<p>I posted some thoughts that have been brewing about a different way to look at colleges in a thread in the college selection board. I thought it might be interesting to continue the discussion over here so I am going to copy the posts here.</p>
<p>Here's my original post:
Bettina is right - what makes Smith, Smith is the lack of males. However, I have come to think that certain co-ed LACs are more "masculine" or "feminine" than others. Sounds strange but here's what I mean: some LACs attract more aggressively career-oriented students. There is often a more competitive atmosphere between students. These schools tend to be more "preppy" and emphasize male sports and a partying atmosphere. They often have a large percentage of frats and sororities on campus as well. I'd classify these schools as more "masculine" in nature. Examples of "masculine" culture schools include Dickinson, Colgate, Franklin & Marshall, Lake Forest.</p>
<p>On the other side of the coin are schools I classify as having a more "feminine" culture.
These schools tend to attract students who are interested in learning for intellectual or artistic growth, rather than for career potential. The culture of these schools includes more of a focus on political activism, team work, and cooperation. The focus of social life revolves around political causes and artistic pursuits more than drinking parties (not that drinking doesn't occur everywhere). Usually, these schools do not have a large Greek presence. Often, they are formerly all-female schools that are now co-ed. And, of course, the all-female schools generally fall into this category as well. Examples of "feminine culture" schools include Smith, Earlham, Swarthmore,
Goucher, Skidmore, Oberlin, Vassar.</p>
<p>I'm sure some will disagree with this analysis and there are definitely schools that fall somewhere in between but I think if you are attracted to a certain "type" of school in one category - such as Smith - you are best served by looking at other schools that also fall into that category. A good education can be found at many schools but a "good fit" usually requires some attention to things beyond educational quality. Just my humble opinion.</p>
<p>Carolyn: I'm not entirely sure exactly how far one can go with it, but the masculine versus feminine distinction is a fascinating way to think about the subtle (and sometimes not very subtle) distinctions between some of these LAC's. To me, Williams and Colgate have always felt VERY masculine. And it's really the overall "feel," not necessarily just the emphasis on team sports, pre-professional majors, Greek scene, and slightly more "hardcore" drinking.</p>
<p>Now, before the PC Police jump all over me --by defining sports, pre-professionalism, and partying/drinking as "masculine," I'm in no way stating or implying that these characteristics are better or worse than some of the characteristics Carolyn referred to as "feminine," nor am I saying that some perfectly wonderful human beings of the "feminine" gender don't share and perhaps prefer some of these supposedly "masculine" qualities. Carolyn, I understood that you were just "shorthanding" and using common "labels" easily recognizable by most.</p>
<p>Finally, running with this thought a little further, I'm much less familiar with the masculine/feminine "feel" of a few other LAC's which are on my D's radar screen: Amherst (thinking it's something of a muted and toned-down Williams); Pomona (somewhat balanced in this regard -- Scripps is of course much more "feminine," but I'm thinking it's something of a muted Swarthmore); and Carleton (I don't have a clue).</p>
<p>Thanks Carolyn. This will be helpful to me and should be helpful to the OP.</p>
<p>DudeDiligence, Yes, it goes much farther than drinking/partying, etc. and specific genders or specific gender break downs on a campus - it is about the feel of the school overall, it's campus culture and what is valued and shared between students. I've been thinking about this for a while and I think that most colleges probably fall along a spectrum of masculine vs. feminine culture with some at extremes of the spectrum. And, whether a campus has a masculine or feminine culture has nothing to do with the quality of the actual EDUCATION provided - just the culture of campus life. I think you raised another good point - I'm not implying that a male student would be more comfortable on a masculine campus or a female on a feminine campus --- it really is just a matter of personality and fit rather than a "male-female" thing. As you also note, this also probably doesn't work neatly for all schools. </p>
<p>Anyhow, I'd definitely put Carleton towards the feminine side - it's a kind of quirky place, where individuality is welcomed, another characteristic of a "feminine" school now that I think about it. Pomona is probably towards the center - it has aspects of both cultures but it probably falls towards the feminine side. Amherst, in my opinion, would definitely fit on the "masculine" culture side. Thinking about the Ivy league, I'd put Brown and Yale on the feminine culture side, Harvard, Dartmouth and
Cornell in the masculine culture side. I'm not sure how I'd place UPenn (probably towards the masculine side though) and Princeton (I see both masculine and feminine culture characteristics there).</p>
<p>Incidentally, the reason I started thinking about this is because I have two very different children in terms of their personalities. One definitely wants a more "feminine" campus culture, the other would thrive in a more "masculine" culture school. Try to steer either of them towards a school that is way over on the opposite side of culture and they both go "yuck, not for me." And, it has nothing to do with their genders, more to do with their basic underlying personalities.</p>
<p>I don't want to take over the original poster's thred with this discussion so I think I am going to copy the last few links over to the parent's board. Anyone interested in discussing this concept can join the discussion over there.</p>
