<p>Here's the dilemma- do you think that Mount Holyoke provides a better education or American University (enrolled in honors program)?</p>
<p>My D is interested in double majoring in International Relations and French. </p>
<p>She just received a renewable scholarship for 27k and invited to join the honors program at American University. </p>
<p>She is still awaiting the MHC package; received a letter from admissions that all but accepted her (much like others under the school posting for Mount Holyoke) telling her that good news is coming at the end of March.</p>
<p>At this point she is thinking she also wants to go to grad school. This also involves more expense. Debt or not?</p>
<p>So- please provide opinions. We are willing to pay more if the value for the education is worth it. What do you those of you -who are familiar with these institutions- think?</p>
<p>My D was also just admitted to A.U. Honors and its musical theater program (also with with a hefty scholarship–yay!), but I don’t think she would have been admitted to Mount Holyoke, which is much more selective and has more prestige. However they are such very different schools that I think your daughter must have some strong feelings one way or the other–largish university vs. small LAC, co-ed v. single sex, urban environment vs. small town. But congratulations in having such a pleasant dilemma!</p>
<p>I don’t know enough to comment on the respective educations, but I can’t help but think that your daughter will have very different college experiences at an isolated women’s college in western MA vs. an urban coed school in DC. Has she visited both and is prepared to fit in at either?</p>
<p>I know someone at AU who was very concerned about the quality of education there before she enrolled – she very much wanted to be challenged academically in college, and AU was her safety school. She is a freshman and is finding that AU offers her plenty of academic challenge, and she’s not even in the honors program. She absolutely adores it there, has fallen in love with DC. Her parents are also very impressed with the school.</p>
<p>That’s only one anecdote, of course, and every student’s experience can be different.</p>
<p>This is completely anecdotal (well, I guess all of our stories are) so don’t flame me.</p>
<p>But my friend’s daughter started at Mount Holyoke this year. (She chose it over UMass, because she thought UMass would be too big for her.) She now would like to transfer because she feels that at least two-thirds of the women she has met are gay. </p>
<p>She has no problem with gay people…she just feels like it makes it even that much harder to go out and meet guys when she can’t find people to do it with. Plus, there are quite a few romances on her dorm floor this year and it’s a little too much for her.</p>
<p>2/3 of the women at Mount Holyoke are NOT gay! However, there is a comfort level to being openly gay at Mount Holyoke as at similar womens colleges.</p>
<p>But, I will agree with the posters who note that the experience at American will be very different from the experience at Mount Holyoke. Clearly, there is a difference at a women’s college versus a coed college, as well as the substantial difference of an urban school versus a school in the 5-college.</p>
<p>International relations and French have historically been very strong majors at Mount Holyoke. You can contact the heads of the depts, or the Career Services office, to find out what the majors in those areas have done after graduation.</p>
<p>She has visited Holyoke and loved it. Has not visited AU, but we will definitely make a visit in April. Yes, the points you have all made are the very issues she is struggling with- she never expected the scholarship money from AU. And we don’t know, yet, what Holyoke will offer in terms of money (if any, as we did not qualify for need based aid. Interesting formulas as we are not rolling in cash!)</p>
<p>She is looking for developing personal relationships rather than be a face in the crowd. If she’s in the honors program at AU and lives on an honors floor, that provides a bit more personal flavor. She loves the idea of a city, but when she visited Holyoke, the atmosphere resonated with her. </p>
<p>Oh, one more thing: my D wants to be in an atmosphere where her peers are thoughtful and articulate. She is not a party gal at all. </p>
<p>The money is the key, here. On the one hand we do not want to sell our second born to make a college education possible for our first and, yet, we recognize her capabilities and passion. We think she will be fine regardless of where she ends up because she is so motivated and ready to go out in the world. And she will be thrilled to be getting out of the Midwest. Both schools are on the east coast, where she wants to be. </p>
<p>It is purely a matter of “two goods” competing in regards to very different aspects.</p>
