Hi everyone I am an undecided major in the class of 2025 trying to choose a college! I’ve narrowed down my top choices to Wellesley and Smith College and I’d love to get anyone’s input. I am extremely undecided so I love how both of these LACs are strong in so many areas and give me the ability to explore many topics I’m interested in! Both also seem to have great grad school/job placement and an amazing alumni network so I’m super torn!!
Wellesley College
Pros:
Close to Boston!! (self-explanatory, so many opportunities)
More club activities I am interested in joining (figure skating team, more Christian fellowships, etc.)
Opportunities to cross-register/do research with MIT, Babson, Olin
More “prestige,” higher-ranked LAC (overrated but hard to ignore)
Cons:
More expensive ($15k more each year than Smith)
More competitive atmosphere (I don’t really mind the stress culture since I come from a pretty competitive high school already, but I feel like it would be harder to get research opportunities)
Smith College
Pros:
Merit scholarship (Zollman scholar, half tuition all 4 years)
Research (STRIDE scholar, guaranteed paid research opportunity first 2 years)
5 college consortium (could also take classes at Amherst College, UMass, etc.)
Easier to be a big fish in a small pond? (Less competitive atmosphere)
Cons:
Northampton (cute town, but it feels a little too close to home)
Would be close enough to home where I could do the same activities (go to the same skating rink, same church, don’t get the feeling of “starting anew” in college)
I love Wellesley so much (I even applied EDII and got deferred) but the half-tuition scholarship and research opportunity at Smith seems so hard to pass up! Would the more expensive Wellesley tuition be more worth it in the end? I’d be very appreciative of any input you guys can give me! Thank you
How much debt would you have at the end of 4 years?
If you will graduate with debt:
What sort of career are you thinking of, and what are the starting salaries in your field? how long would it take you to pay off all of your college debt?
If you are thinking gradschool will it be subsidized (ie, PhD) or paid (eg, MA/MS/JD/MD)?
Thank you for your reply! My family can afford to pay the $60,000 difference but our savings would be stretched thinner than if I chose Smith.
Money is a consideration but not the most defining factor in my decision. I am painfully undecided so I unfortunately have absolutely no idea what sort of career I’d do after college
The scholarship at Smith is nothing to sneeze at. You’re looking at two rather similar schools. Both are prestigious women’s LAC’s in suburban towns, former 7 sister schools. Both have consortium type arrangements. Yes, Smith is close to home, but honestly, Wellesley isn’t hugely different from Smith although you could get to Boston easily from there, while Smith isn’t near a big city of note.
It sounds as if you are effectively weighing being 75 miles farther away against 15K/yr in scholarship money plus a research opportunity. Me, I’d take Smith, with the understanding that your family doesn’t “pop in”. All the students there will be new to you, you don’t HAVE to go to the same church, unless that’s the ONLY church of your denomination in the area. Smith skates at Williston-Northampton rink. Is that already your “home” rink? You don’t have to continue skating at all, and I’m sure there are other rinks in the area. Essentially, Smith can be as new to you as Wellesley would have been, if you just choose to make it that way.
Hi - Great choices, congrats! FWIW (as a parent of a kid also looking at women’s colleges), I don’t think the “added prestige” at Wellesley is worth the cost of dipping into your parents savings or taking on any debt. First, these schools are both well known and it’s not like you would get fewer opportunities because you went to one over the other. Second, “prestige” actually means an illusion, delusion or deceit in French. We, in America, seem to have bought into something (rankings) that really means not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things post-college. It was all a marketing tool meant to make money for US News corp. and many of the schools over the years have really figured out how to game the system to raise their rankings. Once you get into the top 50 or so of schools (and really the top 100), you aren’t looking at a big difference, especially amongst the women’s colleges as all are ranked high and known to attract hard working driven intellectual students.
The Zollman/Stride scholarships are amazing opportunities, not only for the $$$ saved and also earned but also for the dedicated research opportunities with Smith professors that you would be given. And you get to put $$$ in the bank based upon work you have done with amazing professors. If Smith is half of Wellesley for you based on your scholarships, then you will be paying more than $15K a year more at Wellesley, right? And if you got Zollman and STRIDE, you should have gotten a nearly full ride? Just something to really think about, as any debt would accrue interest and since you have no idea what you want to do post-college, you can’t discount graduating debt-free with your parents’ savings intact. (Do you have other siblings who will go to college as well?)
