Hi all,
I am currently attending Bryn Mawr College and I am not enjoying my time there. Academically, I feel challenged and am loving the class selection but socially, I feel very underwhelmed which has made my experience feel a bit dreadful. I’ve always been a person who cares a lot about academics as well as having a social life that keeps me stimulated and growing as a person. That is to say, I like having a mix of people (both men and females). Going to a women’s college was a kinda a last option for me so it’s not such a surprise that I’m not enjoying it. But, I’d like some advice from people who have considered transferring or who have transferred out of a women’s college to know if its truly worth it because academically, I love it.
What year are you? I did not transfer out of a women’s college but I did transfer out of a school where I was unhappy socially. I enjoyed my new school much more, but I could tell that those around me had deeper bonds with each other that formed in freshman year.
At my college I became friends with a woman who went to Bryn Mawr. I met her because she was taking a semester “study away” at my University. She enjoyed the social aspect of the larger/ coed school but was ready to return at the end of the semester.
I’m not sure what the policies are for studying away and then transferring at the end of the semester. But it might be an option for you to get a breather by going somewhere else for a semester, and seeing where it goes from there.
You need to decide what works for you, but in the meantime…
-Have you looked into joining clubs at Haverford?
-Have you scheduled any classes at Haverford or even Swarthmore or Penn (I know it’s harder to get to the latter two, but maybe that would open up your social circle)?
-Have you looked into studying abroad? If you are currently a first year, it might be possible to go spring of sophomore year, or for all of junior year. It looks like Bryn Mawr will also entertain some domestic study away options like @rosemaryandthyme mentioned above, although there are caveats to be aware of: https://www.brynmawr.edu/deans/academic-opportunities/study-away-and-study-abroad.
If you are a first year, maybe you should look into transferring options now and possibly apply. By the end of second semester, you might then be happy to have the option to transfer, or perhaps you’ll have found your people at that point.
Good luck!
Are you stretching financially to be at Bryn Mawr, or do you have a good package of need-based or merit aid?
I feel as if I would give very different advice to a student who was full-paying and possibly accruing debt for an experience she wasn’t thrilled with, vs. a student who had an enviable financial deal and should perhaps give it more of a chance.
My own daughter is at a women’s college, and like you was thinking about transfer by the end of her first semester (not purely because of the single-gender aspect but that was one factor). She had a hefty merit scholarship, though, which had been part of her decision to go there in the first place; most of the places she’d have liked as a transfer school would have meant a steep increase in cost as transfer merit is hard to come by. She really wanted to study abroad, so I suggested she apply to go abroad sophomore spring, and give it a chance in the meantime. If she had still wanted to transfer by the end of sophomore fall, she could have submitted apps before she left for her time abroad; but at least she’d get her semester abroad at the discounted price. (We hadn’t even necessarily agreed to dig deep to pay for a transfer school; but we definitely knew we weren’t going to pay a higher rate just for her to get on a plane and not be at that school! She could do her away time on the scholarship!)
As it turned out, a lot of the things she wasn’t thrilled about were more first-year-experience things that got better with time. Her social circle got bigger and her classes included more students from outside her own college - including guys - as she got out of the first-year course sequence. She found a major and minor(s) that she liked, and her other friends who had been bonding over their desire to transfer figured out their paths. (One did transfer, and another stayed but planned a full year abroad junior year.) She still thinks her school has pros and cons but she doesn’t really think the grass would have been appreciably greener elsewhere, and she’s happy with her choice. She has made great friends at her school, and she has visited the friends she made on study abroad at their schools, which only reinforced the “everyplace has pros and cons” insight.
All that said, if we’d been full-paying for her to be “meh” after the first semester, we might have been quicker to pull the plug and consider alternatives, so it all depends! I think in that case I would have encouraged her to float some transfer apps her first-year spring, so as to have options at the end of the year.
Note that if you do want to consider the sophomore-spring-abroad plan, you may need to get moving on that. My d had to attend a study-abroad orientation in January in order to get the first round of paperwork submitted in time to go abroad the following spring - so start the ball rolling ASAP if this is of interest.
One of my biggest regrets is that I did not transfer out of my small (about 2200-2300 students) rural LAC after my freshman year. Life is too short.
@iamincollege23 : If you are receiving substantial financial aid, then consider–as suggested above–studying abroad.
Although a full pay student, I stayed at the rural LAC. I survived by studying abroad for 3 semesters (one per year) and graduating in 3 years rather than the traditional 4 years. I had enough friends & joined a frat which had great members, but I found the lack of breadth & depth of daily life to be suffocating. I enjoy diversity in all facets of life and did not find it at this particular upscale LAC. Also, I was uncomfortable with the lack of anonymity.
