<p>Not at all in terms of prestige but in actual academic/ all- around quality, is Smith considered on the caliber as Williams, Wellesley, Amherst, etc? Thanks for any opinions!</p>
<p>Smith, as one of the seven sisters, is equally prestigious.</p>
<p>As a Smith honk, I'll say probably not but just a notch. However, my D turned down Williams because of a better fit at Smith and didn't even apply to Amherst and would be totally out of synch at Williams. You may wind up with different results but the principle is the same: go for fit, not the fool's gold of incremental prestige. Fwiw, I know of people who have heard of Smith via it being one of the Seven Sisters and haven't heard of Williams and maybe not Amherst.</p>
<p>My D. turned down Williams, visited Amherst and didn't care for it, and didn't apply to Wellesley. Each of them has strengths, and relative weaknesses academically, though the reason she choose Smith was "fit" more than anything else. Clearly, if art history was the be-all, one should go to Williams (though Wellesley and Smith are also excellent.). Or critical social theory - Amherst. But Smith is larger than each of the others, has more offerings, and is deeper in a lot of areas. And in certain areas (foreign languages quickly come to mind), unquestionably stronger than the other three. (And, no matter how you slice it, more diverse.)</p>
<p>Most of the country has never heard of any of them, and, on the whole, anyone who has heard of one has likely heard of the others.</p>
<p>Sylvia Plath went to Smith. (Not that that ha anything to do with anything...just noticed your name, ladylazarus)</p>
<p>Sylvia Plath went to Smith</p>
<p>Who???</p>
<p>She was a poet who wrote throughout the 50's and early 60's... she wrote the "Ariel" poems and "The Bell Jar". I personally adore her poetry, hence my username :) (Lady Lazarus was the title of a poem she wrote).</p>
<p>All around and in general, yes Smith is in the "range" but the devil is in the details and so it can make a difference on the major you decide upon and it will make a difference if you enjoy being a student there more than someplace else.</p>
<p>Why is Wellesly so much harder to get into than Smith, based on SAT scores anyway?</p>
<p>I'm not sure. The stats from PR's 2004 book shows only an 11-point difference on median Verbal but a 31-point difference on median Math. Now 10 percent of Smith's students are older, returning students and I'm not sure a) what their SAT scores are and b) whether they're factored into the aggregate....Mini, who has investigated some questions in greater depth than I have, may be able to provide a citation. Mini also has data about the relative wealth of the two schools' applicants which in turn has bearing on admissions stats. In brief: Smith does a much better job of economic diversity but this pulls its average scores down.</p>
<p>GAH!!! I just re-read my post and twice wrote "Williams" when I meant "Wellesley"...my D turned down Wellesley, not Williams. I had originally written just "W" and then went back to edit...and had brain cramps. Gah again.</p>
<p>If I had to guess, I think there may be some of the circular ranking/prestige thing going on, with more Ivy applicants using Wellesley as an alternate than Smith.</p>
<p>Wellesley has some very big pluses. Their placement rate in graduate school and in certain fields of employment are just two of them. The school has a better reputation than the others mentioned but it is not out of the range of a top student in any of those schools being compared to one from another of the schools.
It is harder to get into and is smaller than Smith, it also has a greater endowment (I think they cap their undergraduate loans now)</p>
<p>related to Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus, you might want to look into Smith's Poetry Center if you're into that sort of thing. We have some AMAZING readers come every semester and there's a writer-in-residence program so you can take poetry courses from some top-notch writers. </p>
<p>I was pleased beyond belief when the day after I accepted Smith's offer I learned that Adrienne Rich would read during my first fall at Smith. The college is wonderful in lots of ways, but that remains among my favorites.</p>
<p>wellesley is probably the most well-known LAC, and it is certainly in the top 5 academically.</p>
<p>Smith is a good school, but the commonplace name means that you will get a lot of blank stares when you tell people that you are going there. Ditto Williams</p>
<p>Where I live, virtually no one has heard of any of them. Not that it matters much - folks who attend HYP never come back here (and it is a state capital), and so they have no employment track record. It would get you 30 seconds of time over a cup of coffee or in an interview, though you'd get less mileage out of HYP or any of these in employment than a degree from Washington State or Brigham Young.</p>
<p>Of the four, Smith has by far the most active alumnae network around here (which is not surprising, given that it is the largest.)</p>
<p>The main differences among the four are in their personality and culture. Amherst and Smith have made strong commitments to an economically diverse student body (Smith also expands this to include age); Williams (my alma mater) and Wellesley have not. Two are coed, two are not. One is in a fairly nice sized town; one is in a small town; one is in a village; one is in an upscale 'burb. Two are part of active college consortia; two are not. (Yes, I know Wellesley has one in theory.) One has an engineering school. Two of them have strong study abroad programs, and two do not. The faculty at each come from exactly the same pool, and whether one prof is teaching at one and not the other has more to do with the openings available the year s/he was hired than with anything else. There are students who could be happy at any of them, and other students who might only truly enjoy one of them. A good midweek visit is the best way to find out whether one "fits".</p>
<p>There was an article in the NT Times that said Lesbians ostracized non-gay women at Smith and at Holyoke. I doubt this is true, or at least it is distorted.</p>
<p>Do you have a citation about that? I can say flatly that it isn't true. Straights are a majority on both campuses. And though PC runs a bit rampant--and includes adherents of the school of thought that says that you can't be feminist without being lesbian--there's generally an atmosphere of mutual acceptance and tolerance. My D's house is about 50/50 and there's no friction along those lines whatsoever, nor did she experience anything in two different houses while doing overnights during the search & application phase.</p>
<p>My d.'s house is about 85/15 (straight/gay) - she thinks, and she has experienced no friction.</p>
<p>Sure you didn't mix that up with Yale's Skulls & Bones refusing to allow entry to poor people?</p>
<p>Do the lesbian students tend to hang out with other lesbians and straight students with other straight students? </p>
<p>I ask this because in some schools diversity is apparent on campus but interraction between various groups are not and people tend to stick with students who are like them. I'm wondering if Smith is like this.</p>
<p>I can only speak for my d., or at least to the degree she tells me, and segregation by orientation just isn't an issue for her. Her house has all kinds, and it just hasn't been a issue for her. One of the reasons I think that is so is that there are enough students of each orientation that there is little in the way of isolation or perceived threat.</p>
<p>From the little we could tell, there was much less interaction between groups at Williams (and some fairly nasty gay-bashing poster graffitti that we saw).</p>
<p>I will second Mini's response. One of the things our family appreciated when we were visiting was the extent to which individuals from different groups seemed to be comfortable mixing at Smith. At some other schools, things seemed more balkanized. I recall one place in particular where the Koreans all hung out together in the dining halls, walked across campus in a group, etc.</p>
<p>I am under the impression that my Smithie D has friends of several different sexual orientations -- and perhaps no longer thinks of people particularly along those lines. </p>
<p>Anyhow, that mixing of people from different backgrounds/orientations was one of the major attractions of Smith for us. (I enjoy my nuts mixed rather than all cashews, etc.)</p>