Again FWIW, I went to college at a large CA public UC 15 minutes from my house and practically never saw my parents. It’s what you make of it. I did get to take my laundry home and saw them on my terms, but they never “popped” by and would not have been able to find me if they did!
Hi, thank you so much for your input! You are so right, the research opportunities as a freshman at Smith are hard to pass up and I don’t think I could find them anywhere else.
However, the cost of Smith would still be around $40k for my family with the Zollman, so not exactly a full-ride either. The cost of going to Wellesley (for me) would be around $55k in parent and student contributions, which is close to our EFC. While money is still a factor, the “extra” amount of debt I’d get from Wellesley isn’t anything completely unreasonable.
Since they are both academically on the same level, I am looking more at location/social vibe. For me, the proximity to Boston is what’s drawing me the most to Wellesley. I don’t mind going to college close to home, but all of the opportunities I could find in Boston outweigh Northampton. I think if the money was out of the equation, I’d definitely go with Wellesley. I know both offer INCREDIBLE opportunities but my heart is saying Wellesley. I just don’t know if the extra cost is worth it in the end.
IME, students from non-urban areas overestimate how much being in/near a big city changes the experience. During term, most students spend most of their time on their college campus. As a 1st year at Wellesley you can’t bring a car, so to get to Boston you either need older student friends or to take a 30 minute train. IRL it turns out that you only do it a few times a year- b/c there is so much happening on campus!
As you make your final weighing- the excitement of going away! being near a real city! - also consider if the $60,000 savings can buy you other things. For example, would your parents gift you the difference at the end to use as a down payment on your first house? Would they gift you the savings towards grad school if your chosen path needs a Masters? Would the savings make international travel during / after college possible?
I’m not voting for one or the other- just trying to help you keep the rose-colored glasses off as you are deciding!
Smith is a no brainer in this situation. College is not a destination although it can sometimes feel like one. Going to Smith doesn’t mean you’ll spend the rest of your life there or that you’ll never break away from your home town. Make a plan, set your goals, and eventually you’ll get there regardless of whether Smith or Wellesley is the means by which you accomplish that.
We are having a similar conversation in our home. The academics are nearly equal and I think you could go back and forth on any given course of study about which college is better. As much as Northampton feels remote from major population centers, we felt similar isolation on campus at Wellesley. The town of Wellesley didn’t feel nearly as hospitable for college life as Northampton. The shuttle to Cambridge strikes me as being similar to the 5 College Consortium bus to Amherst. My D wants to be far from home and likes the hustle of a big city. Can you make that up with Summer internships? It appears to me that Smith has those connections. (Career Services just received a $10 M gift. I’m guessing that is intended to further enhance those types of opportunities.) At the end of the day, the lure of a big city is tough to resist for some. I think Smith knows this and compensates accordingly.
The most important influence on us at the moment is the scholarship. Financial aid is relevant but not a deal breaker for our family. Most importantly to her, the scholarship sent a message, that Smith sees her as a top student and a perfect fit for Smith. In this year of waitlists, getting that message from a top college meant a lot to her.
I’m totally with parentologist on this. BOTH are very prestigious women’s colleges. And wow, not only will you save a big chunk of change, but the STRIDE thing and the five college consortium are fantastic bonuses. Smith for sure.
@collegemom3717 is right too. Students think they will just nip into the city all the time, but even at colleges really close to cities, it doesn’t happen nearly as much as students anticipate. Food, activities, friends and beds are all on campus. There will be plenty of good stuff going on to keep you busy.
Disclosure: I am a Wellesley alum, and many in my family are Smith alums. You can’t go wrong with either school. If money is the main issue, go to Smith. Otherwise, go to Wellesley. You will love it there. As a student I went to Boston all the time with my friends and many of my friends took classes at MIT (you can cross-register for classes there) and took the shuttle bus to get there. There is plenty to do at Wellesley to keep you more than busy but the call of Boston is hard to resist, and many students will have friends at other Boston schools (MIT, Harvard, BC, BU, Tufts, Berklee) so an entirely new world will open to you socially beyond just the Wellesley campus. I didn’t find that Wellesley students competed with each other; they just pushed themselves to excel. Wellesley students are just amazing women and you will do incredibly well post-graduation with a Wellesley degree. The name gets you far and the alum network is phenomenal.