<p>So what do you guys think? Does this work? What schools would you classify as "feminine" or "masculine" Which schools does this not hold true for?</p>
<p>Carolyn, I think you are right. I know many guys that are looking for macho type schools...sports and wild parties. They wouldn't be caught dead at schools lie Vassar, and Skidmore. Luckily, the student bodies at Vassar and Skidmore wouldn't want them there either.</p>
<p>I am having a real problem with this nomenclature. It is not, in my opinion, "masculine" to be interested in sports and competitiveness and careers. It is not "feminine" to be interested in learning, art, and social activism. I understand that classic stereotypes are being tapped, but why reinstate them? I am not denying that these two different types of schools exist; I'm just asking if it's possible to come up for names for them that don't imply that men want careers and women want to be nurturers.</p>
<p>I don't know whether the terms masculine/feminine are correct, but I really like the approach of intellectual vs career oriented. There is a huge spectrum, with (say) Ga. Tech on one end and maybe something like Bard on the other. But there are some things that skew some schools off this continuum. For example, you would think that CMU would fall on both ends at once (not the middle). And if you think that a computer science degree at CMU is very career-oriented, that might not be the correct interpretation. A CS degreee at CMU is perfect for someone headed off to graduate school and eventual academia (well, I guess that's still career-oriented). So maybe you have something there.</p>
<p>You've limited the schools to LACs and I understand why. I think of most public schools (large and small) as neither of the two ends. Nor do they land in the middle, either. (Did that make sense, or am I losing it?)</p>
<p>Bucknell, Colgate, Lafayette, Williams, Lehigh, Claremont McKenna, USC, U. of Colorado, are male schools.
UCSC, UC Davis, Lawrence, Pitzer, Occidental, Lewis and Clark, Whitman, Sarah Lawrence are female schools.</p>
<p>I think you are on to something Carolyn, and of the schools we visited, pretty much I agree with your characterizations. Amherst, I would classify as a little more gender neutral, than any of the others, mainly because even after 2 visits, we never got a good feel for distinctiveness - my general impression was more urban than the setting would lead you to believe. Carleton, also gives me the impression of a little feminine with strong overlays of quirkiness, outdoorsyness and wholesomeness.
Some other LACs we saw - Davidson, more masculine than feminine, but not as much as Washington and Lee(masculine), with touches of liberalism(particularly for the South), and for lack of a better word "primness", very much a bubble, no rough edges. Rhodes, feminine. Univ of Richmond, masculine, with the women leading their separate corporate existence, not letting the guys in on their secret.</p>
<p>Searchingavalon, I think Dudediligence hit it on the head: I am just trying to use familiar terms to classify schools. I'm not talking about the ACTUAL differences between men and women --- just using those terms as place markers for the cultural aspects of school societies. I hope others will understand this and not get bogged down in the semantics of the words I'm using.</p>
<p>Dig, I've thought about the question of whether large schools and public schools could be classified this way. I think you are right - it is probably more difficult to do for larger schools where there is more variety in the student body and thus not as clear cut of a campus culture.</p>
<p>NYU is not known for its sports teams. I'm not so sure. Most guys I know don't have that school on their list.
Berkeley, a school I went to, is neutral. If you want the macho, frat, or sport stuff, you can have it. You can also have a totally different experience.
UCSB is probably masculine, even without a football team. Wisconsin, Arizona and Texas are masculine.
Wash U, Brown, Emerson are feminine.
Carolyn, almost every student I know looks at schools this way. They just don't verbalize this as well as you.</p>
<p>Whew, Cangel, I was thinking I had missed something about Rhodes. :)</p>
<p>Dstark - yes, I'm not sure about NYU either. I agree that many kids probably do, on an intuitive level, sense this difference about schools. But I'm not so sure many kids spend any time thinking about which type of culture would be the best fit for them.</p>
<p>I think I would actually call Kenyon a more feminine type school, but I don't have first-hand experience.</p>
<p>I agree that colleges can be divided this way for useful purposes, but I do not agree that one of those useful purposes is to exclusively limit the college search. Don't get me wrong-- I do not believe that a student can be happy at any top school, although many of them say they could be in defense of their prestige-seeking. I can not, for instance, believe that Dartmouth and Penn could be a reasonable "top two" for a student.</p>
<p>What makes the "gender" classification different is that I do think students can be happy at both places, and I do not think it should be used as a search tool. There are two reasons that I say this. One, there are so many components (athletics, parties, competitiveness, vague school culture, hearsay) that make up a school's gender that if one likes something about one gender of school, one can also like something about another gender of a school. It reminds me of something we just talked about in biology-- chromosomes assorting independently during meiosis, so that genes that are located on different chromosomes aren't passed on to offspring in a hand-in-hand way. The gender components are often not all there. Two, I honestly believe that I could be happy at any of my prospective top three schools, which are Dartmouth, Washington & Lee (both decidedly masculine) and Swarthmore (decidedly feminine). It has a lot to do with self-identification and the make-up of those three schools. If the gender descriptions that were first provided are the definite guidelines, I suppose I am more of a "feminine" (what a strange thing to say ;) ) student, so I obviously feel good about Swarthmore. But I know I could thrive at the two other schools because a school cannot possibly be so one-way-or-the-other that there isn't a need and an acceptance of both "student genders" at every college.</p>
