<p>As the person who started this thread, amusing for me to see how it played out … D is now at Wellesley and happy with her choice.</p>
<p>There is a sense of bright, quick, inquisitive, intellectually challenging, sharp, creative, well-spoken, polished and of course modest qualities ( 
) to many of the female grads of the sister schools and top LAC and Universities. Probably true of other schools as well.</p>
<p>No, there’s more to it. I’ll only speak of the one I know most about - Smith. It’s not a liberal arts college that happens to be all women. It’s a women’s college. The spend TIME, MONEY, and ENERGY addressing the trajectory of women’s lives. They have a women and finances program for teaching women how to manage money. They have multiple presentations year-round on women’s career paths. They put a huge amount of money into the career advising center - and specifically address issues of women going into male-dominated fields. The engineering program is designed explicitly to produce engineering managers - of which they are very few women. The alumnae networking is huge (my d. tells me there is a regularly scheduled breakfast of Smith musicologists!) The majority of faculty are women (which, in the sciences especially, is still rare). 10% of the student body is made up of older women (25-70), and since they enter as third-years, the percentage of graduates is higher - an acknowledgment of the different career and educational paths women often take. Partnerships with women’s colleges around the world. Female role models, female mentoring; and, the obvious: all the resources all devoted to women.</p>
<p>The students are most likely the same as you find at other fine colleges (other than the older ones). It’s what happens once there that is the magic.</p>
<p>I would like to say “here here” to mini’s post and add something about Barnard, the school I know most.</p>
<p>When the majority of the faculty and deans (and the president of course) are women there is a different experience at studying at a school. The message that women can accomplish anything comes with the course assignments. My D’s graduate where Hilary was the keynote speaker was a dream come true to me: I felt I’d awaken in my 70’s notions of a feminist paradise: all speakers were women, students (obviously) and administration. I was very teary. The key student speaker talked of how her accomplishments reflected her love of and respect for her mother, a common theme at Barnard. It’s not just career women who are honored, it’s the female task for achieving while nurturing, not the either/or split society sometimes presents.</p>
<p>Barnard nurtures so many female writers that it had halo affect on me. I reasoned if these young women could do it, so could I and I have written three novels since D enrolled, and one came very close to being published by a major house (drats!)</p>
<p>D spent a lot of time at Yale for her guy fixes. (She had a close male friend who attended and took the train to stay in his suite.) She was shocked at how much the women deferred to men the arguments, something a self-respecting Barnard woman wouldn’t do.</p>
<p>I like many of the characterizations other posters have made of Barnard, no quarrel. But I’d like to add another: It’s political activism. It’s different than Smith’s (which I utterly admire). It’s more pragmatic and less theoretical, or so it seems to me.</p>
<p>Barnard was the first school in the sixties to have a sit-in. The women protested the fact that the Columbia men could have women in their rooms whereas the Barnard women couldn’t have men in theirs. In pictorial histories of the sixties this picture shows up as instrumental in the sexual revolution, or at least ending the double standard and smashing the pearls stereotype of women’s colleges.</p>
<p>NYC, Columbia, Jews, delis – Barnard does have a brash, sarcastic flaor.</p>
<p>And all the sisters (even those who had sadly passed away) had their hand in smashing stereotypes about women, whether they did it in brilliantly argued books like the Feminine Mystique (Smith), in an expose of the life of a bunny (Smith), in a brilliant book of analysis of myth (Bryn Mawr), the first woman Secy of treasurer (Mount Holyoke), a major anthropologist IBarnard), a brilliant African-American novelist (Barnard), a female presidential candidate who almost secured her party’s nomination (Wellesley) and the achievements of women from Vassar and Radcliffe.</p>
