<p>Since I think everyone petered out on the thread below and we don't want infighting among Sister-boosters, I want to ask the question a different way for those who have the interest in the topic.</p>
<p>Take the top universities and LAC's. (Top? I don't know. Let's go top 30 for right now. Nothing awful will happen if we talk about #31.)</p>
<p>* If you took out the women's college component of it,* what other LAC's (or unis) would you say each of them is most like? I'm not talking about academics - obviously these are all fine academic institutions. I'm not talking obvious aspects like "these are in MA, these are in PA, these are in NYC." I'm talking about personalities. Recognizing that every school will have a range of personalities and anyone can find her tribe anywhere.</p>
<p>In other words, Wellesley would map most like ... Smith would map most like ... Bryn Mawr would map most like ... Mt H would map most like ... Barnard would map most like ...</p>
<p>Again, I'm talking about personalities of students who would be particularly attracted to each -- not look, feel, or location of the campus.</p>
<p>I can only speak for Wellesley, where my daughter was recently accepted. She did not look at the other women’s colleges, although she did consider visiting Bryn Mawr, which has a great reputation. The idea of a women only college was not particularly appealing in general, but she really wanted to apply to Wellesley because she saw it as unique academically. My impression is that it appeals to a very academically oriented student, possibly without a strong political slant, but with interests in specific areas of study. I see it as rather middle of the road. On another note, I think it has a smaller gay population compared to other women’s colleges, and therefore, will appeal more or less to certain applicants. This was a positive for my daughter, who is not gay and who would be uncomfortable at a majority gay college.</p>
<p>I’m most familiar with Smith (though I have friends who attended all the remaining 7 sisters schools), and would compare it to Oberlin and Wesleyan (Bard? Vassar? Carleton?). Other northeast LACs with engineering programs include Connecticut College, Bates, and Trinity, so while the schools might have different cultures, they have engineering and geography in common. My brother liked a LOT of things about Smith and ended up pretty happy at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, though I think it’s less selective, the town is less enticing than Northampton, and the housing system is quite different. </p>
<p>People who like Wellesley might also be interested in Swarthmore, for rigorous academics and suburban location near a large city. Also, maybe Amherst or Williams?</p>
<p>I get the sense that Macalester’s international focus is even stronger than Mt. Holyoke’s, so someone looking for that might like it. Middlebury also has a strong foreign-language and study-abroad specialty, and it has the rural thing going for it. </p>
<p>Co-ed LACs that I think 7 sisters applicants might like, but which I couldn’t really link to a specific women’s college, include Pomona and Grinnell.</p>
<p>Oh, and I wanted to add that I don’t think any of the women’s colleges could fairly be categorized as ‘majority gay.’ Smith may have a larger-than-average number of gay and bisexual students (compounded by their tolerance on campus, which increases their visibility, and by the large number of gay women who’ve chosen to live in and near Northampton) but my own experience and some surveys done by stats classes in recent years agree: most Smithies are straight.</p>
<p>Maybe so. It’s only a single data point, but one of my daughter’s very good friends from her college days at Harvard was a Wellesley student she met there.</p>
<p>Some might argue that Radcliffe = Harvard in the most literal sense. Daughter also reports that there are a few old timers, professors that are umm…chronologically gifted, who still refer to Harvard coeds as “Cliffies.”</p>
<p>Wellesley = Williams. Smart kids, top-notch academics but tends towards preppy and pre-professional rather than the purely intellectual.</p>
<p>Smith = Wesleyan, but in a better town. Intellectual, artsy, and activist, all at the same time.</p>
<p>Mt. Holyoke = Macalester, but in a Middlebury setting. Earnest & globally focused.</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr = Swarthmore, or maybe its true next-of-kin Haverford. Intellectual and still identifiably Quakerish.</p>
<p>Barnard = ? No obvious comparison because no other LAC has the same kind of relationship with an Ivy, and that’s central to the Barnard experience.</p>
<p>Vassar = Vassar. Voted itself out of the Seven Sisters.</p>
<p>Radcliffe = 0. Voted itself out of existence.</p>
<p>“Wellesley = Williams. Smart kids, top-notch academics but tends towards preppy and pre-professional rather than the purely intellectual”</p>
<p>I would not call Wellesley students preppy or politically inert. Pre-professional - yes, however, I’d characterize them as “having slightly more realistic view of their future”</p>
<p>Wow, Wellesley = Harvard/Williams but Mount Holyoke = Tufts/Macalester?</p>
<p>I can see Wellesley students as part of the Harvard student body, but Mount Holyoke is part of a New England tradition that I do not see as part of the Macalester persona at all.</p>
<p>It’s funny because I find it much easier to draw parallels between schools for ambitious students, but I think schools with a more laid-back vibe vary more.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t call Williams kids politically inert. Williams took my basically inert kid (well, he had leanings but was lazy) and created a kid who’s now working really hard to get into the Peace Corps. I don’t see Williams as preppy. To me Williams is: Don’t just think. Think and do!</p>
<p>I’ll try again if bclintonk, who did a great job, doesn’t mind. I hope not.</p>
<p>My exercise is trying to get past the historical and geographic baggage of all these places and focus on the flavor of the students and the ethos and values that each campus embodies. “Macalester in a Middlebury setting” articulates a lot of what I’ve been feeling about MH but haven’t put into words yet. </p>
<p>Here’s another way that I’ve found helps to identify values.</p>
<p>What’s the best compliment you could give a woman from each college?</p>
<p>(Examples of what I mean: “You really made a difference in the world,” “You accepted and learned from everyone, no matter how different they were from you on the surface,” “You created a sense of real community,” “You’re serious about studies, but never took your studies so seriously that you forgot to enjoy life,” etc. Those are examples I made up, but you get the idea.)</p>
<p>Any takers? This can often crystallize the differences (understanding, of course, that we are talking about differences that are on the margin).</p>
<p>I’ll shoot for a few LAC comparisons and one university comparison for each.</p>
<p>Barnard: Without taking out the Columbia/consortium connection, I think Scripps really is the only one. Taking out Columbia, I’d say Vassar, Kenyon. More mainstream, more focused on the humanities.
