<p>The idea of starting a central thread about girls schools has been mentioned more than once, so Im starting one here. For current students and alumnae, feel free to post here about your school and what you think makes it special. A few orienting questions:</p>
<li>Where is the school located? What is the campus like?</li>
<li>What are the academics like? Strengths? Weaknesses?</li>
<li>What is the community like? Size? Traditions?</li>
</ol>
<p>This thread can also be a place to talk about more general things that all or most girls schools offer. For example, there is a large and growing body of research on the general benefits of these schools: much higher percentages of girls school alumnae go on to major in math and science, many college professors report that they are able to identify girls school alumnae by their high level of intellectual engagement, and the vast majority of girls school graduates report that they felt better prepared for college than their coed counterparts. Many girls schools also share similar traditions: lantern ceremonies, white dresses for graduation, and so on.</p>
<p>Im going away for part of the weekend, but when Im back Ill post about my alma mater (Chatham Hall) to get things started–or, hopefully, keep things going.</p>
<p>Thankyou for starting this thread naoka. I have a feeling it is going to be very helpful for me as well as all the others who will join in the fall.</p>
<p>naoka, like the interview thread, this thread too will be very hot as we get closer to app/visit time. I want to thankyou so much for stepping up.</p>
<p>I graduated from high school in a white dress and a bouquet of flowers in my hand. A day school though, so I don't know if people here are interested.</p>
<p>I will note, though, that I did think it was a great experience and I was richer for it, but the only time I got sort of irked by no guys was in junior/senior year when I wanted to talk physics/astronomy and none of the other girls were too interested. It was a small class size and those are rare enough interests that I was pretty much alone on it.
(Well ok, there were other complaints too, but that was the only thing that was due to all-girls instead of the way the school itself was run.)</p>
<p>^ i think day schools should be fine as well, and i dont think it matters if the reviews arnt all perfect experiences/friendships etc. because thats part of how we decide to go to a co-ed or all girls school (partly anyway i think).</p>
<p>My d is getting ready to start her first year at all-girls Emma Willard. We are from the Midwest U.S., so she's going a long way from home....but we made our choice last summer to look at ONLY girls schools, not coed. She looked at Emma, Miss Porter's, Westover, Chatham Hall, Dana Hall, Ethel Walker,
Miss Hall's and Madeira. She visited Emma, Miss Porter's, Ethel Walker, Westover and Miss Hall's. </p>
<p>We're very happy and secure with our choice of an all-girls school for her, so those of you who are thinking about have a lot to consider. Good luck!</p>
<p>naoka, you're a Chatham Hall alum too? I'm class of '05, when did you graduate?</p>
<p>I was a four year boarding student at CH, and had a decent experience there overall. It's such a small school (enrollment senior year was around 135 for all four grades) and it's in a rather isolated location (Chatham VA, which is the middle of nowhere), which makes life there somewhat claustrophobic at times (as it would be in any small community). The administration there sometimes really doesn't know what they're doing (although they try) and can be very inconsistent in a variety of situations. </p>
<p>On the upside, however, they have a wonderful equestrian program (I boarded my horse and showed with the trainers there for most of my time there) and the academics are excellent. I had some excellent teachers there that really pushed me intellectually (ended up writing a thesis my senior year) and I wouldn't have traded that for anything.</p>
<p>Can anyone explain exactly why so many girls school graduate major in Math and Science? is it because it is easier to learn those subjects in an all girls environement or something else?
Also, does anyone know anything on Dana Hall, not matrics , more the general feel, etc of the school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Can anyone explain exactly why so many girls school graduate major in Math and Science? is it because it is easier to learn those subjects in an all girls environement or something else?
[/quote]
I think it's due to a combination of reasons, really. First of all, any girl who is going to go to a selective prep school (which most all-girls schools are) has to believe in education and come from a family who does, no questions asked, so chances are you were raised in an environment where you were encouraged to collect bugs/ build model rockets/ whatever. Furthermore, if you have a disproportionate number of students interested in the first place, doing something like taking AP Physics isn't going to be that big a deal, so more people are willing to do it. And when it comes time for college, where most girls go off the trail from science really (statistically the guys vs girls in science classes is either equal or in the girls' favor for high school), it seems odd to think that you would do anything different than what you've naturally been doing all your life.
