<p>Anyone else apply to other women's colleges, along with Mount Holyoke? Which ones are they and if you got in, which one would you most likely attend? I'm curious because at my school very few girls applied to women's colleges, and I was getting somewhat desperate to find other people (even if it be on the Internet) who were also interested in/heading to women's colleges.</p>
<p>Thanks for your time!</p>
<p>Me:
Wellesley: Rejected
Randolph-Macon Women's: Accepted
Agnes Scott College: Accepted
Mount Holyoke: Accepted
Scripps College: Awaiting decision</p>
<p>Wellesely--Accepted
Barnard--Accepted
Smith--Accepted and Attending</p>
<p>Funny thing, D never intended to go to a women's college. Talking to current Smith students and visiting Smith and Barnard (and later, Wellesely) changed her mind.</p>
<p>Visited MHC but did not apply because it was just <em>so</em> boonies for her...didn't want to get out of the car. Northampton (Smith) is about as small a town as she'd be happy with. And that works only because it's hip & happening, with book stores, restaurants, music, etc. </p>
<p>Have to admit, South Hadley seemed as if sometimes you'd watch puddles of water dry up for entertainment.</p>
<p>I've heard such good things about it, but by the time I started getting really interested in it, it was too late to apply. I'm glad your daughter got in and likes it. </p>
<p>One thing though- what made her choose Smith over Wellesley? While Smith is a lovely, great school, I thought that Wellesley is generally considered tops for women's colleges, period, in the nation. I'm not saying she made a mistake or that she should have gone to Wellesley, just asking why did she prefer Smith?</p>
<p>D chose Smith over Wellesley because of fit over rankings.</p>
<p>While she is doing a double major in Math and Government, performing arts--ballet and orchestra--are very important to her. Both are much more peripheral at Wellesley...offered as PE course and EC...whereas they're part of the curriculum at Smith. Smith's ballet is also deeper, having three levels instead of generic one. </p>
<p>Smith's combination of junior programs appealed to her. In fact, the options are so dizzying that she's had to make hard choices. Her plans right now include a semester in Washington <em>and</em> a semester with the National Mathematics Institute in Budapest. She would have loved to spend a semester with the Royal Shakespeare Company as well.</p>
<p>She was invited to participate in Smith's STRIDE program, which provides research positions for first-year students. In her first semester, she did work leading to credit in a paper on computer modeling of proteins that was presented at an academic conference. The work she's done and contacts she's made have also led to a seven-week summer research position funded by the National Science Foundation. Which is not to say that you can't do undergrad research at Wellesley but it's much more catch as catch can; there's not the institutional program.</p>
<p>Other factors included the preference of Northampton over Wellesley. The latter is sleepy suburban, the former a hip small town with art, theater, book stores, music, etc. Plus it's the center for the Five Colleges, which seem to offer more cross-campus connections than Wellesley's alignment with MIT. Wellesley has proximity to Boston as an advantage but there's a two-hour transportation time penalty that makes going to Boston a carefully considered event, not a spur of the moment thing that you can just do when you have tons of work in front of you.</p>
<p>Both schools have ferorciously effective alumnae networks, so that's a push.</p>
<p>Finally, D spent an overnight at Wellesley and attended a local party for prospects and there was nothing wrong with it, she could be happy enough attending. But Wellesley has a lot less economic diversity than Smith and for her the comparison made her more comfortable at Smith.</p>