<p>Or BMC or Wellesley for that matter. All have cross registration.</p>
<p>Psst: Determind15 – to help out a Barnard Woman (congrats!) you don’t need the apostrophe in that its.</p>
<p>MythMom wrote:
Oh, go ahead…indulge yourself.</p>
<p>jg’s description of the town of Wellesley matches what I observed first hand during a visit. And I’ve heard similar about the town not being particularly student-friendly. Actually, that was one thing I’d worried about re Smith/Northampton…pleasantly surprised by town-gown relations there.</p>
<p>How much does that matter? </p>
<p>I’m sincerely asking because at my alma mater (NU), there are significant town-gown relations problems – but it’s at the city council type of level (disputes over whether NU should pay taxes on its landholdings and their use of city services) – but as far as I’m concerned, these town-gown relation issues don’t impact the students one iota. Students go out and about and shop and eat in Evanston to their heart’s content and obviously the storeowners rely on that. </p>
<p>Is it that the restaurants / stores in Wellesley aren’t necessarily <em>geared</em> to the tastes and budgets of 18-22 yo college women, or is there a definite lack of <em>welcoming</em> to said women? To me those are different things. Thanks!</p>
<p>I don’t know about Wellesley. I know this is a problem for Sarah Lawrence in Bronxville. I think the fact that every Wellesley woman I’ve met has loved her school says it is not much of a problem.</p>
<p>I think town-gown relations can matter a lot, but it is also a matter of personal preference. If you plan to spend most of your free time in Boston, you probably won’t care if the good citizens of Wellesley look down their noses at you. It might not be such a big deal that businesses are geared towards older people, which can also mean they’re not welcoming of younger crowds. THis can especially be a problem with bars, where if the towns bars are mostly for the piano-bar, martini sipping set they might not be great places to bring a big ol’ crowd of Wellesley friends for someone’s birthday. They might not want the noise, or the fuss, or the drinking (I’m just hypothesizing here, about what a town might be like, I’ve never been to Wellesley, the barkeeps are probably very friendly for all I know). </p>
<p>If you’re going to do all of your shopping in Boston anyway, you might not care that the stores don’t like sweatshirt wearing college students and that they close early and charge more than you can afford. And I agree, city council level disputes over taxes don’t really affect the relations that much. </p>
<p>BUT if you really want to spend a lot of time in the town that surrounds your college, or in the case of Smith or Mt. Holyoke, you don’t really have a choice, town-gown relationships can really affect you. I know Smith takes this really seriously, and has since it was founded (very big on college/town integration) though I know also that Northamptonites and Smithies sometimes grate each other the wrong way. Possibly because Smithies tend to act like they own Northampton or possibly because Northamptonites tend to act like they own Smith. Depending on your perspective. </p>
<p>Bottom line, you want to be personally comfortable in the community where you live. You want to feel like you can enjoy your youthful high spirits (within reason) without getting slammed with a noise complaint from the neighbors. And citizens of the town want to be able to enjoy their community without dealing with huge issues like drunk kids stumbling around peeing on their lawn (it happens at some colleges, though not at the sisters to my knowledge). Different people have different thresholds for this comfort. It’s probably a matter of personal choice more than anything.</p>
<p>SmithieandProud, You are an excellent writer! As are many others who post, but I really enjoy reading yours and also find your posts very informative!!!</p>
<p>Here’s a piece of fun but relatively useless information about the Sisters. On the Daily Beast’s list of 100 Happiest Colleges, they appear as follows:</p>
<h1>15 Wellesley</h1>
<h1>21 Bryn Mawr</h1>
<h1>49 Mount Holyoke</h1>
<h1>81 Smith</h1>
<p>Barnard isn’t listed, unless it’s (gasp) considered part of Columbia, which is #53.</p>
<p>^ Oh the Daily Beast. The Star magazine of blogs.</p>
<p>“Barnard isn’t listed, unless it’s (gasp) considered part of Columbia, which is #53.”</p>
<p>Barnard is #36. :)</p>
<p>Let’s see if I can remember these. In alphabetical order – oops. Forget Wellesley. Will go back and do it. This are from Princeton Review.</p>
<p>Barnard: Top 10: College town (2), Best Quality of Life, Best Career Services (2)
Top 20:
Students Don’t play sports</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr: Top 10: Dorms Like Palaces, Great Food</p>
<p>Mt. Holyoke: Top 10: Campus Beauty (3)
Top 20: Dorms</p>
<p>Smith: Top 10: Dorms like Palaces (1), Best Quality of Life
Top 20: Best Career Services, Most Accepting of Gay Life Style</p>
<p>Wellesley Top 10: Professors Get High Marks
Top 20: Professors Accessible</p>
<p>There may be others. This is just a quick overview.
And the Princeton Review is self report and not terribly reliable either.</p>
<p>Sorry to have missed Barnard on that list! Mount Holyoke: campus where every single tree is labeled. If you want to learn your trees, it’s the place to go. 
