<p>ok i get ur point.. but at the same time what I wanted to say was that.. Because they put so much effort into selling their "product", I got more insight, more details so I became more interested. And as i said in my opinion both schools are very similar, so let me ask u when buying a product, isn't the ad factor a very important part of ur decision??</p>
<p>Toto, most women have a clear preference for one or the other, MHC or Smith, although sometimes the decision is made for them when the decisions come out.</p>
<p>First impressions count for a lot when students start looking at colleges. The deciding factor can be the admissions officer or the tour guide or even the weather on a particular day. My daughter had the opposite reaction when she visited both schools (on the same day); her experience with the Smith admissions office was more positive than the one with MHC (although it certainly wasn't a BAD experience at MHC - they were very warm and helpful.)</p>
<p>I believe that, after all the research is done, applicants should go with their guts.</p>
<p>Toto, as someone who has been around marketing in one form or another for a few decades, I reflexively try to quash the "ad factor" as much as possible. The interests of the people who make the ads are not necessarily aligned with your interests and sometimes are directly contrary. It's the kind of thing where TheMom and I were known, during our D's college application phase, to look at view books and critique what buttons they were trying to push with a given photo and how successful they likely were.</p>
<p>I go to a different Sister and we all feel that MoHo, Vassar and Smith are very similar in terms of student body, so this thread interested me. BTW, I thought that Wellesley was Daphne?
hahaha.</p>
<p>TheDad- interestingly enough, I wouldn't let my mom stop at MHC either. It was way too small and was way too rural. I grew up going to NYC almost every weekend and watching the Gilmore Girls. Luckily for me I found the small new england city atmosphere I always wanted in a college. I found it at smith that is. =) I think it was MWFN who said that NoHo reminded her of greenwich village. Well, I agree completely. </p>
<p>I absolutely loved smith and i'm not going to apply to mhc. Of course, only time can tell what i eventually do but those are my plans right now.</p>
<p>I didn't say that about NoHo, Karen, but I'll take credit for it anyway! :-)</p>
<p>haha okay. Fine by me.</p>
<p>I don't attend either, but I am applying to both and have visited each multiple times (three times to Mount Holyoke, including an overnight, and five times to Smith, including two open house events -- yes, I'm local!).</p>
<p>Originally, I was obsessed with Smith and couldn't imagine going anywhere else. Then, I visited Mount Holyoke after being prodded by my father to give it a chance, and I ended up falling in love.</p>
<p>What struck me -- and everyone's different, of course! -- about the two colleges is that Mount Holyoke felt more academic, while Smith felt more social. The students I met at Mount Holyoke were very focused on their studies and pushing themselves, and the classes I attended felt very challenging. The conversations were more intellectual than I'd experienced at Smith, and the students were far more interested in talking about what they did in class than what they were doing that weekend.</p>
<p>At Smith, I felt like everyone was putting on a show, trying to "out-activist" each other, and most of all, putting academics secondary to the collegiate experience. Classes, while not cutthroat, didn't have the same supportive feeling that they did at Mount Holyoke. The students didn't seem as happy as they did at Mount Holyoke, where the environment is more laid-back.</p>
<p>I like Smith's campus more, but at the same time, I like the less distracting setting of Mount Holyoke. I wouldn't consider South Hadley to be "rural," especially since it's right by Holyoke, but it's definitely not Northampton. I could go either way there pretty easily.</p>
<p>Overall, I just felt like Mount Holyoke was a nicer, more welcoming, "smarter" place. Even though Smith's catalogue has more specialized courses of interest to me, I think I would fit in better at Mount Holyoke in an academic way. And Smith having a couple courses of interest would simply mean hopping on the PVTA, so no big deal.</p>
<p>But that's just me! :) I went from not even considering Mount Holyoke to considering them just about even now, but everyone's different.</p>
<p>Smith more social? Ah...no. I'll take Smith academics any day, any time.
