I just had a shadow day at Mount Holyoke and it was not the best experience. My shadow said that being at an all women’s school bummed her out sometimes, and she felt as though the school focused so much on women that it was sexist. I sat in on one of her classes and barely anyone participated… They all looked disinterested and tired. This is making me feel like I don’t even want to apply to Mount Holyoke anymore. I feel like I would miss having guys in my classes and that I would totally miss out on the dating experience. What do you think?
My niece attended and really liked her experience. She is a pretty enthusiastic and engaged person. Maybe it is not the school for you – that is why students go visits.
D had a tremendous experience there. MHC degree definitely opens doors for her. She has great affection for her alma mater and has college friends from all over the world.
I’m a current student, and I can tell you that the shadow day on Monday was not well scheduled. This week is a big midterm week. I had a test and a paper last week and a test and a paper this week, and fall break starts on Saturday and everyone is exhausted. It isn’t like this usually; just around heavy midterm weeks and finals. It didn’t help that the weather sucked all last week.
Women’s colleges work very well for some people and poorly for others. It sounds like your shadow-er may have been better off at a co-ed school. Women’s colleges focus on women’s education and women’s issues; it’s just part of the deal. It’s the reason they exist. I’ve found that this type of education has done wonders for my confidence and my speaking skills. We do have guys in our classes (not a lot, but some, especially in higher-level classes) because of the 5-college exchange. It is harder to date; it requires more effort to maintain a relationship with a guy at another school, but it is totally doable.
Personally, I’m having a fantastic experience here. I think it’s a great school and its benefits absolutely outweigh its negatives for me. Whether it does for you or not is a decision you’re going to have to make for yourself.
@FireflyLights Thanks so much for your input! It was really helpful. I decided that I’m going to visit Mount Holyoke again, because I doubt my shadow day experience was representative of the school as a whole. My mom attended there and loved it. Top notch academics, beautiful campus, cross country and track, free rosetta stone… this school has everything I could ask for, and I love the sound of the 5 college consortium. Just curious, how did you decide on Mount Holyoke?
My daughter didn’t have a great sleepover there, but still loved the school. She didn’t end up choosing it, but would have if she hadn’t gotten into her first choice. I have a young friend who is a freshman there and is REALLY enjoying her first year there. She also didn’t have a great visit. Maybe MHC needs to figure out how to improve the visiting experience.
@Earthmama68 This is encouraging to hear! Thanks. Has your friend said anything about the social life at Mount Holyoke?
@nordietrackie I picked MHC because they gave me the best aid package (by a lot). I didn’t shadow, but I did visit, and I really enjoyed what I saw. MHC wasn’t my first choice (Bowdoin), and it wasn’t my top choice which I got in to (Davidson), but the community is wonderful and I’ve really loved it here.
I think Mount Holyoke rewards intimacy even more than most places. I love the layers of history on the campus, our weird maze of a library, all the little places you find as you explore more and learn more. I love the giant sloth fossil and its inexplicable location in the math department. I love the window seat on the third floor of the library by the back staircase. I love the choir loft in the chapel. I even kind of love (or is it love to hate?) the terrible climate control in Clapp (cold in the summer and hot in the winter!). The problem with visits is that those intimacies are hidden from you. You get a sheen view, which can give you a basic sense of what the community is like, but it can also be deceptive. You can visit during a midterm week where everyone was up late studying and are therefore quiet and a bit cranky, and think that that’s the “real” school. You could have been one of the people who visited at the end of last week when one of the farms up the road was fertilizing and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction and the north end of campus smelled like manure. It’s hard to sort out what’s representative and what’s not.
I’ll tell you something that happened to a friend of mine that I do think is representative of what this school is like: my friend was shadowing, and she got separated from her host during the Blanch lunch rush. Some current students saw her standing around looking lost and invited her to join them. They had a great conversation, and soon her host returned from the grill line, very apologetic for loosing her. That’s the kind of school this is.
