Why All-Women's Schools?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Smith College
1

<p>I have read many books on the sub-standard way girls are treated in coed classrooms throughout high schools in the country. Read books such as “Reviving Ophelia:Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls” by Mary Pipher, and “Failing at Fairness: How Schools Cheat Girls” by Myra and David Sadker and you will get my gist. These books provide hard evidence of the discrimination women face from the first day of school. The Sadkers’ book gives a very detailed view of how schools cheat girls by marginalizing their roles in the classrooms of America. The statistics regarding the perfromance of females at all-girl schools are impressive, and are of great importance, since co-ed institutions often seem to neglect girls to a greater degree.</p>

<p>The Sadkers show us how far women have come in the last century, in claiming their place in the classrooms of schools from elementary to graduate school both in front of the class, and behind the desk. They also show us how different that place is from the space filled by their male counterparts, and how sexism has seeped into every aspect of the female educational experience. The Sadkers studied the numbers —counting everything from female faces and names in textbooks and among teachers/professors, to school budgets for athletics, to questions and kudos offered to girls by teachers in the classroom. These numbers show that girls attend schools where the bulk of a teacher’s attention in the classroom is focused on boys, their studies are centered on men and their achievements, they are taught by men (secondary education and beyond) and the bulk of their schools’ budgets (including special ed and athletics) are spent on the boys. It is no wonder that the hopes and dreams of young girls are diminished as they enter adolescence, with doctors settling for nursing degrees, and chemists turning to cooking! They found that in intellectually rigorous girls’ schools, few incidents of sexism were uncovered. These schools focused on the intellectual growth, academic curiosity, independence and self-esteem of their female students. </p>

<p>This, IMHO, is what Smith does best. Do some research about females in schools, particularly in their adolescent years, and you will find that they receive quite a different education from their male counterparts. If you have a daughter planning on attending Smith or already attending, be very proud of what she has overcome to get there.

2

<p>BJM, I posted to you in the Johns Hopkins thread about this. I, too, have read Reviving Ophelia, although I think that has more to do with the unique emotional/social problems encountered by preteen and teenage girls.</p>

<p>Girls do indeed lack the self-confidence of boys as they navigate early adulthood, and schools like Smith empower them. Academically, however, girls are thriving. As I see it, the real problem is after college. Women's colleges such as Smith restore some of that naturally lost self-confidence and get women in the habit of taking charge. Once they hit the career world, then they are ready to use their talents to their fullest.</p>

3

<p>MWFN...this is why Smith's admission rate seems to be higher than coed elite schools. The applicant pool at Smith and other women's colleges is small and highly self-selected. Women, possibly just like yours or my daughter, have a much more difficult time getting into elite coed schools. Not only are they competing with a 50-50 split of male to female, but then must also compete with athletes. Their potential of admission is cut in half before starting the process. </p>

<p>Too many young women in America act, think, and believe, not because it's their integral nature but rather because they've been pushed to it by messages from the media, Hollywood, teachers, parents, male classmates. I see this every day in my role as a Principal in a suburban middle school. For 17 years, I served as Principal in a very different setting; a very urban, inner-city school where girls were submerged by more pressing problems of poverty, gangs, street violence, drugs, falling-apart families, crime, and teachers who were past the point of caring or treating students with respect. I've seen it all in the past 26 years, and the education that girls get in comparison to boys is not equal, nor fair. The main thing that is necessary is for the educators to get educated themselves in what is going on; it seems all too likely that most of the teachers who are doing these things are not even aware of it. If useful strategies are taught to future teachers as to how to combat gender bias, schools in the future may be a great deal fairer of their treatment of all students. I tend to spend a good deal of time with first year teachers involving this very subject. It is imperative to me that they understand gender differences in their classroom, and that they understand their own biases when dealing with both sexes.</p>

4

<p>
[quote]
Women's colleges such as Smith restore some of that naturally lost self-confidence and get women in the habit of taking charge. Once they hit the career world, then they are ready to use their talents to their fullest.

[/quote]

Agreed!! Smith not only empowers women, it enables them to see their leadership potential. Once you feel empowered by what Smith offers and provides you, a young women feels that there are no obstacles too large to overcome in life. This is a priceless (lol---$43,300 per year) gift!</p>

5

<p>"Women, possibly just like yours or my daughter, have a much more difficult time getting into elite coed schools."</p>

<p>And (and I am comfortable saying this as a Williams grad., which my d. turned down to attend Smith) their experience - academic and otherwise - is much less likely to lead them toward future leadership.</p>

<p>The following, like the overwhelming number of current Fulbrights - WOMEN Fulbrights doing RESEARCH - is an imperfect indicator, but one worth considering. Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, Dartmouth, Princeton, Columbia, Brown have all now been coed for 30 years, and in some cases 35 years. Exactly how many female senators or congresswomen do they currently count among their graduates? You think maybe 20? Think again. 10? try again. 5? Still too high. 2? How about ZERO?</p>

