<p>Hi, this is Desiree. I’m a high school student doing a journalism program at Northwestern. I was wondering if I could have your input on a trend story I’m writing about the increasing appeal of women’s colleges among high school students. I would be so greatful if you could answer any of these questions, and respond with your full name (first and last) and an email address or phone number. Thanks again!</p>
<li><p>what made you want to apply to a women’s college rather than a coed college? (for both prospective and current students)</p></li>
<li><p>what do you see as the benefits of attending a women’s college? what do you see as the disadvantages of attending a women’s college?</p></li>
<li><p>What, if anything, do you think women who attend coed universities are missing out on?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you feel that attending a women’s college will help you in the future (job, leadership skills, etc)? how so?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you feel that women’s colleges are more popular now than they were 5 or 10 years ago, or do you think that their popularity has pretty much remained the same? If you feel they are gaining popularity, what would you attribute their increasing appeal to?</p></li>
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<p>TripletDes3, as you're asking for names and addresses most of your replies will be in the form of PMs. I will try to give here in the open area the opinions of a parent as these opinions will not apply to your study anyway.
1. We hadn't thought about women's colleges until our daughter was told by her GC that she should think about applying, so this was an idea that was brought by our daughter to our family. Also at this time her school was visited by Leonard Sax, MD PhD who is one of the leaders in the single gender education movement (He is advocating this for Elementary and High school, but his arguments are applicable to college as well. His book is available at B&N and Borders: Why Gender Matters. This would be a good source for your story.) Her GC feels that in his experience women's colleges produce stronger more selfconfident women.
2. Another interesting fact from Dr. Sax's book is that we as a society have been pushing equality in education in a coed setting for some time, but the numbers of women going into math and the hard sciences has been declining since 1984. At the women's colleges these women make up 18 to 35% of the student body. Sax's impression is that the coed environment reenforces gender stereotypes. He is pushing for single gender education. The numbers show that this approach encourages more women to go into math and science and more men to go into the arts, music and literature.
3. If Sax is correct, and I believe he is, and girls continue to outperform boys in HS, then the women's colleges should become more popular each year.
4. Given these advantages, what then are the disadvantages of a women's college? To varying degrees, men are less available. At Barnard the only problem is an disadvantageous male to female ratio as the men are just across the street. At Mount Holyoke and Wellesley on the other hand there are geographical distances to the coed colleges. You hear relatively few complaints at least at the parent end.</p>