<p>Is there anyone who is applying for 2014 batch?</p>
<p>Me! I’m pretty sure, at least. I’m visiting next week to confirm but I love almost everything about Smith so far.</p>
<p>Me, definitely. :)</p>
<p>I love smith</p>
<p>I’m definitely applying :)</p>
<p>Is the fact that it’s an all-women’s college a “despite” or “because of” for you guys?</p>
<p>Data point, not current applicant: for my D, it was despite. Never regretted it. And she’s had a veritable parade of Smithie friends getting together with her when they’re in the city where her post-graduation job is located.</p>
<p>Both, in a way. I think a women’s college would be good for me, as my family is very traditional with regards to gender roles and I’d really like to have support for breaking out of that. I’m also very intrigued by the concept of sisterhood, since I’ve spent high school obsessing more over boyfriends than over female friends, and as a result don’t really have close female friends. That being said, I do want to date primarily men in college and having to go out of my way to schedule and deal with that aspect of my life is not ideal. So some days it’s a pro and others it’s a con.</p>
<p>Our daughter just started at Smith. It wasn’t either “because” or “despite” for her, I think: she applied to both women’s colleges (Smith, Wellesley, Mt, Holyoke, Bryn Mawr) and coed colleges (Williams, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Colby), and saw benefits both ways. I think her choice was more about the feel of each school’s community than about whether it was single-sex or coed. And of course, practical considerations like where she got in and what kind of financial packages she got played a major role.</p>
<p>In general it seems that the elite coed colleges are harder to get into than the Seven Sister schools, and we were surprised at the financial differences, which were really all over the map. We got a lot of experience in one year because our son (yes, twins!) also applied to 8 schools and just started at Hobart and William Smith.</p>
<p>Our daughter is off to a great start at Smith and we are utterly thrilled with the welcoming and intellectually challenging environment she is finding there.</p>
<p>I’m applying too! At first the all-women thing was a despite for me, but now it’s a plus.</p>
<p>I am def applying to SMITH…
it is my first choice and i love it dearly.
At first i though NO WAY to a women’s college, now i’m nearly sure it’s what i want</p>
<p>I still think NO WAY to a women’s college, but I like Smith so much that I can’t NOT apply. It seems like such a welcoming and stimulating environment. I’ve gone to an all-girls’ school for fourteen years (since nursery school), so of course I want a change. (Because moving to a different country and a whole different system of education isn’t change enough, lol). The idea of the Consortium helps a bit. But I feel like a hypocrite when I think about writing the supplement essay on all-womens’ colleges.</p>
<p>Thanks for your replies, everyone. :)</p>
<p>I love all-girls’ environment:)</p>
<p>I’m applying. And the women’s thing is a plus for me, not a despite or because.</p>
<p>I love Smith!!</p>
<p>RCZ, my D applied to both co-ed colleges and womens colleges but three of the four colleges she was accepted at were womens colleges and the fourth was her safety. Go figure. The way things turned out, I’m just as happy she didn’t have the temptation of being admitted to HYS. But as you can infer, she thought that after HYS, the womens colleges were the best fits for her. (And of HYS, I think only Y might have been a fit…not H or S for her.)</p>
<p>TD, interesting to hear you say that your daughter might have found Y a fit, but not H or S. I graduated from H lo these many years ago, and always perceived H and Y to be two peas in a pod. How do you see the difference? No need to be diplomatic: I had a decidedly mixed college experience, which led me to actively discourage both of my twins from applying to any big universities. Their experience so far is confirming my view that undergraduates are more of a priority at an institution that only “does” undergraduates.</p>
<p>RCZ, Yale seemed to be much more “undergrad friendly” and the housing system is at least an echo of Smith’s, or vice-versa. Oddly enough, D recently said that if things were slightly different she might have applied to Brown, which is the other Ivy I have tagged as being more undergrad friendly. (Major reason she didn’t apply to Brown was that she didn’t like Festival Providence Ballet based on their website and that’s where she would have taken ballet.)</p>
<p>Speaking of big universities, TheMom has worked at UCLA for 30 years (now upper administrative). Smith was a revelation to us, as were LAC’s in general. She’s a U/Missouri grad and I’m a UC/Santa Barbara grad and all our experience had been with large U’s. Nothing like a convert for zealotry, eh?</p>
<p>Harvard also doesn’t seem have the same kind of central “campus life” that Smith does. It was first college we saw on the “Boston to NYC College Death March” and her response was funny: “I liked it more than I thought I would.”</p>
<p>Make no mistake, Harvard provides an intoxicating intellectual brew but that’s not quite the same question. In terms of optimizing her overall growth and development, Smith was terrific for D.</p>
<p>TD, you make Randomcoolzip and me laugh with your “Death March” comment!</p>
<p>I like the “Boston-NY college death march”. Followed by “Napoleon retreating from Moscow”?</p>
<p>As you can tell, CarolynB and I are rolling on the floor.</p>
<p>Does Smith ever start notifying students prior to April/Spring?</p>