<p>i guess this is somewhat self explanatory.
i’ll start
open curriculum (smith) vs many (?) required courses
northampton vs wellesley, bryn mawr
lower sats v higher sats -don’t know what difference this makes, maybe just that smith people weren’t super college crazy in hs, or weren’t good at standardized tests, or didn’t take expensive prep courses, or even that bm and w student are empirically smarter (though I dont trust the sats). it could also be one indicator of how much harder it is to get into wellesly and bm also possibily better academics, reputation at wellesley, bm ??)</p>
<p>i know more about smith than bm and wellesley because the open curriculum and semeter in washington is a big draw for me, plus all the nice, enthusiastic, helpful people on the smith board- not to say w and bm aren’t active and nice, just that i have some more experience on the smith one. i don’t mean to sound biased in my comparisons or make bm and w seem identical</p>
<p>all seem very liberal, accepting of gays, and rank high in washington monthly forservice and being a place for upward mobility ie, lots of people get financial aid.</p>
<p>i dont know much about wellesley, but i transferred from bryn mawr and met quite a few transfers from smith here at my new school. i still absolutely love bryn mawr (i transferrred b/c it was too similar to my high school experience and i wanted a change). it's teachers are amazing and students are all very passionate about what they do. from what ive heard about smith from transfers here, the classes were not difficult at all. the teachers seemed comparable to the ones at bryn mawr, but the students generally didn't feel challanged. one thing that surprised me was that, on facebook, someone had created a group that was about how they wanted to transfer from smith, and quite a few people were a part of it. there was nothing like that at bryn mawr. of course, in general, there are people (like me) that leave all-womens colleges the first year because they found it was not what they wanted, or, in my case, was too much what they wanted. however, there is so much pride in bryn mawr, even from people that transfer. i cant say enough good things about it. if you think an all-womens college is for you, you really cant go wrong with bryn mawr. it's near philly, good food, and a lot of other colleges, and has incredible traditions. i worried about the required courses before i got there, too, but they really are not that bad. compared to where i transferred, they were really easy requirements! in the end, u really only have to take 4 courses outside of ur major and possibly a year or two of language...and believe me, you'll want to take those courses outside of ur major! the good thing is you'll get requirements out of the way while doing it :)</p>
<p>"someone had created a group that was about how they wanted to transfer from smith, and quite a few people were a part of it. there was nothing like that at bryn mawr. there is so much pride in bryn mawr, even from people that transfer."</p>
<p>This is not a universal experience. It varies a lot from year to year and also depends on who your friends are. My sophomore year, we had a transfer support group, and Penn alone accepted three transfers just from Erdman.</p>