I should quit cheating on Scripps with Bryn Mawr? Hehe.</p>

24

<p>The Scripps policy about off-campus courses on paper and the policy in actual practice are very different. If your adviser signs off on your schedule, you really don’t have to worry about the number of off-campus courses which you have. I know tons of people who took non-Scripps classes first semester, for reasons ranging from “I need to take this particular language” to “it looks interesting to me.” There are also numerous “loopholes” in the policy which aren’t mentioned in that particular statement. Many classes listed as, say, women’s studies, count as 5-C classes. My major, History, is in some kind of joint program whereby History courses at most of the other colleges don’t technically “count” towards the limit, which primarily exists on paper anyway.</p>

25

<p>I’d pick Bryn Mawr in your situation. It’s an amazing feeder school to top grad programs.</p>

26

<p>kx,
my D is not currently at Bryn Mawr. Like you she’s a HS junior, thinking about applying. Penn is about 20 minutes by train from either Bryn Mawr or Haverford, plus a 5-10 min walk depending on exactly where you’re going on the Penn campus. The transport seems a little easier than Swat, actually. Cross-registration at Penn is “technically difficult,” as we understand it, only in the sense that you need to show the courses are not offered in the BiCo; then there’s some paperwork to get through, but once you’ve done it, Bryn Mawr even pays for your train tickets. The schedule may or may not work for Portuguese and Hindi; we really don’t know. But we did talk to several Haverford and Bryn Mawr students who took course at Penn, who all said it’s doable. These sorts of opportunities are not available at the Claremont colleges. If you want to study Portuguese and/or Hindi, you’re looking at maybe a couple of dozen leading research universities. If you want to combine those things with a LAC experience, you’re looking at the Quaker Consortium; Barnard-Columbia; or the Five Colleges (Amherst-Smith-Mt Holyoke-Hampshire-UMass Amherst). For a lot of reasons, the Quaker Consortium at present seems like the best fit for my D, subject to change before the apps go in, of course. Opportunities may vary in other fields.</p>

27

<p>I definitely agree that if you’re serious about linguistics, Penn is a huge asset. I’m not so sure about being serious though, myself. Hmm.</p>

28

<p>

</p>

<p>Obviously no one should select a LAC based on collegeconfidential’s perceptions. But that wasn’t the point – the point was that collegeconfidential is just one example. Bryn Mawr has had a reputation as a top LAC for women since the 19th Century. Scripps’ reputation is growing (as it deserves to), but it has not had as strong a reputation for as long a time as Bryn Mawr. So Bryn Mawr is the stronger name in academia, and among the general public.</p>

29

<p>OP - I think you have identified a significant difference in one of your first posts… Scripps is co-located, contiguous, with Mudd, CMC, Pitzer, Pomona. In fact Mudders wre quite irritated recently about not being able to use the Scripps pool for awhile as is their custom (cannot remember the reason). Therefore, a student at Scripps self selects the degree to which they experience the 5Cs as a coed experience.</p>

<p>Others have noted that Bryn Mawr enjoys more prestige for historic reasons, while Scripps actually enrolls higher testing students.</p>

<p>No one can advise you as to the relevance for you of the cultural/weather differences between SoCal and Bryn Mawr.</p>

<p>This is really a ‘feel’ decision, as the academics are a push.</p>

30

<p>When I was there, you had to switch train lines to get from BMC to the University City station (Penn). There’s no way you could schedule a class with only a 25 minute travel cushion – I’d give it an hour. For a once-a-week class, that’s not necessarily a big deal. If you’re taking a language, that’s going to be a serious pain in the butt IMHO. The Swat train line does go directly to Penn.</p>

<p>Majoring in linguistics at Swat can be done. I would really want a car by junior year, though – it would be tiresome to take the shuttle every single day.</p>

31

<p>^ You don’t need to go to the University City station. You can take the train from Bryn Mawr or Haverford to 30th St. Station and walk the 3 or 4 blocks to the Penn campus, or hop on a Market Street subway and take it one stop to 34th and Market; depending on the time of day, those trains run every 4 to 6 minutes. Changing to a train for the University City station would be silly— waste a lot of time and only put you a few blocks closer to the buildings you’d want to go to in Penn’s College of Arts & Sciences.</p>

32

<p>^
completely accurate.
Know of a couple of people who lived by BMC/Haverford and commuted to Penn precisely as described above.</p>

33

<p>Bryn Mawr certainly has a silk stocking, Philadelphia mainline reputation from back in the day and has a gorgeous campus. But I would hesitate to advocate for the school with my own daughters for the following mostly politically incorrect and sometimes superficial reasons.
First, as Hanna brings up, for a daughter who thinks she may be heterosexual, the situation is not good. Haverford itself has a feminine majority and the males remind me of Vassar males. Maybe closer to their mothers than to their fathers growing up.
Second is the local pecking order. Haverford today has students with much stronger academic profiles than Bryn Mawr students. And this is a school where students get the response, when telling others where they go to school, hear “uh… Harvard?”. Penn and Swarthmore have much stronger students than either BM or Haverford, and the students there know it.
Third is a somewhat morose sense I have of Bryn Mawr. The “Mawrter” thing.
I get the impression that Scripps students are bathed in sunshine, and while stronger students than those at Bryn Mawr, enjoy the sun as well as the company of brilliant budding physicists, gender bending hippies, politicos to be, and intellectuals at Pomona every bit the match of those at Swarthmore.
If you want to study Hindi or Portuguese, I would advocate spending time in countries where the tongues are spoke rather than make US college plans around it.
If the test of a safety is that it is a place you would WANT to go to school, the answer to me is Scripps. The more so if the opportunity to experience a different part of the country is a plus.</p>

