<p>One of my sources on the teaching at Wellesley comes from a biochemistry professor at a prominent medical school in the South. (She looked young to me maybe 35 y.o.) She left Wellesley after the second year because of the lack of men. She said that she had no shortage of boyfriends but that she was used to having guys around as friends. In her subsequent career and education she has found little that compares to the Wellesley education.
Another is a Harvard graduate who is a prize winning author who is teaching at Smith but made a similar comparison re the young women at Smith compared to classmates she had at Harvard. She thinks they are far more advanced in their intellectual pursuits and thinking.
Another high school friend of mine (the smartest man I've ever met) went to Harvard. He told me that Harvard was good for a select group of individuals who knew exactly what they wanted to do and were willing to act on their own. It would not be good for my daughter who is pretty good at everything but not passionate about anything. She will need to explore, which is done more easily at an LAC.
This is the type of info that the parents gather. It is anecdotal, but the kind of info we are looking for, I.e. "Will my child fit, and does this school fit my child?" doesn't lend itself easily to statistical analysis.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply.</p>
<p>I do understand the difference between Harvard and a LAC. My question was, however, more directly related to Wellesley. </p>
<p>I understand the notion and importance of good fit. I also understand that there are good reasons behind the fact that a particular school provides a better fit; some of the reasons are easily supported by statistical analyses, especially the analysis of the selectivity rankings. This does not mean that a more selective school is necessary better than a less selective school; it simply means that they are different. Neither does it mean that the student body are interchangeable or comparable. Again, they are different.</p>
<p>As I have been wrestling with this issue, both in general, big IVY vs LAC, and more specifically the Harvard- Wellesley debate (I am Roza's mom), one thing that has really impressed me that is unique about Wellesley vs the other LACs is the strong <em>working</em> relationship with MIT. I emphasize working because a friend at Smith told me that although she can take classes in the 5 college consortium its not that easy, while a friend at MIT told me its very doable at Wellesley. There is a bus running every hour, it takes half an hour to get there, and its timed to work with the class schedules. A Wellesley student has full cross-registration privileges at MIT, which even includes undergraduate research (UROP program). Since MIT has a higher percentage of men to women, the students there have an incentive to interact with Wellesley women, and they also have many joint extra-curriculars such as a newspaper that alternate meetings on the 2 campuses so there are opportunities to meet men outside of the party scene. There is even a program where wellesley students that get very serious about science can get degress from both wellesley and MIT (but this takes 5 years). My husband went to Harvard and said that when he was there all the basic science courses were huge (hundreds of students) and his work was graded by TAs. At Wellesley these same courses have a maximum of 25 students, and all work is graded by professors. But then, I worried that at a LAC there is no opportunity to take graduate science courses as a junior-senior or work in a high power research lab like I did when I was an undergrad at Brandeis. But at Wellesley a student can do all that at MIT (and meet men in a working environment in the process). So, I am sold on Wellesley as a really unique LAC that capitalizes on the strengths of a LAC, has worked out amazing solutions for the weaknesses, and provides women with a unique pro-active learning environment. Roza and I have had so much fun with the senior year college process. I learned so much I didn't know about LACs, even though I am a professor at a major research university.</p>
<p>our D (at smith) faced a tough choice between smith's engineering program and the wellesley-MIT consortium. while it may not be inconvenient to shuttle between MIT and wellesley, D felt she would miss the sense of community that develops among students in a home-based engineering program. on this point, smith held trump cards. but community aside, if you are considering adding a second focus in visual arts, be forewarned that commuting could extract a toll. our D recently decided to double major in engineering and studio arts. this semester, she has little time to spare between science labs, art studios, and a research project. she loves her interests, but she couldn't easily pursue these if she had classes on two campuses.</p>