It’s so hard to get a sense of what college communities are like, and if they’ll work for you. Hopefully this was somewhat helpful. I’m sure you’ll find a great place for you!
@FireflyLights Hi! Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner - thank you for the feedback. I am actually considering applying ED1 to Mount Holyoke now! Does Mount Holyoke have a writing supplement? If so, is it required? I also had a question about classes: do you find that people eagerly participate and that classes are discussion-based? Or is the professor doing most of the talking?
MHC had a pretty short, easy supplement when I applied two years ago (it was required), and from what I can find on the website, that appears to still be the case. It asked you to expand on one of your extracurriculars, which I preferred to all the “why X school” ones I had to complete.
As for discussion, it depends on the class. Most of the time people are pretty eager to jump in and discuss, but I have one class this semester in which people are more reticent. Part of that is the material the class is on, which is very new to many of us and sometimes it’s hard to jump in on material you’re not 100% confident in. (The class has definitely been getting more talkative lately, though!) It also depends on the mix of people in the class; if there are a lot of deep-thinkers who prefer to coalesce their ideas before talking, the class will be slower, especially at the beginning of the period. Things generally pick up after some ideas have been thrown out for everyone to chew on. Sometimes it’s hard to find an entrance point (especially on Monday mornings, I’ve found!)
Hey friend, so I’m a current firstie at moho and I’ll tell you my story because you might relate. My visit weekend after getting accepted was something of a disaster–everyone seemed quiet and mousy, my host person barely talked and seemed like the exact opposite of who I would hang out with on the reg, and I just felt weird and out of place. The only thing that salvaged the day was a sophomore (now junior) who talked with me for a while and brought me to see Jorge that night.
Mount Holyoke’s admissions office really doesn’t have itself together in terms of shadow and visit days. They haven’t been able to put together anything that matches the true MHC experience. This school has so many assets, particularly the incredibly (INCREDIBLY) diverse student body that is diverse beyond race and sexuality but also personality and lifestyle, and they don’t highlight it at all. I remember my RA/CA laughing at me on my first night at MoHo when I told her I was scared everyone at this school was a stay-at-home-and-read type.
From personal experience, I can say that dating will probably not be the easiest as a first year but it will get easier as you age and make friends on other campuses so you can form more personal connections with guys, not just “hey I bumped into you at an Amherst party haha”. You can definitely interact with guys while here (and as a first year) just by getting off campus on the weekends or joining a club that lends itself to interaction off-campus. If you do come here, do your best to make friends with upperclasspeople, they are the coolest and will help you find cool people off campus.
The accusation that we’re sexist for focusing so much on women is out of the ordinary, I’ve basically never heard someone say that. There is a vibe of homonormativity (being gay here is totally ok and sometimes certain groups sort of expect that you’re bisexual or gay regardless but honestly, as a straight girl, I feel proud that my campus is so safe for my LGBTQ+ friends) which some people feel a little uncomfortable with, but it’s really not a big deal and after the first month it’ll die down. I feel incredibly empowered being at a women’s college, more than I expected. It feels like a big sorority here to be honest. I know a good number of the people in my class year and we all connect with each other. Just yesterday a girl I have never hung out with before and I talked for two hours about our lives and such because she just knew I was having a tough day. My mom went to a big state school and was heavily involved in her sorority and she says MoHo feels like a more inclusive, more diverse version of a sorority. So supportive, so empowering.
Anyways, private message me if you’re coming back on campus. We can meet up and I’ll show you a real day in the life of a MoHo.
@phoria Thanks so much for your answer! I am just seeing it now. It’s funny how things turn out; I actually applied early decision to MHC a few days ago!! I ended up visiting again and sitting in on a class that I was interested in, and it was a great experience (lots of people participating, teacher involved me and students let me be part of the group activity). Hopefully I’ll be joining you on campus next year!
@phoria gay and bisexual people being generally accepted isn’t ‘homonormativity.’ not intending to be combative but i think b/c there is a larger % of gay/bi people on campus than most places and this is a place where we don’t have to be closeted it surprises straight people.
