<p>Well, I guess it’s excusable so long as there’s alcohol and football involved. </p>
<p>The point that others have been making here is that what the OP claimed to have seen or claimed her daughter had seen is really no more shocking than what goes on daily at any co-ed university. If you’ve never experienced it, well, that doesn’t make it untrue. As an older person, I doubt you would be included in these kinds of conversations. The only thing that could make it more shocking than what she’d see at any co-ed university is that what she saw was happening between two women and it seems that the whole basis for her objection is not that the behavior was sexual, but that it was homosexual. She didn’t say Smith was a mecca for the oversexed, she said it was a mecca for lesbians and that is why you would need a stomach of iron, to survive four years of exposure to homosexual behavior.</p>
<p>This was an open campus week, which I’m guessing means everybody on campus knew that there would be plenty of outsiders (including high school kids) looking around. With that as a backdrop, do you really think that the make-out couples and the dirty-talk diners didn’t know they had an audience that would be unaccustomed to such stuff? Is it so hard to believe that they did what they did as an intentional attempt to get a rise out of some un-hip squares? Is the Smith campus so huge that the prone lovers couldn’t make it back to their rooms before hitting the dirt?</p>
<p>It’s possible, Schmaltz. It occurred to me that a minority of students may have decided that they could influence the type of women who chose to attend by their talk of sex and their more-than-hand-holding PDA. Of course, it’s equally possible that these women behave as described on a daily basis and didn’t consider that they might shock high school students and their parents.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that the OP and her daughter saw/heard what they did. I just think that a few incidents were generalized to encompass the behavior of all Smithies.</p>
<p>I have to say that I have only once encountered an (inappropriate) discussion about sexual activities at a large social event such as a meal. Once. In two semesters.</p>
<p>I have seen people kissing in gardens and other grassy spaces, especially when it’s nice out, but nothing further than that. (although I’m also not looking for it)</p>
<p>The OP’s daughter might have had exactly the experience described. The OP might have been exaggerating. But it is not, imo, at all a representative experience of Smith students.</p>
<p>That is precisely the vibe that I got from Smith. I have very high regard for the college, the students and I would have been very pleased to have had my daughter go there; indeed, she was applying (though went ED elsewhere). However, a core feeling that I got from the campus was that everyone was pushing boundaries for the sake of provoking reactions. Which wasn’t my daughter’s personal cup of tea. I think there is a difference between “hey, my girlfriend and I are holding hands as we walk to the student center” (hey, whatever, enjoy yourselves, I didn’t even notice) and “my girlfriend and I are going to make out in front of you to prove a point. Wanna make something of it?” Again, Smith is a great school; but I think for some people, this could get tiring at times.</p>
<p>@Schmaltz: Actually, it IS possible. College is an insulated environment of young adults who are experiencing complete freedom for the first time in their lives, and it’s easy for them to forget how unworldly high school seniors are.</p>
<p>“College is an insulated environment of young adults who are experiencing complete freedom for the first time in their lives, and it’s easy for them to forget how unworldly high school seniors are.”</p>
<p>I repeat: Puuuullllleeeeeze.</p>
<p>Dozens, maybe hundreds of fresh-faced high school girls and their dressed-to-impress parents poking around the campus and they forgot how they themselves were just a few years ago?</p>
<p>We saw things on college tours at various colleges over the years that were not savory. We also had some miserable college tours at some fine colleges and wonderful ones at schools where it was an exception. So much for these tours and and visits. I have two kids who turned down ivy, because they hated the first hour of their visiting day there. Yeah, I drove 4 hours, a few years ago to just turn around and drive back. I don’t blame any of the colleges for what happened., Not one iota.</p>
<p>There are some schools more liberal and out there than others. Schools do have their own personalities, and if you want something less open with sexualty, look at the more conservative schools. That is, if that is an issue to you and/or your student.</p>
<p>CotH, good post. I’m still tickled by my D’s reaction to visiting Harvard: “I liked it more than I thought I would.” Said while on the road from Cambridge to our first pilgrimage to Smith.</p>
<p>Mini (from a bit back): ;)</p>
<p>Schmaltz: dozens of fresh-faced girls just waiting to be compared to hamburger when their dressed to impress parents aren’t around, eh? A lot ickier than a PDA in my book.</p>
