The Lame Defense of Women's Colleges

College Search & Selection
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<p>Have just read this entire thread and find the intellectual sparring match humorous! Keil, if you want to, go ahead and attend an all-women’s college. If you don’t want to, don’t. It really is that simple. We may intellectualize this topic until we turn blue…when it comes down to “fit.” And arguing for the sake of arguing, while entertaining for some (I suppose) can come across as arrogant.</p>

<p>Single sex colleges need no justification, period. </p>

<p>Oldest daughter is in her first year at one- she is intellectually driven. Youngest daughter would never consider an all-women’s environment-she is not intellectually driven in the same way as our older daughter. So what?! Their choices don’t make either of my daughters better or lessor as human beings. </p>

<p>Each of us have gifts to be developed and must decide which college environment will best suit the flourishing of those gifts, given the information we have at hand when making the choice of which college to attend.</p>

<p>Choosing a learning environment that is best suited to oneself is very individual; good luck at Swarthmore, Keil. I have a friend whose son graduated there a number of years ago. It is a fabulous institution.</p>

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<p>I wrote a lengthy and serious response to patc’s comment on being “intellectually driven,” but CC ate it. In deference to fate, I will simply say that I know intellectually driven young women who would not consider women’s colleges and other young women “not intellectually driven in the same way” who are quite enamored of women’s colleges.</p>

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<p>In my opinion, we don’t need to fight over whether or not to defend women’s colleges. It is a personal choice, and admittedly not the right one for everyone. There is a lot of stigma against women’s colleges, but I think the only way to change that is through the actions of graduates, students, and the recently admitted.</p>

<p>I applied early decision to Wellesley, and coming from a school where most people go to a state school, or a short list of 5-10 other universities, I am getting a lot of push back now that people have discovered it is a women’s college. I do think that it is wrong that no one respected the school much until they found out it was the sister school to MIT, and also has ties to Harvard, but I do not think that spewing facts at people who feel more comfortable at a co-ed school will really influence them much. Wellesley, and the other Seven Sisters (not to put down other all women’s colleges), do not have these high profile connections simply for the sake of tradition. Tradition doesn’t put seniors from Wellesley in the graduate labs at Harvard; a stunning education, however, does. I think that all we can do now is embody the image that we wish to project of these institutions, and realize this choice is an incredibly personal one that requires much soul searching for each individual.</p>

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<p>I am going to offer an opinion with a lot of historical perspective. In 1974 I graduated from a women’s high school with a total of 200 students. In 1974 I would have told you it was true waste of time and loss of potential experience. </p>

<p>Then I went to George Washington University, with 20,000 others. I was shocked at how professors would call on men before women. I was appalled at girls who simpered and made themselves look foolish because someone with a Y chromosome was offering an opinion different from theirs. </p>

<p>I came from a school where women counted. We were the dominant culture. And I was unwilling to accept a back seat to someone simply because they were male. I became a film producer, made a lot of money, married a very nice guy, had a baby, quit work, raised my child and started a new career this year, when my daughter got into Bryn Mawr after attending a coed public high school.</p>

<p>IMO every woman owes herself the opportunity to live in a community where women’s voices are the dominate voices. You won’t let yourselves be pushed around ever again.</p>

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<p>I’m the OP.</p>

<p>

I respectfully disagree. Your gender is irrelevant to me when I say that I will define what kind of community I owe myself.</p>

<p>

I haven’t let myself be pushed around since middle school, when I joined the BPA club (Business Professionals of America) and learned to overcome my fear of public speaking. I did this in a coed environment, and I am perfectly content in a coed college environment where my intermediate-level CS class is gender-balanced in both demographic and class participation.</p>

<p>I have said this many times upthread, months ago, and I will say it again: if you seek an all-female environment and believe that it will help you be a stronger person, GO FOR IT. I applaud you for knowing what’s best for you.</p>

<p>But please, spare me the rhetoric that every woman, solely because she has two X chromosomes, is incapable of standing up for herself after having experienced only the coed world. It is demeaning and patronizing to the same people that you seek to empower–not everyone needs or wants a single-gender environment in order to empower themselves.</p>

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<p>Oh, I agree you should decide for yourself. And I don’t think EVERY woman wants to go to a woman’s college. I sure did not want to go to a girl’s high school. But in retrospect, it was tremendously liberating personally, and preparing me for the world.</p>

<p>Bryn Mawr graduates 50 times more female physics majors than the national average (at a paltry 3% of the graduating class). 9.7 % of All Bryn Mawr graduates end up with a PhD in either the sciences or engineering. </p>

<p>Among all colleges and universities, Mount Holyoke ranks eighth (tied with Stanford and Wellesley) in the number of graduates who earned U.S. doctorates in physics from 1966 to 2004; ninth in chemistry; and sixteenth in biology. </p>

<p>The US government did a study called [[Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering]] [nsf.gov</a> - Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: Degrees Data - US National Science Foundation (NSF)<a href=“I%20love%20that%20title”>/url</a> Psychology majors were 77% female in 2008. Engineering majors were 18.5% female in 2008. </p>

