<p>just out of curiousity...are you applying to other all girls schools as well?</p>
<p>Yes, I am applying to other all girls schools and coed as well.</p>
<p>My sister is a frosh at SMC and loves it. Tonight she said "Its practiclly like going to ND", so yeah. When I visited her in the fall, the ND guys were great :) Totally cool, actually they only hung out with us (SMC) girls the whole weekend</p>
<p>I am an SMA '87 grad and my husband ND '86 grad. I have 4 daughters, the eldest of which is a junior in hs...so a-college-searching-- we --will go---. I have both female friends and family members that have graduated from ND, and feel I have a "pretty good feel" for the relationship between the two sets of girls. As we all know, ND is quite the competivie institution to get accepted into, and conversely SMC is not. That being said...it has been my perception that competitive women tend to seek a ND education. SMC (where my heart lies) attracts women who are all about living a WHOLE life, full of self reflection, service, empowering of women and those who enjoy the one to one enviroment that only SMC can give. As far as social life, both sides of Hwy 31 benefit from the ND boys....The ND boys who are attracted to competitive, determined women tend to find that in the ND women they meet, and those who are in for a different relationship, tend to gravitate towards SMC. My husband is a type A, and it was to his benefit not to marry one! I did not go to SMC because of "not getting into ND", I went for its philosophy of empowering women, its caring and nurturing atmosphere. I have a feeling that of my 4 daughters, 2 will go to ND and 2 to SMC...just based their personalities.</p>
<p>Hmmmm....was an '87 SMC grad as well and must add that of all of our female ND and SMC friends, the ND moms choose the stay-at-home role much more often (these are women now in their 40's). Have SMC friends that are doctors, dentists, lawyers, professors, school principals....very, very competitive people in competitive fields that have stuck it out for all of these years. Really, the only people who find fault with the women at SMC are the ones who are critical and, quite frankly, maladjusted socially. Thankfully, there are very few of these compared to the large number of students who choose to look for the good in everyone. In the end, both are EXCELLENT choices for women. Focus on your program of interest and the whole big school vs. small school atmosphere issue. Both schools will take you to the moon if that is where you want to go. Both are as competitive as you make them.</p>
<p>Think I was misunderstood...of course you can be successful graduating from either institution, and successful at high demand professions...but I still stand that a majority of ND grads tend to be type A, fastidious in their personality (kudos to them for getting what they set out to get....no judgement here, just an observation), where as I didn't find that to be a true majority at SMC....equally as successful, yet achieved with a different mindset....and I do think that as we turn 40...all of us have a chance to chill a bit, but remember, these are 18-21 year olds still caught in the rat race!</p>
<p>No misunderstanding, and let's just agree to disagree here. Actually, I remembered that the OP decided not to apply to SMC based to some degree on comments in this thread, which is really too bad. At any rate, we are both kind of off subject in our responses. Our comments really belong on the SMC thread where the OP also posted her original question. Try responding there as you did here...I'm sure that an alumn or 2 - or preferably current students - will have something interesting to say about your remarks.</p>