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Has anyone used their Disability Services Office? I wonder if kids with learning disabilities feel well supported or at risk for drowning in the heavy workload?
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Are kids who are young for their age and inexperienced pressured to experiment with bisexuality, even if they self-identify as heterosexual?
Just testing this “post” to see if it can receive replies. I am the OP and unclear why no one is responding. I would welcome replies from parents as well as current students…Thanks!
Parent of a high school student who has Mount Holyoke on the (currently very long) list of schools under consideration. Statistically speaking, your child is much less likely to be sexually assaulted by a woman than by a man during her college years. I’d be disinclined to reply myself to a question that essentially asks, “will you or your classmates molest my innocent child.”
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I have a daughter applying to several women’s colleges. Your second question offends me on so many levels.
OP here-I said nothing about coercion or force or assault. I this question offends you, you have not been reading numerous on-line posts from MHC students. That is where I first learned about “LUG’s” and “tittie parties.” So, I am just trying to figure out how much weight (if any) to give to such accounts.
You can read posts like that about ANY college in the US with a similar theme. If you are worried about your student being “vulnerable” maybe she isn’t ready for college.
You described a power differential (“young and inexperienced”) and “pressure” to engage in unwanted sex - the most positive interpretation of that would be coercion.
LUGs were a thing at my coed college 25 years ago. There wasn’t any pressure involved there, unless you count the societal pressure on bi women to go back to men / back into the closet once they went out into the “real world.”
Google gives me nothing for “tittie parties,” so you’re apparently looking harder than I am.
From College Confidential (posted by a student in 2016):
" I will also say a professor here whose daughter went to MHC says there’s a LUG trend here where people who shifted towards being “more gay than they thought they were” in their first year settle back closer to their original identity by the time they’re upperclassmen. I think also making women aware that there are others who may feel isolated and pushed away by the social life here (one of the most popular types of parties on campus are called titty parties and i think you can assume what goes on there)–that there are indeed other women who aren’t disgusted by parties with men–is important. I never found other people like me until literaly the last week and a half. I want people who are on here who are like me to know I am a resource from what in the first few weeks can feel like an overwhelming wave. Hell, the orientation presentations had multiple sketches implying basically everyone who goes here is not straight. I vividly remember feeling like I was the only straight person on campus after those were received with uproarious praise and applause."
Don’t crucify the parent for asking the question. He or she is just trying to put online reports in perspective. They should be applauded for trying to fact find prior to deciding what environment might be the best fit for his/her child.
Maybe try rephrasing your question. Also too it would be helpful for perspective to post the link to the thread. Its not clear if the poster you quote is paraphrasing or if it’s her own words. Was that one post in 100 positive experiences? Or were there many similar? Have you visited the school? Has your D attended a class there?
https://www.liberalartscolleges.com/how-do-womens-colleges-compare/ might have some useful statistics for you.
Thank you. I am aware of the numerous strengths represented at Mt Holyoke, otherwise we would not be considering it. It is a shame that one can’t inquire about possible concerns though without encountering such a strident backlash.
@CollSearchSite , I think everyone’s happy to answer questions, but it was worded rather aggressively, perhaps unintentionally? Anyone who knew MHC was taken by surprise because it is a warm, welcoming, and safe school.
I have heard none of the stories you reference. Some students become more comfortable with their sexuality while in college, away from parents and their old lives. However, that’s true at any school, not just Mount Holyoke, and I don’t see it as a bad thing. And consent and “no means no” apply across the spectrum.
My daughter is a freshman an not a partier, so she probably is not invited to every party, but she told me she met someone who went to a tittie party once, so I do not think they are prevalent. It’s not a very big party school at all, the students searching for big parties usually go to U-Mass.
The OP only has 10 post, so cut them some slack if the didn’t ask the question the way you would like. Similar questions entered my mind as I was researching colleges, and I didn’t know what LUG was, so I P.M. a current student and they gladly replied to my question.
MHC grad here and mom to one there now and another applying. Never did I or my daughter there now feel pressure to do anything you didn’t want to do. Does it exist? absolutely but it exists everywhere else too. I think there is a perception that to do to a womens college you must become lesbian. I find MHC to be more welcoming to students exploring different sides of themselves in a non-threatening environment. There will undoubtedly be people experimenting with their sexuality and their pronouns close by, possibly even a roommate, so if that is something that makes a person uncomfortable, the close environment of a women’s college may not be right. However, I will say again, my daughter there now has not felt pressure once, she has attended campus parties, Hampshire and Amherst parties and felt way more pressure off campus than on.
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Because you’re misconstruing my comment and because my perspective as I’ve grown at mhc has changed, I wrote a long comment to explain why what you’re asking is a clearly loaded and obnoxious question, but for whatever reason I keep getting told the comment requires “administrator approval”. For now, I just want to say I object wholeheartedly to the misinterpretation of my words as you have used them, @CollSearchSite .