34

<p>^ danas,</p>

<p>I beg to differ. I’d classify both Haverford and Bryn Mawr as hidden gems—bastions of academic excellence that float mostly below the radar screen of our increasingly shallow, US News-driven national sense if what counts as excellence in higher education. That said, both schools hold up extremely well in the US News rankings, and for good reason. They’re just outstanding schools that consistently attract outstanding faculty and outstanding students. The statistical differences between Scripps and Bryn Mawr students are pretty trivial, especially when weighed against the strengths of Bryn Mawr’s faculty.</p>

<p>True, Scripps has the advantage of sunshine and warmer weather. On the other hand, it’s located in a far distant suburb of LA, a good 40 minutes or more from the center of a city that has no real center. Without a car, your access to LA is close to worthless. Of course, you could have a car, as many Scripps students do (and for the record, the parking garage was a highlight of our Scripps tour guides’ overview of the campus). But for those of us more accustomed to more compact Eastern cities with good public transport and lower carbon footprints, that’s not exactly a big attraction.</p>

<p>Look, I don’t want to knock Scripps. It’s a very good school, and the top Claremonts, especially Pomona and Harvey Mudd, are outstanding. But in head-to-head competition on the academic merits, I think any honest comparison would put Bryn Mawr squarely ahead of Scripps, by a not insignificant margin. If, on the other hand, you want to let homophobia taint the contest, you might elect to avoid Bryn Mawr. But that’s a larger discussion. My sense is it’s an issue of shrinking relevance to today’s youth, who seem to be pretty comfortable with a live-and-let-live view of the world. And young women, in particular, seem far less concerned about the budding physicists and (male) intellectuals they might meet, than about their own academic and professional careers. The assumption is that appropriate relationships will follow, and I see no reason to dispute that.</p>

35

<p>“Penn and Swarthmore have much stronger students than either BM or Haverford, and the students there know it.”</p>

<p>Swarthmore mid-50% SATs (CR/M/W) from 2008-09 CDS: 680-760/670-760/660-760</p>

<p>Haverford ditto: 650-740/650-740/650-750</p>

<p>I wouldn’t call that “much” stronger. </p>

<p>I dig Scripps (and the rest of the 5Cs, which I think is the best consortium out there) but have to say that the old girl network is probably stronger at Bryn Mawr, at least in the east.</p>

<p>By the way, I don’t think homophobes will be happy at very many good colleges. Stick to Grove City, Bob Jones and Liberty, guys.</p>

36

<p>

I thought I had heard it all but this one takes the cake!</p>

37

<p>You don’t have to be homophobic to want to enjoy your heterosexuality in a gender-balanced community. Neither Bryn Mawr nor Scripps is a good choice for a homophobe.</p>

38

<p>I will not have a car at either school–I hate driving. Public transportation is a plus but a small one, as I probably wouldn’t make much use of it; I’m not a city girl. In essence, I prefer the atmosphere of Scripps but the academics of Bryn Mawr.</p>

39

<p>

</p>

<p>It’s actually fairly simple to take the train into LA if you don’t have a car. There’s a train stop in the village that’s walking distance from the Claremont Colleges, and from there you can take the metrolink into LA. I did it many times as an undergrad. The Claremont Village and a smal shoping center across the street from Harvey Mudd are also walkable. However to get to either of the nearby Targets you’ll want to know someone with a car. The bus system, like most of SoCal, is pretty nonexistent.</p>

40

<p>“And this is a school where students get the response, when telling others where they go to school, hear “uh… Harvard?”.”</p>

<p>I would disregard this comment completely. People who don’t know Haverford from Harvard are probably not the kind of people whose opinions matter. I’m not going to deny that Haverford is more selective than Bryn Mawr, but once again the applicant pool is very self selected. A lot of the applicants have higher stats in terms of gpa and SAT scores, but I hardly think that makes the overall student body more intellectually robust. Bryn Mawr is known to be the most academically focused school out of the seven sisters. In academia Bryn Mawr is HIGHLY respected. My uncle attended BMC for grad school and anyone who knows anything about colleges is never failed to be impressed when he tells them he graduated from BMC. </p>

<p>“Penn and Swarthmore have much stronger students than either BM or Haverford, and the students there know it.”
I have to disagree with this. I think the majority of the students within the quaker consortium view all four colleges as peer schools. Students who look down upon bryn mawr and haverford are the ignorant minority.</p>

<p>You have two amazing choices. I think you should just go with your gut on this one, because you can’t really go wrong.</p>