<p>There is a thread like this currently on the Smith forum; thought it would be helpful to get the Wellesley perspective. What are some of the major differences between the climates/ cultures of the respective schools? Any opinions/ impressions would be greatly appreciated:)</p>
<p>My daughter just chose Wellesley over Smith, despite being offered a Stride Scholarship at Smith. Why? First of all, it is ranked higher academically. Secondly, the relationship with MIT is very strong, and they have worked out the practical issues to make taking classes, or participating in joint clubs and social life easy. This is important since it gives her all the benefits of a small women's liberal arts college, but also the advantages of access to a large research univeristy when she wants it (and she did overnights at both places, took the bus to MIT, etc.). Lastly, their record of training exceptional women is simply impeccable: Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton, Story Landis (head of NINDS), Cokie Roberts, Diane Sawyer. Think of how many prominent woment you know, and look where they went to school. I was just reading in Madeline Albright's autobiography how she turned down a full scholarship to Stanford to attend Wellesley (where btw she also received a full scholarship, as well as lot of other prestigous institutions) becuase of their reputation for training women leaders. My daughter just got back from SOC, and couldn't believe how amazing the professors and all the women are she met. It clearly felt right to her, much more so than Smith, despite also liking what she saw at Smith.</p>
<p>I visited both campuses with my daughter, who applied to Wellesley but not to Smith. I wanted her to apply to Smith as well. They are both wonderful institutions with active engaging women on campus. The opportunities are excellent at both. I think the decisions to attend one or the other will be made more on a feel or gut level than on objective data. Also you might be attracted to a different college than your parents.
Wellesley seems a little more sedate and a little less PC.</p>
<p>We have visited both: Wellesley twice, Smith once. My D will be applying to Wellesley, probably not to Smith. Our experience is limited, but we did form some opinions.</p>
<p>I had heard good things about both and was especially anticipating our visit to Smith as I have loved the books by Smith's former president, Jill Ker Conway. </p>
<p>We did not care for Northampton and our tour of Smith was disappointing in that we were unable to view a dorm room (a common problem on tours it seems). I suggested to our Wellesley guide, before seeing Smith, that many of the top colleges seemed very similar and asked if she knew differences between Smith and Wellesley. She described Smith as "funky." I'm not sure what that meant exactly, but we did see a lot more body piercing and a lot more people in Northampton that did not seem to be college students. Also, I've never seen such a small town where it is so difficult to park and to cross the one main street. </p>
<p>Anyway, I'm sure Smith is a great experience and things at Wellesley that appeal to us--maybe a bit more conservative, if that word ever applies to a campus--would not appeal to others.</p>
<p>So we are hoping for ED at Wellesley, but also being realistic as admission is no sure thing and looking at Mount Holyoke and several others as well. Good luck to all as this process is grueling and the colleges don't really do much to help you compare one to the other.</p>
<p>We had a great tour of Smith. It was the dead of winter. The other family did not show up. So we had our tour guide and her trainee plus the other guide and her trainee plus another guide in training who was along for the ride. We saw several rooms.
Findlay, was your tour crowded? We were on a tour at Princeton and about twenty foreign tourists joined the tour. We did not see any rooms on that tour.</p>
<p>Findlay, what exactly about Northampton/ Smith did you not care for?</p>
<p>No, our tour group was small. I didn't mean to single Smith out for criticism because we could not see a dorm room. We could not see one on our first tour of Wellesley either. It just strikes me that when the cost is $40,000 per year it should be standard practice to show you a room where your child may be living. When you do see one you would assume that the school would show you an average or better room, but I don't think that's the case given what we saw at Harvard, where the room we toured looked like it would take a lot of work to be habitable. Of the ones we saw Wellesley and Amherst seemed to have the nicest rooms, if those rooms are at all representative.</p>
<p>I just think it's tough to evaluate schools when much of what you learn may depend on your tour guide and many of them seem to have few details to offer. On the other hand, Amherst, last summer, had the best trained tour guides who could have sold ice to the Eskimos; they were good but they had also received some good training. Then you wonder how much you are getting the straight scoop or just a good sales job. </p>
<p>Ideally, we will visit some of the colleges again, during the school year as opposed to our summer visits.</p>
<p>We just didn't see much in the way of shops, just restaurants. The parking was amazing as it was evening and we could find no convenient place to park but parked in a bank lot where there was a man taking $5 or some such amount. Whenever we wanted to cross the street it was difficult as the traffic seemed to be endless. </p>
<p>We were just there twice and then only for a couple of hours. </p>
<p>Probably don't pay attention to my opinion on this one. I think I am the only person I know who did not like Key West. Like Key West, but on a smaller scale, Northampton just seemed to have a lot of people moving and buzzing but I could not figure out what about the place attracted them. Maybe they were just there.</p>
