My D is deciding between several co-ed and all women’s colleges. She loves a lot about single sex education BUT she worries about missing out on having the co-ed experience and having ready access to male friends and potential boyfriends. Her friend group now is co-ed and she really enjoys her guy friends and worries she won’t be able to hang with guys as easily if she is at women’s college. So what is the experience really like at women’s colleges? How frequent are interactions with guys? How hard is it to date at a women’s college?
Are there certain schools she is considering? She could join joint clubs/activities if a school is in a consortium.
Are the women’s colleges she’s considering in a consortium, near other colleges, or a larger town/city? That will definitely indicate how often she will interact with people outside her college.
At Bryn Mawr, I regularly had guys in my classes (mostly Haverford, some Swarthmore) and had several close guy friends at Haverford I met through social clubs. I would go over to their campus apartment a couple times a week to hang out, which was only a mile wway. Because BMC is also close to Philly, I made guy friends from other, unaffiliated colleges (Temple, UArts, Drexel, etc) at social events, concerts, etc. I met my boyfriend, a Temple student, in the fall of my sophomore year. I visited him in the city about twice a week, but he’d also come out to BMC. It’s all about what you make of it. If you want to have a more diverse friend group, there are usually resources available for you to do so (again, depending on the college). But if you want to really focus on being in a women’s only environment, then you can do that, too. I didn’t use online/social media dating, but I think it’s become increasingly popular (especially Tinder, OkCupid, etc) and is an easy way to meet guys in surrounding areas.
What englishivy said. I would say that of my D’s friends who want boyfriends, 4 out of 5 have found decent ones at this point in their first year. Tinder is BIG, as is other social media, and -as much as it pains me since I’m from sucha differnt generation- it’s pretty common/easy to meet guys that way. D and her friends go off to parties at Amherst (usually) and occasionally UMass or Hampshire, often for the sole purpose of meeting boys (the girls who aren’t in the market go along as “wing men”.) D reports that there are also frequent parties organized by social groups on campus where “they bring in busloads of guys” in her words. This is at Mount Holyoke.
My D (BMC grad) didn’t have any problem meeting guys. There are guys in BMC classes–they’re from either Haverford or Swarthmore (all part of the tri-co consortium). Also,there is a post-bac program at Bryn Mawr for folks who want to go to medical school who didn’t have the prerequisite undergraduate courses to apply. This is a coed program so there are post-bac guys in many of the sciences classes. Also, there are many ECs on all three campuses in which all students can participate. My D was into theater and in was in many of the productions on the BMC campus and several at Haverford. All of the productions were coed. Joining a social group that’s coed is a good way to meet guys. My D’s boyfriend went to the same high school as she did (he was two years older) and went to Penn. They met by chance in Philadelphia–D was going to a concert with some friends and so was her boyfriend. They recognized one another and started chatting. . . .
Thanks all! D read this thread and said it was very positive!
lol, once she get to college, don’t worry about her not being able to meet boys