<p>We visited Mount Holyoke, and I was incredibly impressed with the students we met. They were articulate, informed, and engaged. Of all the colleges we visited, I thought that the students at Mount Holyoke seemed the ones who had truly made the most of the liberal arts college experience. Many double-major (often something like dance or music and chemistry) and there was more mixing of students from different ethnic backgrounds than we saw at other schools, by quite a bit. No segregated cafeteria tables here.</p>
<p>Ultimately D decided against applying to a single-sex college, but I’m still a little regretful. </p>
<p>One of the things that I think that Mount Holyoke does incredibly well is prepare students for graduate and professional schools. The percentage of students who go on to get graduate degrees, particularly in fields that traditionally don’t have many women, gives me a sense that MH knows how to help young women develop the skills and the confidence to be successful in these future endeavors. (A friend whose incredibly brilliant and talented daughter is at Yale tells me that in many ways, Yale is a discouraging place for women interested in majoring in the hard sciences. Her daughter, along with quite a few of her friends, is now headed off to law school – not a bad thing, but I do wonder what she would have chosen had she gone to MH or Smith.)</p>
<p>I’m not very familiar with Mt. Holyoke, but I visited AU with my daughter last year, and we were very impressed. The beautiful campus is in a suburban area of DC. The students we met were friendly and very happy with their school. They enjoyed small classes and accessible professors. The students in the honors program get a lot of personal attention. I recommend that your daughter visit and meet some students in the honors program. AU is strong in IR, and the DC location provides a lot of opportunities.</p>
<p>I think in our day (parents) this would have been a no brainer in favor of Holyoke. But ivies and top LACs have taken top female students away from Holyoke and American has gone up in standards considerably.</p>
<p>I’d go to the one the family can afford and she likes best.</p>
<p>I agree with Hmom. What American offers that is no contest is the location, if that is something conducive to your d’s study. I do know kids, however, who just do better at nurturing LACs. Mini is someone you might want to PM as he has a daughter who went to Smith and one currently at American.</p>
<p>I love LACs, and have a very soft spot in my heart for Mt. Holyoke. Having said that, if one is really serious about international relations, American is a top 20 school. <a href=“http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4685[/url]”>http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4685</a> My d. has found opportunities, mentorships, internships, spring trips (she just came back from one called “Pathways Out of Poverty” in Oaxaca, jointly organized by the School for International Service and the Business School), and potential job opportunities that students at Mt. Holyoke can only dream about. </p>
<p>You asked for “better education”. For liberal arts, math, sciences, humanities, etc., Mt. Holyoke hands down. For international relations, range of languages, business, public affairs, and communications, easily American. Just depends what a “better education” means to you.</p>
<p>I am biased towards Mount Holyoke, but that is expected. I have had the benefit of mentorships and internships that I thought I would only be able to dream about as well. There are not spring trips like that, but there are several school-sponsored and heavily subsidized service trips (usually) to a Latin American countries to help build homes. Mount Holyoke College sends many students to Teach for American and the Peace Corps. Investment banks have also been some of the top employers for our graduating seniors in the last decade. We also are a leading producer of Fulbrights (and other fellowships and scholarships). It is easier to be noticed on a campus of ~2,000. Mount Holyoke has a strong International Relations program. We have excellent professors and many of our students go on to do great things. In the end, what it comes down to is what makes your daughter happiest. $200,000+ is a lot to invest, if there is no aid/scholarships, so given that, I would choose the more economically sound package - American. However, I still believe a Mount Holyoke education is a very valuable one and that your daughter could be just as well-prepared for her field as friends at American.</p>
<p>I know Mount Holyoke only a little (I had a girlfriend who went there). I don’t know anything about the gender preferences of MH students or their departments. (So, why are you writing?) I have a much greater acquaintance with a number of graduates of Smith and Wellesley. To a woman, they would all say that they are more confident, had more opportunities to excel, to speak in class, etc., than they would have had in a mixed gender school and believe that their Smith/Wellesley experience contributed to their success in later life. I don’t see why MH would be different.</p>