<p>Carolyn: Great idea to move this topic to the Parents' Board. Not that the students couldn't grasp the subtleties of this distinction (because they most certainly can -- these boards self-select an incredibly gifted breed of student), rather this "feel" kind of issue probably concerns parents more than it does students (albeit that students are ultimately very concerned about it too -- as part of that amorphous "fit" determination).</p>
<p>For Carolyn & SearchingAvalon: What can I say? I did try to be proactive about the possible political "Incorrectness" of the nomenclature. I understand your point completely SA and I recognize that even perpetuating such broad stereotypes can be problematic. It's simply my personality to sometime call a non-issue (at least in the context of the substance of what we're discussing) a non-issue. I didn't want to debate the form of the discussion, rather the substance of the discussion. But I certainly understand how another personality might want to still make the point.</p>
<p>Cangel: I agree with you about Amherst ... it has aspects that make it appear Williams-esque or Dartmouth-esque. On the other hand, I believe the predominant feel is quite a bit more to center than either of those two. My D is very interested in Amherst, while Williams and Dartmouth just leave her cold.</p>
<p>Dstark: Wash-U as feminine? I don't know about that. I think the administration might be -- it promotes that kind of image. But there is too much of a pre-med and pre-professional orientation there to be called "feminine" in the way Carolyn defines that term. Plus, Wash-U has a bit of a Dartmouth-esque work-hard, play-hard edge to it (without the frats).</p>
<p>While I understand classifying colleges as a mechanism to get at the best fit possible for a perspective student, I am uncomfortable with too broad a brush in painting a picture of these schools. For example, Skidmore has a very active drinking scene and a significant culture of careerism. Williams has an Oxford style mentorship program which would fit into the current "feminine" definition. Can either school be responsibly characterized as feminine or masculine? I'm sure many examples of these masculine/feminine perspectives can be found at the schools already mentioned in this thread. The combination of factors which combine to make a school a good fit for a particular student may be complex or may be as simple as the "feel" that a student gets when walking on a campus and is able to see themselves being there. My own hypothesis is that the fit, and even the "feel" is complex and we need to be careful about classifying in a way which might obscure the diverse offerings that most of the colleges might present to the prospective student.</p>
<p>I believe WilliyWonka makes some outstanding points (frankly, I've believed that Willy and Roald Dahl made some amazing points, but that's a topic for another thread). I was just about to say some similar things.</p>
<p>First, this sort of analysis is obviously broad-brushed generalizations. However, broad-brushed generalizations can be useful as a starting point for investigation, contemplation, and discussion, provided its limitations are also kept in mind. Frankly, I like getting some opinion on these kind of highly subjective "feel" matters, just like I like hearing opinions about the political orientation on a given campus.</p>
<p>Second, identifying a school in this way can lead to some interesting thoughts about a student's "school selection process" and a school's "student selection process." Some think that schools like Brown and Wesleyan -- undoubtedly feminine under this profiling -- are actively trying to recenter themselves and become a little more centrist in their orientation. We know an artsy-type student rejected by Brown and accepted by Princeton; we know another artsy-type student rejected by Wesleyan and accepted by Cornell. Clearly, this is not statistically significant at all, but it raises the question as to whether schools might consciously or subconsciously seek to modify their "type." And while a student should make a holistic choice and choose a school that best fits the student's overall characteristics, you can certainly see how a student could use all of this information as two important components in their overall assessment: (1) some students may want to extend their education to live amongst the OTHER type -- sort of a stay-at-home "study abroad" program; and (2) some students might deliberately apply to the opposite kind of school (provided they believe they'd be comfortable at that school and would otherwise fit) to gain a kind of "diversity" edge in the student's application -- e.g., an "artsy" student might apply to Penn because they believe Penn gets such an abundance of students fitting the pre-professional/business/engineering profile; and a "math/sci" kind of student might apply to Brown or Vassar because of the common perception that SO MANY artsy people apply there, but not nearly as many math/sci people.</p>
<p>Anyway, more broad-brushed generalizations to be sure. And by no means am I endorsing trying to "game" or "figure out" the admissions system. I'm smart enough to know that I'm not smart enough for that. I do think it's a point worth considering, even if it's a minor point, as one assesses the million and one other factors involved in assembling an application list.</p>
<p>mol10e: Excellent points. I think you do have to be careful about the generalizations. I also think that these characterizations might have some utility in defining at least the most pervasive characteristics of a given school, knowing of course that there are probably all aspects to be found at even the most "masculine" or "feminine" school. Your examples made perfect sense. Rice and Carnegie Mellon have both sides in abundance. So do Oberlin and Brown. And yet . . .</p>