<p>Whereas the women's colleges, with smaller populations (and including some schools much, much less selective than Smith and Wellesley) currently make up 20% of all the women in Congress. Statistical outlier? I think not. </p>

<p>Make of it what you will.</p>

6

<p>Wow - pretty impressive information. As you probably know, the admissions director of Kenyon College wrote that Op-Ed piece in the NYTimes recently, apologizing to all of the women she rejected. Personally, I think her real MO was to brag about Kenyon's improved admission rate and increase its prestige in the national community (few on the East or West Coasts have heard of Kenyon --what better way to get free advertising?) Anyway, my point is that the admissions director or President of Smith (or another women's college) should write another Op-Ed piece and publicize these powerful statistics. I bet with a little national press the applications to the women's colleges would soar. Especially now that women know that they are discriminated against in the college process (at many highly selective LAC).</p>

7

<p>MomofSmithie...Smith has this posted on it's website:
<a href="http://www.smith.edu/about_whyissmith.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.smith.edu/about_whyissmith.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It gives information as to why Smith is a women's college, and what advantages it has over coed schools. There is plenty of information, either directly from Smith or any other women's college, that supports the arguments for these schools. Like anything else, however, they appeal to a select group of young women. Most are not yet ready to make that leap from a coed public or private institution. Nor do I mean to demean coed colleges; as they provide an excellent education for the men and women that choose to attend them. And...that is the difference; this choice that our daughters have made. Maybe through their own volition, or with some help from us as parents, they see the value in what an all-women's college has to offer. They will leave Smith very confident women in what they have achieved in the classroom, but more importantly, they will feel that they are prepared to take on the world in a leadership position, rather than what society has planned for them in this man's world.</p>

8

<p>I agree, Smith and the other schools have much of this information on their websites. But you have to be in the market for a women's school to look there -- and many don't start out looking at women's schools. Some of the people who hear my daughter will be attending Smith aren't even aware it's still all-women! I guess that my point is that a little more national publicity about the incredible benefits might increase the interest.</p>

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<p>The best all-women's colleges get press when they are included in the US News top LAC rankings, but that's about it. I notice when CC posters start a "Predict next year's rankings," they usually omit the women's colleges as though they don't qualify. (That's usually to make room for favorites that aren't yet on the list.) I, too, would like to see them become more high profile. I suspect that it will happen since next year's applications promise to be even more competitive than this year's. Women will be searching for the best education they can get.</p>

<p>I really have to thank my d's guidance counselor for making us think of the all-women's colleges in addition to the co-eds. My d and I were talking earlier today about some of the mistakes we made in the application process - certain colleges she didn't consider or look at, applications that weren't filed because she was tired of them, too many safety schools, etc - but we concluded that, in the end, she still might have chosen Smith.</p>

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<p>Couldn't hurt. Back in the dark ages, I attended Williams College, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago. I keep up with what is happening at each. Do you know how much research is carried out by undergraduates at any of these places in the first two years? Try zilch. How about ANY signficant undergraduate research in the humanities even in the last two years? In my 3 years as a graduate student and TA at the University of Chicago, I saw none. NADA. Is it any wonder then that Smith has more female research Fulbrights than Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore combined, more undergrad female Fulbrights than Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago, Dartmouth, Columbia, Johns Hopkins (the list could get longer....)</p>

<p>Maybe they should be measuring what comes OUT of the institution, as well as what goes in. It's called "value-added".</p>

11

<p>BJM, my favorite sister in-law was previously president of a noted girls' high school in Denver and for quite a few years now has been the CFO of the private school in Seattle that Bill Gates & Paul Allen graduated from. She was/is very concerned about the phenomenon of girls "turning themselves off", beginning in middle school, when the hormones hit and they begin to be concerned about being appealing to guys.</p>

<p>With that as context, Smith first got high on my D's radar screen at a Smith prospect party when a current Smithie was talking about the difference of young women at Amherst(! for you) and young women at Smith. She said that the women at Amherst were content to let themselves be overshadowed and/or overpowered by the men and that the students at Smith just weren't like that. I was standing off way to the side and could see my D sitting crosslegged on the floor as she listened and it was like watching a cartoon character have a lightbulb appear overhead. </p>

<p>Just the month before, one of her classmates--a cheerleader but bright enough, had said in one of the AP classes, "Can't you at least try to fit in?" </p>

<p>By "fit in" she meant acting like a lot of other girls, not challenging the boys, not participating beyond what was required in class, etc.
D was having none of it and upon hearing this Smithie speak, there was a sense of, "I've got to find out more about this."</p>

<p>And the rest, as they say, is history.</p>

12

<p>Interesting, isn't it, how Smith turns out extraordinarily bright young ladies who become leaders in their field. Women's colleges, in general, have extraordinary track records of success in teaching math and the sciences: they graduate women in these disciplines at 1½ times the rate of coeducational schools. Women's colleges and their women-centered pedagogies, curricula, and environments – including female role models and leadership opportunities – must take the lead as national models not only for the effective education of girls and women, but also to inform, shape, and influence gender-equitable environments in pK-12, and college and graduate school.</p>