In my experience, the view towards education was what mattered the most in the science interest a lot of my classmates and myself had after graduation: a lot of us were kids of professors from the university or engineers or some such, so we were well used to how education should be important. And in all honesty now, your peers matter most to you when you're in high school so it can't be a non-negligible effect! While we're at it though, it would be interesting to see a study on how if girls from co-ed prep schools go into science with larger numbers or not, but I don't know if such a study has ever been done.</p>
<p>Atremis--'99. We would have missed each other, but definitely know people in common. You must be in undergrad now. Where do you go?</p>
<p>Re: the higher numbers of math and science majors among girls' school graduates, there is a lot of reasearch on this question. Check out <a href="http://www.ncgs.org/type0.php?pid=16%5B/url%5D">http://www.ncgs.org/type0.php?pid=16</a> . There is an accessible review of the literature there. Obviously, though, the NCGS website is only likely to have studies with positive outcomes featured on its website. </p>
<p>I agree with Stargirl that your peers are the most important factor. When I transferred from my coed public school, the difference in the level of engagement of my female peers was one of the first things I noticed. Of course, as Stargirl has noted there are potentially two different effects being compounded (or confounded) here: the effect of moving to a more rigorous prep school and the effect of moving to an all-girls environment. Which is which? Is the benefit of going to a girls' school just the same as the benefit of going to a prep school? Could the same thing be happening in the statistics?</p>
<p>The answer is probably not. Since most of the cited studies were published in peer-reviewed journals, it is unlikely that this happened in the statistics. It is standard practice in social science journals to control for demographic variables and socioeconomic status--after all, the whole point of conducting a study is to separate out the main effects of different aspects of different experiences. So the researchers should have controlled for parents' SES (i.e., if parents are professors and engineers SES is high, and if they're cleaning ladies and truck drivers it is lower.) Any good study also would have created dummy variables for public/private, or better yet public/parochial/private. The point is to discover the "independent" effect of a girls' education--that is, independent of parents' occupational status or academic strength of the school or other "predisposing" variables we can think of, are girls from all-girls schools more likely to major in math and science?</p>
<p>(Sorry if that became incoherent at all. If you spend all day every day reading epidemiology you eventually begin to see everything in terms of main effects and mediating effects. I actually had a nightmare about one of my old stats professors a few nights ago. Shudder.)</p>
<p>Someone I graduated with is in grad school for educational administration now, and I think she wrote her thesis on girls' education. If she has an annotated bibliography I'll put it up after prelims. That should give a more fair view of the literature on girls' schools than the NCGS website is likely to offer. </p>
<p>I probably will be around very, very little until the beginning of September (prelims begin in t minus 13 days.) But I actually enjoy sorting out main effects models so I'll look at this more closely in the fall.</p>
<p>I'm going to be applying to probably three girls schools: Emma Willard, Chatham Hall, and CSG (local private school-- anybody heard of it? Everybody says its really good around here, but there's no way of really KNOWING like with boarding schools) What I'd really like to know is about if there are any opportunities to interact with boys at Emma or Chatham, like dances and such. I come from a coed chool, and I've never eally NOT been around boys.</p>
<p>Interaction with guys is pretty hard to do at CH. There's a co-ed military academy (Hargrave) in the same town, but not a lot of Chatham girls date Hargrave guys. When I was there, dating a Hargrave guy was somewhat looked down upon. There are a lot of mixers and dances with other all boys and coed prep schools, but going to the majority of them involves a 3+ hour bus ride (Woodberry is 3 hours away and EHS is somewhere around 5 hours away). The closest mixer would probably be the VES one, which is only an hour away. Chatham hosts a mixer at least once a year, but not a lot of schools come. The people I knew who had boyfriends at other prep schools either had to try really hard to meet them or had connections beforehand.</p>
<p>You definitely don't see guys very much at Chatham. There's a historical relationship with Woodberry Forest, so there is some structured interaction with them but their campus is hours away. I met Woodberry guys doing Appalachia Service Project over spring break (a week-long, joint Chatham-WFS trip used to happen every year--does that still happen Artemis?). Through ASP and the formals we were subsequently invited to, my small group of close friends became friends with another group at WFS, and I still keep in touch with many of those guys. After a few holiday visits, one was basically adopted by my family back in the midwest. :P We saw each other at mixers, and any events or plays we could talk our dorm mom into driving us up there for. During the week we kept in touch via a chatroom. But I definitely had more friends at Woodberry than average.</p>
<p>It's interesting that hanging out with Hargrave guys is still looked down upon. It was definitely like that when I was there, and I have to admit I don't know a single Hargrave guy... but I always thought it was just due to snobbery that would gradually go away, especially since the Chatham swim team uses Hargrave's beautiful swimming facilities now. (Hargrave is hardly a bad school and it has lots of boarders--it just happens to be a military academy, so it's not a traditional prep school.)</p>
<p>Bottom line: If you want guy friends, sign up for a service project or join the swim team. </p>
<p>Just noticed that you specifically mentioned dances. There are lots of mixers, though like Artemis said you will be in for a long bus ride. But I just wanted to comment on mixers not really being a good place to meet people. They've always seemed kind of creepy and gross to me ("Quick! You have 5 to 6 hours to dance with these random incredibly awkward boys!") Once you meet people in another setting it is a good opportunity to hang out with people from other schools, but don't expect dances with other schools to offer much quality interaction.</p>
<p>There are also semi-formals and formals. It's easy to get an invite, even if you don't know anybody. Someone always knows someone who is looking for a date. These can be really fun. I had to have a deb-type from Alabama teach me about receiving lines before my first Woodberry formal which was, um, a cultural experience. :P</p>
<p>All of the single sex schools in Connecticut and those close by in New York (Emma Willard) and MA get together nearly every weekend at one of the campuses. Some of the bus rides are very long but most are pretty close.
Miss Porter's is about 5 miles from AOF and there are easy visits back and forth.</p>
<p>REgarding girls and science majors -- I graduated from a school that was only day girls for our freshman year and then ... the urge to merge took over ... (alumnae will know what school this is!) and we graduated as a coed class as part of a well known prep school.</p>
<p>Of the 50 girls in my graduating class, 5 are medical doctors and another 3 are geophysists. Class of 1973. I am sure it was the nuturing girl's school environment -- as our schools did not fully merge the curricula until long after we graduated.</p>
<p>im hoping to go to a all girls school a couple of them do PG yr(what im going to do) like grier(a one not mentioned) Im interested in grier b/c i love to ride horses and they sent there whole horse team to nationals last yr(a biggg acomplishment)</p>