<p>I wish I could say this energy was no longer needed, but some of the abhorant anti-female policies being concocted today I think it is needed more than ever, from a proposed law in VA to require transvaginal probes to qualify for an abortion, to a proposed law in AZ requiring women to have a note that says their birth control pills are not for contraception or they can be fired if they use a company prescription plan to pan for them, to initiatives in WI to dismantle equal pay for equal work laws.</p>
<p>One does not need to have attended a women’s college to fight for the rights of women. I didn’t. But women’s colleges can ensure the training of women who are devoted to fighting for the female point of view in the world.</p>
<p>This is such a long post I should probably proof reading, but instead, I’ll just ask for the forbearance of readers.</p>
<p>^well said, mythmom. Where’s the “like” button? Especially this phrase:
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<p>I recently attended a fundraiser for Tammy Baldwin (Smith '84). One of the speakers made the point that the US is ranked 97th in the world for number of women politicians, and if more women were in positions of political power, we might have more humane family leave policies. Our country needs strong leaders. Well educated women can be those leaders.</p>
<p>Wellesley = Williams </p>
<p>Very preppy and aggressively pre-professional.</p>
<p>Smith = Oberlin, Antioch, Wesleyan</p>
<p>Progressive political activism & openness to GBLTQ students</p>
<p>Barnard = Columbia </p>
<p>Can’t separate them out as they’re both much more integrated in practice and attract similar types of students from what I’ve seen…very pre-professional, urban-loving, sophisticated, go-getters. </p>
<p>Sarah Lawrence = Bennington/Bard</p>
<p>Very Artsy/humanities oriented with avant-garde students. </p>
<p>Bryn Mayr = Swarthmore culturally…but with much less workload judging by what I’ve heard from Bryn Mayr and Swarthmore alums who took classes at the other school and/or knew people on the other campus. </p>
<p>Vassar = Mixture of Wesleyan/Oberlin on Artsy cultural/left-leaning side side…and Williams/Amherst for preppy/slight lefty establishment vibe/less politically vocal aspects.</p>
<p>Old thread, but:</p>
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<p>Just for the record, Macalester was founded in 1874. Mount Holyoke was founded as a seminary for women in 1836 but didn’t begin to operate as a “seminary and college” with a charter to operate as a college until 1888. So as a college, Macalester is actually a few years older. FWIW.</p>
<p>Williams is definitely not aggressively pre-professional. I don’t know about Wellesley, but I very much doubt it is either.</p>
<p>^^ Wellesley isn’t aggressively pre-professional in any sense unless you compare it to the other Sisters. It looks very pre-professional in the company of BMC, Smith, and MHC.</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread. I can only speak to Barnard, but one very big difference (I think) is that Barnard probably has many students who are drawn by the NYC location and/or the association with Columbia. My daughter was not particularly interested in LAC’s or women’s colleges-- she wanted a mid-to-large university in a big city. Other top choices: NYU (Gallatin), Chicago. Safety: Fordham. </p>
<p>It may simply be that Barnard’s diversity makes it harder to quantify in the sense of a stereotype. Additionally, the urban location and Columbia affiliation means that campus life is not particularly centered around the Barnard campus. </p>
<p>I’d note that I do NOT think that Barnard women, in general, want to be or emulate Columbia students-- I don’t think that thought ever crossed my d’s mind. Rather, at least for my daughter the draw was having the resources and academic options that come with a larger university. </p>
<p>I do want to say that I think my daughter appreciated and benefited from the women-focused education – Barnard offers the same sort of women-focused support the Mini described so well in his post #43 – but I do think that Barnard is in a unique position among the Seven Sisters.</p>
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<p>Aren’t all five of the remaining “Seven Sisters” inherently unique? Having read the descriptions and anecdotes over close to a decade on this forum, I really cannot find much homogeneity among the “sisters.” Not that this is a problem! Actually, it is exactly this uniqueness that should be cherished in an era of schools becoming mere copies of one another. </p>
<p>Fwiw, I think that a question about which schools might be comparable (or feel like an another in terms of atmosphere or student body without the all-female (or quasi) component is not a great question. The reality is that none of the schools discussed in this thread have a “counterpart” and neither should they. </p>