<p>Fwiw, I don’t recall anyone dressing to impress. I think my tour uniform was jacket, open collar.</p>
<p>“dozens of fresh-faced girls just waiting to be compared to hamburger”</p>
<p>You should have stayed awake on the day they went over analogies in English 101.</p>
<p>“Fwiw, I don’t recall anyone dressing to impress. I think my tour uniform was jacket, open collar.”</p>
<p>Yeah, everybody wears a jacket with open collar when going for a country stroll. I’m surprised you didn’t try to tell me you were unshaven and wore your pj’s.</p>
<p>Ok, this is just getting silly. If Smith wasn’t to your taste then don’t go and don’t ■■■■■ the boards. I didn’t care for my visit to CMU, but I don’t go on their boards insulting the school. That’s just silly</p>
<p>La, Schmaltz, but how you talk. I passed analogies, similes, and metaphors before I published my first short story more than a quarter of a century ago. I would never use a construction likening young women and their sexiness to judging the quality of a hamburger. Your notion that hetero women can’t be judges of what’s attractive in a woman is equally off the mark, giving you points for versatility I suppose, both what you say and how you say it.</p>
<p>And of course I was unshaven. As I have been for all but one day in more than three decades.</p>
<p>My daughter will not be attending Smith. She had been accepted at several highly ranked colleges before her last visit to Smith. She had narrowed her choices to Smith and one other college. She will not be attending any of the ultra conservative colleges suggested by TheDad (we now know she TheDad does not shave her legs – how interesting). I published several times also more than 25 years ago, but find that fact irrelevant to the purpose of this discussion. Be warned newbies to this forum!!! If you post anything at all critical of Smith, your flesh will be ripped from your bones by furious, foam at the mouth, overzealous Smith advocates who circle this forum ready to attack swiftly and concurrently. If you state observations not to their liking, you will find yourself the victim of a bloody shark frenzy. The advocates will then spit on your carcass with ongoing trash talk by “TheDad” or surreptiously slither to an adjoining Smith thread to attack you as “outrageous” as was done by SmithieandProud. What was observed at the Smith campus by myself and my daughter made it the wrong choice for her. Others may like this campus culture. However, the lack of maturity of some of the Smith students with whom she came in contact and what she observed in the two classes she attended was what turned my daughter off.</p>
<p>No, it’s not if you state observations not to our liking. It’s if you post incoherent homophobic piffle that you will receive a negative response.</p>
<p>Speaking of incoherence, “we now know she TheDad does not shave her legs”… I’m not sure which wrong way to take this. For the record, I’m irrepressibly male.</p>
<p>Do let us know how your D enjoys whatever Paradise you have found for her.</p>
<p>“The flip flop outside the door (don’t disturb our privacy while we do our thing) tradition was interesting in the dorm halls as was the large number. Attending a class? A professor who was to teach did not teach as shown on the class schedule and a visiting student sitting the back of the science classroom was able to watch a boring fill in teacher, three sleeping students, and most of the awake students on their laptops playing solitaire or on Facebook.”</p>
<p>To cncrdparent: Good luck if you do not see any of the above observations you claim to have seen at Smith at the college your daughter will be attending. There are boring profs, stand-in profs, students searching the net, shopping online during class everywhere! Oh, and beware–lots of sex, both heterosexual and homosexual!</p>
<p>Want another eye-opener? Go to your daughter’s new college, pick the name of a prof or two and then check them out on ratemyprofessors.com. You might really be shocked at what the students say! I did this for the other highly ranked university my daughter was considering against Smith, and I couldn’t believe the nonsense some of the profs pulled in their classes (and I’m not talking about isolated incidents posted by one disgruntled student, but by many over several years)! </p>
<p>In any case, sincere good luck to your daughter!</p>
<p>Cncrdparent - I wish your d. all the best. One of the wonderful things about this country is that, if you can pay for it, there are hundreds and hundreds of fine colleges and universities where students can learn and grow. I think your perceptions and those of your daughter are what they are, and you should indeed act upon them, and glad that you are. (I know we did when choosing colleges - the #1 school went from first to last on my d’s list after her last overnight.) </p>
<p>I wouldn’t give Smith another thought. Love the one you’re with!</p>
<p>On the contrary. I understand what tone-deaf and demeaning language based on without-a-clue anachronistic social perspectives figurative language is very well, effendi. Perhaps you can skibble back to the Parents Forum and start a thread on same.</p>