<p>I find it interesting that you comment a lot on what you liked, but not that much on what your daughter liked. A gentle suggestion is that you let your daughter take the lead in selecting a list of schools to apply to, of course with input and guidance from you. Having just completed this process, the best advice my daughter got was to only apply to schools that she would be happy to attend. Of course, she still had to select schools that spanned an appropirate range of selectivities to be sure she had good options, but I think its a much better approach than thinking of the less selective schools as safeties. Her and I made a visit last summer to 10 schools in 5 days, which we viewed as an initial screening. This was sufficient to come up with a list of schools to apply to, and it was also useful in allowing her to interview at many of them, but then we waited until the accpetances came in before she did overnights (on her own, without me) at the schools she was most interested in. She actually spent 2 nights each at Wellesley and Smith, went to classes, slept in a dorm, ate in the cafeterias, met with faculty, etc. And it was through this more in depth look that she could reach a final decision. I will also be honest with you, what my daughters room looks like, or even the what the town looks like, are pretty low on my priority list as a parent. I am spending $40,000 a year on the school that I think is going to give my daughter the best preparation for a successful, fullfilling, rewarding life. As a town, we both liked Northhampton more than Wellesley, but then Wellesley is so close to Boston that we found that a better venue. We both hated Amherst, and left halfway through the visit. But in the end in also came down to what my daughter wants to study. She will probably major in Neuroscience as a pre-med, which isn't even an option at Smith. My last bit of advice to families starting this process now is to MAKE IT FUN. That's what we did.</p>
<p>I agree with everything you say. I did not get into it, but yes, our daughter is very much involved. </p>
<p>As for the importance of the room, I just believe it important that a good school provide a good room as that is the base of operations for study and sleep so it is important. For example, if the Harvard room we saw was typical then it seems Harvard is providing what would not pass for average acceptable housing and I would view Harvard as failing in a basic responsibility. Of course, we did just see the one room.</p>
<p>Findlay, parking can be challenging in NoHo but the town itself is pretty cool. We've sampled numerous restaurants, shops, etc. I never had to pay $5 for parking, fwiw, and I've been there for at least four separate visits, two of them being multi-day affairs.</p>
<p>Sorry you didn't see a dorm room on the Smith tour...we did on ours. If you check PR, Smith consistently rates very high on the "Dorms Like Palaces" rating: #3 in this year's, #2 the year before. My D would agree...she has sat in the window seat of her Victorian house looking out upon a Dickensian driving snowstorm...she loves it.</p>
<p>For my money, W & S are close enough in academics that I think you can safely choose either way based on gut feelings.</p>
<p>I've heard that Wellesley is a more cutthroat/ competitive- type atmosphere. Based on your experiences/ anecdotes, does this have some grain of truth?</p>
<p>I do not understand about "not being able to see a dorm room" on the tour of Smith. My D is a Smith tour guide and showing her room is part of the required routine, as I understand it. Perhaps your tour guide's roommate was sleeping? (My D has a single but even when she had a double I think this was no problem. I would hope that if her room were not available for viewing, the tour guide would have lined up a friend's room.) </p>
<p>Occasionally a tour guide is asked to fill in at the last minute. (Usually, they are scheduled for certain days and times.) That is the only reason I can think of for a room not being shown on a tour. </p>
<p>Anyhow, my D was not known at home for the impeccable state of her room. When we would visit Smith and see her neat room we would ask her, "How come you keep your room neat here while your room at home was so messy?" She would reply, "I have to show my room here every week as part of my tours. So I make sure it is in decent shape." Then I realized I SHOULD have been giving weekly tours of her room while she was in high school - might have solved the problem! LOL</p>
<p>As a Smith tour guide, I'm going to suggest that the room was not shown because it was summer. Summer housing at Smith is expensive and many students working on campus choose to live off-campus, and it could have been the same for the guide. However, any tour during the year will show a room, and Smith's rooms are very nice for college housing (I know of a senior guide who shows a friend's first year double as "This is one of the smallest rooms at Smith so anything you get will most likely be bigger" and the reaction, according to my friend, is "Wow.") I can't compare Smith's housing to Wellesley as I've never seen a Wellesley dormitory.</p>
<p>If you do return to visit Smith during the academic year, chances are very slim that you won't see a room at all.</p>
<p>Brings up what is perhaps a tangential point but: while I understand that summer is the easiest time for many to visit colleges, I think it's one of the worst times to do so. You want to get a flavor of the campus, and a flavor of the students--and students who happen to be there for various summer programs may not be representative...at many places, they will be high school students there for one program or another.</p>
<p>The difference was highlighted for us in two visits to Georgetown, one with the students on break, one with classes in session. Night and day.</p>
<p>I’m blown away by the other wellesley versus smith threads. It’s populated 90 percent by current or former Wellesley students. I was gonna pipe up with some words for Smith, but honestly, I had one of the best experiences imaginable there and perhaps I want rank-fanatics to go to Wellesley.</p>
<p>I think the types of people who choose Wellesley or thrive at Wellesley are very different than those who thrive at Smith. Let’s put it this way: a lot of Smithies wouldn’t like Wellesley but I think if a Wendy decides to go to Smith, she most likely will enjoy it. Wellesley has a very exclusive feel- and a remote feel. I hear the talk about “men in Boston” is inflated - as is the availability of classes at MIT, etc. So who knows. I know I LOVED LOVED LOVED Smith. I also loved Bryn Mawr, but found it to be a pressure cooker and not in a positive way. Best way to decide is to visit, and go the dorms for sure if you are able.</p>
<p>Smith was the best thing to happen to me because of the opportunities it afforded me, I studied abroad twice, designed my own major, took graduate courses and received two national fellowships while studying there, including a Fulbright Full Award. No complaints here. Oh, and I learned A LOT.</p>
<p>This thread is from 2005?</p>