You need to decide what is important to you and act accordingly.
These would be my questions to @iamincollege23 as well. Bryn Mawr stresses their close ties with Haverford so much, including male students in Bryn Mawr classes and vice versa, clubs, activities, etc., they make it sound like the women-only experience would be more of a student’s choice than the only way someone experiences Bryn Mawr. Do you feel this is not true/exaggerated?
OP described her social experience at Bryn Mawr as “dreadful”. I suspect that this description goes beyond the single sex status of the school as many males are nearby at Haverford College.
Bryn Mawr has a very strong “personality” and any degree of anonymity at this small school would be nearly impossible to experience.
eh, she said “socially, I feel very underwhelmed which has made my experience feel a bit dreadful.” That’s not quite the same thing.
My eye caught this part: “Going to a women’s college was a kinda a last option for me so it’s not such a surprise that I’m not enjoying it.”
OP is a first year student at a college that was her last choice, who expected to be disappointed in the social life and is unsurprisingly finding it ‘underwhelming’ - but she is loving the school academically. Her situation does not necessarily seem analogous to what you experienced at your rural LAC, @Publisher. The experience of @aquapt’s daughter seems more relevant.
@iamincollege23, the lucky thing is that you can do several things at once. Go ahead and send out some transfer apps, thinking hard about where you are applying and why. Think about the inevitable tradeoffs between where you are and where you might be. At the same time, look at what your next 3 years would be if you stayed: would you take classes at H / UPenn / S? study abroad? lay it out, so that when you have results from your apps you can compare like with like.
Once the apps are out, put the idea of leaving completely to one side and commit to where you are. What do you want to get out of your remaining time at BM? have you done the things in and around the college that are fun / interesting? have you done the things in Philly / NYC / DC that would be fun to do? if not, get a pal and head out on some adventures.
You would not be the first person to transfer and land happily somewhere else- but you also would not be the first person to not settle happily until well into second semester. Try to distill out how much any lingering disappointment / resentment that you ‘had’ to take a school you didn’t want is coloring things for you.
@collegemom3717 : Agree that OP is not at a rural LAC, but ways of coping (study abroad, study at nearby schools, joining common interest groups, & graduating early, for example) are similiar.
What is similiar is that small LACs tend to have strong, dominate personalities & a lack of anonymity. Whether OP has fully identified her concerns is not clear. Excellent academics can be found at hundreds of US universities & colleges.
@iamincollege23 - You have been given excellent advice above. As for the mechanics of a transfer application list, where would you apply this time? Would you have an entirely new list, or would you reapply as a transfer to places where you were rejected last year?
I am fascinated by other posters’ analyses and interpretations of every word of the original post.
However, I would be much more interested in OP’s response, otherwise our assumptions will overtake the thread.
While Bryn Mawr and Haverford are often perceived as offering a collective coeducational environment, note that women still constitute 79% of the students in the bi-college relationship.
@merc81 This is very much true. I wish it was as easy as to “Just join clubs at Haverford” or “take a class at Haverford” but most of the relationships that I’d be forming would be female anyway because there such a small percentage of males in the bi-co.
@happymomof1 I am planning on applying to schools similar in status to Bryn Mawr, just co-ed with the additional state schools just in case.
If you would like to state your primary academic interests, we might be able to suggest schools for you, @iamincollege23.
I think a lot will depend on your budget. Can your parents afford your state schools? If so, then it doesn’t hurt to apply to other places because you’d have financial safeties.
My kid is at Haverford and has never felt the experience is overwhelmingly female at all- most of her friends are guys (always have been). She splits her classes between the campuses and attends social events at Bryn Mawr, but also feels the majority of the weekend party activities are at Haverford. I’m guessing that living at Haverford wouldn’t help then- the campuses have very different feels according to her, but it sounds like you don’t really like either? You can apply or dorm at Haverford in the future if it would help at all.
@iamincollege23 I’m sorry you’re not having a great time at college and I hope you figure out a solution that works for you.
My daughter is interested in Bryn Mawr (but she’s also applying to another women’s college, so she’s definitely open to women’s colleges) and she’s a little worried about the social life as well. She’s not a party person though, but she does like to be social in terms of going to shows, watching movies, etc. Can you share at all of you thought Bryn Mawr social life was bad because it didn’t have parties or because people studied all of the time or something else? Thank you!