<p>I’m another Mount Holyoke student. I attended a high school that was a feeder HS for American University, but I did not even bother applying and instead ended up at Mount Holyoke. I have never regretted this decision.</p>
<p>I can say that although Mount Holyoke may not advertise it well, your daughter will also have the opportunity to go on all of these trips that mini has said “Mount Holyoke students can only dream of”. I know one person who went to India last summer to intern at an i-bank. This year, she’s going to Spain. Mount Holyoke funds this (you may want to look at the MHC-IIP: [Mount</a> Holyoke College :: MHC International Internship Program](<a href=“http://www.mtholyoke.edu/global/11626.shtml]Mount”>http://www.mtholyoke.edu/global/11626.shtml)). Someone else studied at an intense language program with funding from the school last year, and will be returning to the country for an English Teaching internship. </p>
<p>As for languages-- we may not have as many languages than American because we are a liberal arts school, but we have access to four other schools where we can take classes. We also have the Five College Independent Language Learning Program. I, personally, have studied two languages while at Mount Holyoke (one was French! :)) and have been nothing but impressed by the language facilities and the accessibility of my professors. If your daughter places into the higher levels of a language, she should have no trouble getting used to the flow of things. </p>
<p>You should also wait for the final decision. Mount Holyoke hasn’t done this early acceptance thing before, but if they are doing it, then maybe this means your daughter may be eligible for the $20,000/year renewable scholarship that will allow her to take classes with the best faculty, have access to funded internships, and some other perks which escape me now. More information here: [Mount</a> Holyoke College :: An Investment You Can Afford](<a href=“http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/sfs/affordable.shtml]Mount”>http://www.mtholyoke.edu/offices/sfs/affordable.shtml)</p>
<p>The decision should be up to you and your daughter. I’d say that you should visit once more and see if the schools are what you are looking for. Best of luck with decisions for both you and your daughter!</p>
<p>My older d. was a Smithie, where they paid her for a trip to Cambodia, Thailand, and India, and she spent a year at the Smith Center in Florence. So I know about what these wonderful liberal arts colleges (I went to one - Williams) can offer.</p>
<p>But, sorry, when it comes to international relations-related opportunites, it is still not even close. The range of in-term internships, from the State Department to the White House, are almost infinite, even the work-studies in the School of International Service are extraordinary, the career center (considered among the top 3 in the nation) can start articulating foreign travel with career goals from the day one arrives on campus, and the sheer variety of programs run by the AU itself dwarfs those one finds at Mt. Holyoke or Smith. And, per capita, AU has the largest number of students studying/interning abroad of any medium size college in the U.S. On campus, in a single week, they had the Iranian woman Nobel Prize-winning human rights activist and Muhammad Yunus, and there is just a steady stream of international visitors. That’s simply a function of location.</p>
<p>Clearly, I love them both. But there are clear differences, and you’d find different sets of opportunities at each.</p>
I have had the benefit of mentorships and internships that I thought I would only be able to dream about as well. There are not spring trips like that, but there are several school-sponsored and heavily subsidized service trips (usually) to a Latin American countries to help build homes. Mount Holyoke College sends many students to Teach for American and the Peace Corps. Investment banks have also been some of the top employers for our graduating seniors in the last decade. We also are a leading producer of Fulbrights (and other fellowships and scholarships). It is easier to be noticed on a campus of ~2,000. Mount Holyoke has a strong International Relations program. We have excellent professors and many of our students go on to do great things. In the end, what it comes down to is what makes your daughter happiest. $200,000+ is a lot to invest, if there is no aid/scholarships, so given that, I would choose the more economically sound package - American. However, I still believe a Mount Holyoke education is a very valuable one and that your daughter could be just as well-prepared for her field as friends at American.</p>