<p>In 2008 CNN reported engineers starting saleries, with a BA, averaged over 56,000.00 per year. </p>

<p>According to Forbes in 2008 if you had a masters in psychology and 10 to 20 years experience you earned 54,000.00 on average. </p>

<p>You do the math, someone is cheating women.</p>

<p><a href="http://colleges..com/guides/college-selection/rescollwomens.aspx%5B/url%5D">http://colleges..com/guides/college-selection/rescollwomens.aspx](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/degrees.cfm#bachelor]nsf.gov”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/degrees.cfm#bachelor)</a></p>

<p>•One-third of the women board members of the Fortune 1000 companies are women’s college graduates.
•Women’s college graduates are twice as likely to earn Ph.D.s. A higher percentage go on to study in the sciences and attend medical school.
•Of Business Week’s 50 highest ranking women in corporate America, 30 percent are women’s college graduates.
•Of 61 women members of Congress, 20 percent attended women’s colleges.</p>

<p>Some famous women’s college graduates include: </p>

<p>•Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
•Diane Sawyer - Host of ABC’s “Good Morning America”
•Madeleine Albright - First woman to be named U.S. Secretary of State</p>

<p>More than 90 percent of students who attend a women’s college state that they would make the same choice again</p>

<p>Not only that, you have the freedom do be smart, silly, geeky, stupid, make mistakes, have a bad hair day, wear the ugliest and most comfortable stuff in your closet and build a community with other wonderful, intelligent women. It really can be a utopia for the right person.</p>

<p>If it’s not your cup of tea, it’s not your cup of tea. But it’s worth considering.</p>

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<p>

It’s not about what every woman wants. It’s about what every woman gets from the experience. In retrospect, there are tons of women in the world who experienced only coed education that was nonetheless tremendously liberating and amazing preparation for the world. (Especially LACs, which all women’s colleges are and thus should be compared to. Comparing women’s colleges to the “national average” is like comparing Swarthmore to Penn State on who eats dinner at their professor’s house more often: they are wholly different types of education.)</p>

<p>

What percentage of women attending coed LACs (not all schools, mind, just LACs) state that they wish they had gone to a women’s college instead? Do women’s colleges have higher retention rates than their academic (not admit-rate) peers?</p>

<p>Quick browse tells me that freshman retention rates at Middlebury and Wellesley (equally ranked by USNWR) are identical, at 96%. Bryn Mawr is 93%, while Haverford is 96%. Not conclusive data, but certainly not higher than their coed peers.</p>

<p>

I changed one word in the above quote and it is absolutely, entirely true for me at Swarthmore, an LAC that has been coed since its founding. (And I have a BF who lives in the same dorm as me. He is amazingly, truly blind when it comes to bad hair.) It doesn’t matter to me one whit whether I do stupid stuff in front of a guy versus in front of a girl.</p>

<p>I agree wholeheartedly that women’s colleges are worth considering; I suggest them to all of my female friends who are considering coed LACs, because the educational value is significantly higher than at a coed college of comparable admit rate. But that doesn’t mean they’re right for all women, or even most women. They are right for some women.</p>

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<p>A new study of Princeton University, by Princeton University, shows that female students are actively discouraged from seeking the most prominent leadership roles. It also shows that, although women are more likely to achieve academic honors, men are likely to receive the highest honors. </p>

<p>[New</a> report finds gender gap in leadership roles at Princeton University: women undergrads ‘actively discouraged’ from seeking most prominent positions | NJ.com](<a href=“http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/04/new_report_finds_gender_gap_in.html]New”>http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/04/new_report_finds_gender_gap_in.html)</p>

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<p>Currently women outnumber men in college and grad school. Thirty years ago the opposite was true, and men bent over backwards to attract the few available college educated women. (Smart was sexy even then.) Now men are in the minority and therefore in the driver’s seat. This is not to suggest that Princeton men are demanding that women take a subordinate role. I’m sure that few have given it any thought. Given the numbers though educated women in general are working harder to attract the available men. Not running for higher office or a Rhodes scholarship may be the Princeton equivalent of a short skirt at another school. Not that being noncompetitive will get you noticed in a positive way, but being assertive may be just enough of a negative to take you out of the running.</p>

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<p>From the article:

[New</a> report finds gender gap in leadership roles at Princeton University: women undergrads ‘actively discouraged’ from seeking most prominent positions | NJ.com](<a href=“http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2011/04/new_report_finds_gender_gap_in.html]New”>New report finds gender gap in leadership roles at Princeton University: women undergrads 'actively discouraged' from seeking most prominent positions - nj.com)</p>

<p>I think you might want to look first to changes in cultural and demographic makeup of the class before speculating on other motivations. There may also be a downside to the increased level of competition to get into Princeton and other Ivies – it may make for much more highly competitive student body overall, which in turn may result in less supportive environment overall.</p>