Not even close, imo. Smith may be unbearably activist to some, but that's not the same as social. The coursework at Smith is demanding and the students are very self-driven.</p>
<p>I wouldn't read "social" as "partying." I'm just broadly lumping everything into two categories -- the academic side of college, and "the rest." Smith students seemed to me, on each visit, to be more focused on "the rest."</p>
<p>And I don't doubt their academics for a moment, but for each person, there is a learning style and a teaching style that works best, and Mount Holyoke's did it for me. I'd prefer something more low-key than in-your-face, which is what I felt at each of the Smith classes I attended (three, each in different departments).</p>
<p>I think the feminist commitment of all Seven Sister schools should make these schools want to support each other. There are some posters whose bias is so palable that they go beyond enthusiast to chauvinist.</p>
<p>I liked both schools, but D did not fall in love with either, although I think she would have attended either, since she did apply to both, has destiny intended. Instead, she did get into her first choice, Barnard. </p>
<p>Although her interest began with Columbia, by the time she attended, Barnard was anything but a back door to Columbia. Barnard women are rightly loyal to their institution but do experience as dismissive tone from the other Sisters. </p>
<p>Although it gets short shrift in USNWR (because of complexities of shared facilities w/Columbia), Princeton Review ranks B.'s academics quite highly.</p>
<p>Barnard women are liberal and tolerant as well; the gay scene is not as present as D. thought it would be (she is straight but not at all homophobic), but gay man scene at Columbia quite pronounced. </p>
<p>I won't commebt on virtues of school in NYC; it's either for you or it isn't. All I will say (as a professor who teaches Women's Studies among other things) is go forth Smithies, Mohos and other Sisters. Make waves and support each other.</p>
<p>Palpate away.</p>
<p>But about the NYC schools, D had had Columbia as #1 on paper but after visiting didn't even apply, whereas she did to Barnard. She likes NYC but doesn't love it and that may be a critical difference in weighing Barnard between the rest.</p>
<p>RW, I can accept the distinction of classroom styles: D prefers the more intense and thrives on it. Indeed, that correlates with the old joke about the professor walking into class at several of the different institutions. But I still don't buy the "more focused on the rest" assessment. Perhaps it's more about a [futile] sense of trying to have it hall. From the other side of the mirror, MHC seems more...placid.</p>
<p>Mythmom, many CC posters tend to give ALL the Seven Sisters (well, five) short shrift. Just look at any manufactured "Top LAC" list and you'll find most of the top women's colleges missing. Fortunately for our daughters, the CC bubble doesn't always reflect perception in the larger world.</p>
<p>When it comes down to it, it's all about fit. My daughter never considered Barnard, but then again, she didn't consider Columbia or Yale because of the urban environments. Why did she love Brown then? I have no idea. The same unpredictability held true for the single gender colleges: she loved both Bryn Mawr and Smith, but would have attended MHC only if she didn't get into Bucknell and Lehigh. The ordering--and re-ordering-- of the list continued up until the last few weeks. </p>
<p>Each school is best for a certain group of students. My D liked the larger course offerings at Smith, particularly in her areas of interest. She found the classes she sat in on more challenging than her other top option, Bryn Mawr. But it easily could have gone another way.</p>
<p>D's lists & implicit rankings had quirks as well. I still think it funny in a cosmic sense that three of her four acceptances were from womens colleges and the fourth was her safety. She had been bummed to be rejected outright from Yale EA...and today a friend asked her, after hearing about D's Yalie classmate at an "abroad" program, if she were sorry she didn't get into Yale. The answer was a flat "No."</p>
<p>MWFN, whereas D's reason for not applying to Brown, which I thought a fairly decent fit in many ways, was very idiosyncratic: she didn't like the underlying philosophy of the available ballet options (Festival Providence?). "They're Russian," she said with disgust when viewing the website. She's a devoted Balanchine/RAD type and was having none of it.</p>
<p>As the mother of a dancer I LOL at the last post! I understand exactly, but my D feels exactly opposite! (I like both, but prefer Balanchine). Maybe your daughter is taller? Balanchine so favored height.</p>
<p>D is about 5-7, 5-8 now. Her natural strengths are more lyrical and expressive than athletic; her pirouettes are adequate only to two, on the other hand she has a staggeringly good penchee that even one of Mr. B's former soloists raves about. Ballet was the quirky criterion on her list that eliminated a lot of otherwise fine schools and led to the womens colleges being the contenders outside of HYS, all of which had at least adequate ballet outlets in their own right. Well, maybe "no state that voted for Bush" was quirkier...but she simply didn't want to expend energy swimming against the tide and was already comfortable being the moderate kid in a liberal environment.</p>
<p>Yeah, my daughter is only 5'2'' so she knew she had no future in dance, but she is a beautiful dancer and has danced Flowers, Snow and Spanish in a semi-professional Nutcracker. Her strength is alson in expression, especially head carriage and arms (hence Spanish). Barnard has strong dance, but very time consuming. Ditto for any state that went for Bush -- not even possibility.</p>
<p>LOL - I love the quirks! I think every high school senior makes his/her decision based on both emotional and analytical factors.</p>
<p>Flowers/Snow/Spanish. We have a match, including head/neck and arms. D was a demi-soloist in her pre-professional company's Flowers and in corps for both Snow & Spanish (though four side dancers in Spanish is darned small corps). In her company, she was the worst of the best, i.e., got occasional solos but not any of the biggies. But even though she isn't majoring in Dance, ballet is one of her major life passions. She just got back home for the summer and will start taking classes next week after being off (away from campus) for a year. I can hear the "oooh...is my butt sore" already.</p>
<p>When she started taking lessons at age 5, I didn't know a plie from a pipe wrench. Ballet is now one of my performing arts recreations of choice. A neat gift she has given us.</p>
<p>Isn't it wonderul that dance can be a common thread that ties our daughters together! My oldest daughter, at a large state university is a dance major, loves ballet, but lyrical and jazz are her strengths. At 5'1 (and that is a stretch!) she has added political science and communications to her majors and is hoping to take her "presence" from the dance stage to broadcast journalism. </p>
<p>My youngest daughter knew from the beginning that a dance career in her future, but loves it and has found a way to include classes at Mount Holyoke. Then again, she loves the atmosphere at MHC whereas her sister proclaimed that she would "wither and die in such a small environment"!</p>
<p>When my younger daughter began the college search process, she had no interest in a women's college, but was introduced to Bryn Mawr on a fluke. After visiting and attending classes, she "could see herself" at a women's college...opening new doors. I can still remember her first visit to Mount Holyoke. Love at first sight with both the campus and the academic atmosphere. She felt that the non-academic atmosphere had the right feel too. We made her do a second visit just because her first positive reaction seemed so....quick! It is a wonderful fit for her.</p>
<p>As has been mentioned, there are so many wonderful opportunities for our daughters today. They are indeed fortunate that that they have chosen schools that meet both their academic and non-academic needs.</p>