Bryn Mawr: UChicago, Swathmore, Reed but more conservative. Pride in the amount of work they have, picturesque campus.
Mt Holyoke: Hamilton, Colby, Bates, Dartmouth without the party scene (if that’s possible). Traditional red brick campus, more laid-back, more rural.
Smith: Brown, Macalester, Oberlin. I know people say Reed, Wes, etc but I have not found that to be the case at all. When I visited Smith and told current students where else I was applying, they all said “Yeah, I did Brown, too, and I strongly considered Mac.” I don’t know a single person who applied to Smith and Reed or Smith and Wes. Slightly more urban/hipster, more focused on issues of social justice and political activism, more freedom academically.
Wellesley: Amherst, Claremont McKenna, Harvard. Slightly more conservative/traditional, definitely more pre-professional.</p>
<p>Wellesley: You really prepare women for the world.
Smith: You teach women to think outside the box.
Mt. Holyoke: You take many different kinds of women and turn them all into leaders.
Bryn Mawr: You create great scholars and thinkers.
Barnard: You start your women off in the middle of the world and create artists, actresses, politicians, lawyers and scientist.</p>
<p>sorry, it appears I am a bit partial to Barnard. Didn’t mean to be, but I’ll let it stand.</p>
<p>No, that’s perfect. That really helps. I’m really trying to isolate values, ethos and personality from physical characteristics and geography. Keep 'em coming!</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: My D was accepted into several. She chose Barnard because she said, “I don’t want to wait four years to start my life. I want to start my life now.” It worked out for her because she always wanted to live in NYC and she is going to law school in NYC next year with a woman she met at Barnard also about to start law school. (Different schools, thank goodness, no competition.)</p>
<p>Women who have the opposite idea might want four idyllic years at Mt. Holyoke before they faced the world. That’s what my S wanted so he chose Williams.</p>
<p>Neither is a better approach than the other. Each woman (if she’s lucky enough to have the choice) can align herself a long a spectrum, either most driven to least driven or most urban to least urban – each school fills a definite niche, and each is the perfect match for the right person.</p>
<p>Think of the Mt Holyoke / Macalester example. It doesn’t matter that Mt Holyoke is 150 years old, used to attract predominantly upper class WASP women who couldn’t go to the Ivies, and is in a small New England town with architecture to match. And Macalester is newer, hasn’t been on the radar screen of the elites of the northeast, and is in a neighborhood / city setting and physically looks different. But they could both have in common a strong commitment to an international / global mindset and value that diversity highly. Those things are <em>values.</em> Physical location (city, suburb, rural; New England, mid-Atlantic, midwest, etc.) aren’t values.</p>
<p>To my way of thinking, history and geography contribute a great deal to the personality of a school, and I agree that “values” is a different issue from personality.</p>
<p>I can see that schools with similar values could have different personalities, but I would expect that the personality of a school plays more of a role in determining fit for an applicant.</p>
<p>It is interesting to observe my daughter because I sense that she is attracted to the experience and culture of attending a woman’s college, and therefore Smith/Wellesley/Mount Holyoke align more closely than each of these schools could line up with a co-ed “equivalent.”</p>
<p>I just think the student bodies at Macalester and Mount Holyoke are more different than similar, even if they do share an “international / global mindset,” for example.</p>
<p>Have to agree with mythmom’s characterizations here.</p>
<p>Just spoke to a young woman seriously torn between Wellesley and CMC.</p>
<p>Mawrtyrs definitely have some of the same pride in academic rigor – “anywhere else it would have been an A” – as Swarthmore and UChicago, and I would include on some level, Reed, as well.</p>