@artsycyborg23 I call it homonormativity when I have been called the “token straight friend” and it’s true, I’m one of the only straight people I know here. I have a lot of people I know in a lot of different friend groups, and within all but one of them, straight people are the minority. I dont know how many ways I need to say this, in how many languages I have to, but THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. I just need straight people to be aware that they should be prepared to be not the majority anymore. I’m comfortable with that, but I want the people on here to be hella aware of what kind of culture they’re coming into.
@phoria i get that you’re saying there’s nothing wrong with it i’m not saying anything about you as a person just that actually the split is around 50% straight people and 50% gay/bi people. so straight people aren’t the majority, but they’re in no way the minority. also homonormativity can’t be a thing because there has to be an actual power structure behind it which there isn’t. again this isn’t about you personally it’s just frustrating as a lesbian on this campus for straight people to act like one of the few places I can hold my gf’s hand without being afraid = gay empire. bc lbr homophobia exists on this campus
@artsycyborg23 Are you in the class of 2020? People are saying it’s particularly “gayer than normal”. Maybe it’s just the swing of progressivism but I can confirm, people who came in here saying they were straight have all generally shifted towards being bisexual or just not-straight.
I would love for someone to do an actual survey/do the research on this. Maybe the older classes are 50/50 split, but esp since social justice communities have become wildly popular online in the last decade I think we’re seeing a shift towards people questioning their sexuality and, because I genuinely believe 100% straight people are an abnormality (even I would have situations in which I am attracted to women, albeit rarely), they are increasingly identifying with the bisexual or pansexual labels.
Also, there’s a reason I put “homonormativity” in quotes the first time. It’s a literal usage of the word–that being not straight is much more normalized into the culture of moho than being straight–rather than a sociological one that implies there are structures of power attached. A jeu de mot, in other words.
D graduated from MHC 3 yrs ago–to say that being straight puts one in the minority is a bit of an exaggeration.
@MADad Demographics are changing. A larger trend of increased cultural awareness of there being multiple sexualities has led to an increase in people identifying with sexualities that are not simply gay or straight. I am commenting on my experiences with the class of 2020. Your daughter may have had a different experience in her class.
phoria, she was there THREE years ago, not forty…I still believe you are exaggerating the situation. Perhaps you come from a conservative part of the country where being “non’straight” is not quite as out in the open as it is in liberal Massachusetts? Other D went to college in upstate NY and had a friend from Texas who had his eyes opened by people he had never encountered before (folks with dyed hair, Italians!!)
We saw lots of non-straight women when she was there, but again, to say that’s become the majority, sorry, I don’t buy it. It may be your perception, but may not be reality.
Your comments may discourage straight women from applying, and these women missing what MHC offers would be a shame.
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@MADad i’m a straight girl who attends MHC and loves it. My existence at the school speaks for itself. While I understand other straight girls feeling like they wouldnt want to apply because of the prevalence of gay culture here, if that’s enough to deter them they probably wouldnt have been a good fit here in the first place.
I was friends with half of the Gay Straight Alliance at my high school. I was part of theater as well. It’s not about living in texas (I’m from a city suburb), it’s about it being a real trend. I will also say a professor here whose daughter went to MHC says there’s a LUG trend here where people who shifted towards being “more gay than they thought they were” in their first year settle back closer to their original identity by the time they’re upperclassmen. I think also making women aware that there are others who may feel isolated and pushed away by the social life here (one of the most popular types of parties on campus are called titty parties and i think you can assume what goes on there)–that there are indeed other women who aren’t disgusted by parties with men–is important. I never found other people like me until literaly the last week and a half. I want people who are on here who are like me to know I am a resource from what in the first few weeks can feel like an overwhelming wave. Hell, the orientation presentations had multiple sketches implying basically everyone who goes here is not straight. I vividly remember feeling like I was the only straight person on campus after those were received with uproarious praise and applause.