[Edited to add that I am joking.]</p>
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<p>The campus is physically adjacent to the center of town. The shops are easily walkable. We walked to them all the time. </p>
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<p>When I was at Wellesley the shops in town were very welcoming to students, both as customers and as potential employees. There were several eateries that were perfect for college students–a Brigham’s and a popover place spring to mind–and there was a head shop featuring Indian gauze attire 
as well as a branch of Filene’s. Banks and pharmacies accommodated student needs, and there was a great bookstore. It may well be that the shops have become more relentlessly upscale, as they have in most similar well-to-do suburban towns. But I seriously doubt that any store in town is “unwelcoming” to a population of 2000+ young women, some of whom have serious $$ to spend.</p>
<p>Smithie, the entire scenario you have hypothesized is unrealistic for Wellesley. No one “looks down their nose” at Wellesley students. I don’t know where you would get this idea. And there aren’t any bars in Wellesley: it’s a dry town. (At least it was, and I don’t think it has changed. Maybe the Wellesley Inn has a liquor license, but it is hardly a student hangout. The student center used to serve wine and beer, but I don’t know what the situation currently is since the change in drinking age from 18 to 21.) If people want to go to bars or jazz clubs they would go into Boston or Cambridge using the extremely convenient college buses or public transportation or someone’s car. Noise complaints from neighbors are completely irrelevant: the campus is self-contained, and virtually no one lives off campus. Youthful high spirits are typically expressed either on campus or in Cambridge/Boston. </p>
<p>The town of Wellesley is pleasant and has sufficient shops to supply immediate needs, but Wellesley students have all of the resources of Cambridge/Boston at their fingertips and are not dependent on the town, so the town is much less important to them than Northampton is to Smith.</p>
<p>Thanks, Consolation. I have to say, all else being equal, I liked the surroundings of BM and W best, then MH, and lastly Smith. Northampton didn’t strike me as special. But, I may be totally wrong.</p>
<p>OK, well, I was just hypothesizing how a town that was not geared or welcoming to college students might be, as previous people who are familiar with Wellesley had described it to be. I did make clear I have no personal experience with Wellesley, I was just putting together a hypothetical scenario about why/how town-gown relations matter. Certainly no offense meant to Wellesley (but really? it’s a dry town? That would be a bit of a drawback for me as a college student. Not that Smithies are total boozers, but we do drink on occasion, both in town and on campus, and having local liquor stores was helpful). </p>
<p>And Pizzagirl, maybe Northampton wasn’t really you cup of tea. It happens. Nobody’s perfect I kid.</p>
<p>Consolation; The Brigham’s chain is out of business, Filene’s is long gone; Talbots has been in it’s place for quite a few years. Popover place? Head Shop? Nah. Wellesley does have: Eileen Fisher, Chico’s, Gap, CVS, Clark Shoes, a bookstore, Peets, Starbucks; among other stores within ready walking distance of the college.</p>
<p>Wellesley is technically a dry town, but many restaurants (such as Blue Ginger) have liquor licenses.</p>
<p>S&P: as an adjunct to town/gown relations in NoHo, don’t forget the Synchronized Crosswalk Teams. When well executed, one pedestrian steps into the crosswalk just as another leaves. You bet on the over/under for the number of cars backed up before the street is finally clear.</p>
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<p>You mean “as one person who was never a student at the college described it to be.” The poster in question is clearly familiar with the town, having lived there for many years, and equally clearly has a strong dislike for the upscale suburban atmosphere. </p>
<p>Personally, I grew up in an even more upscale suburban town in CT and felt perfectly at home in Wellesley. :)</p>
<p>I drove through NoHo a few years ago and it looked grey and run down. But many people have said it is the epitome of cool, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.</p>
<p>Interesting thread–I’ll add my two cents since I’ve got a D at BMC. The college works for her and she’s happy as a clam–doing well academically and involved in lots of ECs, especially theater. She takes advantage of the bi-tri-co cross registration and has had a class at either Haverford or Swarthmore every semester except when she was studying abroad in Russia. Haverford is quite close to BMC–there’s a bus, but walking is often faster. Living in MA, I know lots of local kids who go to one of the colleges in the Pioneer Valley and almost all of them whose folks I know tell me that their kids rarely take advantage of the Five College Consortium. That’s definitely not the case with BMC/Haverford and Swarthmore. Big emphasis at BMC on the Honor Code and the traditions. Academic pressure is there, but it’s a big no-no to discuss grades. Lots of contact between faculty and students as with many small LACs.</p>
<p>My D has complained about the lack of men around, but her social life improved a great deal this semester when she met a post-bac student who was a friend of her (new) brother-in-law. You never know what will happen. </p>
<p>I think both Bryn Mawr and Wellesley are upscale towns with a range of shops and restaurants that appeal to college kids. I suggest that the OP’s D go to the accepted student days and talk to kids on campus as well as other accepted students. One could keep a list of the pros/cons of the various schools, but in the end, I think, a kid’s final decision is often based on his/her gut feeling about a particular college and how he/she will fit in at that place. As many have said–I don’t think the OP’s D would go wrong academically at any of the women’s colleges where she was accepted.</p>
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<p>I have no problems with drinking, and I’m not so naive as to believe my kids won’t drink in college, but the idea that there won’t be some nearby rowdy restaurant for them all to make noise at hardly strikes me as a drawback. </p>
<p>I’m having a hard time seeing what’s so uncomfortable about an upscale community?</p>
<p>PG, it’s the difference between a community that offers a wide range of engagement with students and one that exists side by side with them and tolerates them. Northampton has restaurants, music, arts, and is pretty hip…Wellesley is pretty staid and likes it that way, thankyouverymuch. I could think of retiring to Northampton…my only question about Wellesley would be, “What’s the best way to get out of here?” (And given the native Massachusetts approach to what would laughingly be called transportation design, it’s not as trivial a question as it might seem.)</p>