<p>Every one of the schools is unique and should cling to this uniqueness. In this regard, I find it amazingly peculiar that it is seems impossible for anyone talking about Barnard to NOT mention Columbia. Does Barnard not have its own identity? And one that would remain the same … without the Columbia affiliation? </p>
<p>Does Barnard really need to define itself primarily through the Columbia system? Perhaps the school does NOT, but this seems utterly impossible to this CC crowd.</p>
<p>No Barnard does not, but it does happen on CC. FWIW I agree with you Xiggi. They’re all unique and I don’t cotton to jockeying for position. It’s not sisterly.</p>
<p>Small issue. The only one of the seven sisters school that no longer exists is Radcliffe. Even though Vassar is coed, it is still considered one of the seven sisters. It didnt get the boot just because they enrolled men.</p>
<p>Does Bryn Mawr still share residential colleges with Haverford?</p>
<p>Maybe two years after Vassar went coed, they did a self-study about the impact of men on campus. Seems within that instant, a male was head of stu govt, the school paper, men were captaining intramural coed sports teams and I believe the women reported a change in their easy willingness to speak up in class (maybe they phrased it as some deferral to the men.) It’s been forever since I saw that report- I could have specifics wrong and times have changed- but you see the point. </p>
<p>I think a women’s college fosters a woman’s sense of the value of her thoughts and opinions and hones her abilities to defend them. It’s a unique context. I would have been happy for my girls to attend a Seven Sisters, but they had done all-girls except for two years in lower school and were eager for coed. I do believe a much lesser women’s college- or a high school- can’t convey the assets to the same degree as the elite women’s colleges.</p>
<p>You may feel that way jym, but Vassar no longer has the same mission. At our local high schools it was almost automatic acceptance for the guys who applied, but a very tough get for women, even some admitted to Williams , Amherst and Swat. I did produce some bitterness. I think Vassar a lovely school but I do think it bowed out of the sisters.</p>
<p>Its not a matter of how I feel. Its the way it is. Vassar chose to go coed rather than merge with Yale, as Pembroke did with Brown and Radcliffe did with Harvard. Apologies, but it didn’t bow out of anything. It made a choice so as to stay where it was. It offers a different experience, and will always have a majority female enrollment.</p>
<p>That’s actually debatable. Vassar has been increasing the proportion of its make student body. It is also definitely not anyone’s sister, seventh or not; the term ‘Seven Sisters’ refers to women’s schools, which Vassar is not. The clue is in the name.</p>
<p>Vassar might be called alternative, artistic, liberal, bohemian, or a number of other things, but its mission right now is incompatible with what the Seven Sisters represent. Doesn’t mean it’s a worse school than it used to be–the opposite may actually be the case–but it’s just not a women’s college anymore.</p>
<p>Jym, is this membership in a mislabeled sisterhood really important? Why did it not become the Five Sisters or Six Sisters and Brothers who nonconform?</p>
<p>I understand the implied desire to maintain a parallel life to the ever so-famous Ivy League, but is there even an organization in place. I fail, however, to remotely understand what it might mean to Vassar to be listed in a group that appears to be … just a name. Of course, there might be a need for a League of Extraordinary Gentle Women! ;)</p>
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<p>Not surprised, but I’m wondering if some of that was checked by the perception that male admits were held to far lower admission standards and thus, “less intelligent” than their female counterparts. That perception was very pervasive among older female HS classmates who were Vassar students in the early '90s and among HS classmates applying to LACs.</p>
<p>This is silly. The seven sisters were historically womens schools. This is a network, as it were. A historical affiliation. There was no meeting of the head honchos wherein some proclamation was decreed that Vassar would be shown the door. But having been at Vassar when it went coed, I do recall a discussion and commitment to the alums that the trustees affirmed that it would always remain a majority womens school (ie maintain majority female enrollment)</p>