<p>In a recent Girls Inc. survey of 2,000 girls and boys in grades 3 through 12, </p>

<p>75% agreed that girls are under pressure to dress the right way; </p>

<p>63% agreed that girls are under pressure to please everyone; and </p>

<p>59% agreed that girls are told not to brag about things they do well. </p>

<p>How these influences shape the decisions that young women make about their futures should come as no surprise – including decisions about college, in which taking the female perspective into consideration is woefully absent.<br>

[quote]
Maybe they should be measuring what comes OUT of the institution, as well as what goes in. It's called "value-added".

[/quote]

Amen to that! I think Mini's comments about research opportunities speaks volumes on behalf of Smith College.</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
Smith first got high on my D's radar screen at a Smith prospect party when a current Smithie was talking about the difference of young women at Amherst(! for you) and young women at Smith. She said that the women at Amherst were content to let themselves be overshadowed and/or overpowered by the men and that the students at Smith just weren't like that.

[/quote]

TD...we've seen it ourselves! lol. When my D attended classes at Amherst, she came home one day and said pretty much the same thing. She had already visited Smith once before that time, and noticed, quite clearly, how the girls at Amherst did not speak up during class. As a matter of fact, as she was visiting a biology class, she answered one the prof's questions and the girls around her looked stunned. She also noticed that there were not many girls in the biology class as well. Very intuitive little tike! When visiting Smith (2nd time), there was a noticeable difference in how she responded upon returning home. She too mentioned about STRIDE students (she was with one as a guide who informed her about the research opportunities), and while talking to profs in the biology dept. noticed that there were many more female profs as compared to Amherst. (something only she would have noticed).</p>

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<p>NSSE Associate Director Jillian Kinzie said: “Women are more likely than men to have high aspirations for their educations, more likely to enroll in college and to stick with it until they earn a degree.” These high hopes and diligence often deteriorate when women encounter the learning environment at many coeducational college campuses. Kinzie described persistent “micro-inequities,” which have a damaging cumulative effect on women's self esteem and confidence. </p>

<p>Women's colleges offer distinctive options and notably different conditions: women-centered pedagogies, curricula, and environments that are focused on you – your education, your personal and professional development for the many different roles you will assume in life, and your advancement in the ever-changing, knowledge-based, global economy. At women's colleges, students focus on their academic and personal growth and development. </p>

<p>According to Kinzie, women at women's colleges are more engaged than women at coeducational institutions, are more likely to experience high levels of academic challenge, engage in active and collaborative learning to a higher degree, and take part in activities that provide opportunities to integrate their curricular and co-curricular experiences than their counterparts at co-educational colleges. Women at women's colleges tend to thrive studying subjects such as science and math – subject and career areas in which women are traditionally underrepresented. “Students at women's colleges report greater gains of self-understanding, acquired through both singular study and through study groups,” Kinzie said. “We typically associate these skills with success, which helps explain why so many women's college graduates achieve positions of leadership in their careers.”</p>

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<p>According to the Women's College Coalition, research shows that students attending a women's college enjoy these five benefits: </p>

<ol>
<li><p>They are given the opportunity to participate more, in and out of class, due to small class sizes which create a more positive learning experience because of greater individual attention. </p></li>
<li><p>They have measurably higher levels of self-esteem than other achieving women in coeducational institutions—9 out of 10 women's college graduates give their colleges high marks for fostering and developing self-confidence. </p></li>
<li><p>They get greater satisfaction than their coed counterparts from their college experience academically, developmentally, and personally. </p></li>
<li><p>They are more likely to graduate, and more than twice as likely as graduates of coeducational colleges to earn doctoral degrees and to enter medical school. </p></li>
<li><p>They earn more after graduation because they often choose traditionally male disciplines, like the sciences, as their academic major, in greater numbers. Women's colleges continue to graduate women in math and the sciences at 1.5 times the rate of coed institutions.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>oh dear, I <em>feel</em> the need to jump on this boat here now that I've stepped out of the box.</p>

<p>Let me response to the survey first-
1. Sadly, I agree, but I already dress well anyway and I like what I wear.
2. The more powerful the person is that I have to work with, the more I have to please unless I'm convinced that my action is way better than what that person thinks I ought to do. But for most part, I eventually do it for me.
3. Absolutely no! I ALWAYS brag about what I do - I love it! I love the attention that I get over the men at the parties. And I think, on the long run, is way to pick up worthy husbands.</p>

<p>Now, I agree with the comments about Amherst girls. I have a good friend there and I lived with her in DC over the summer while she did a NIH internship. I could sense from her personality and the way she carried herself that she actually looks up to me because I have so much self-confidence and direction in my life. I also went to Amherst Hillel every Friday night second semester of my first year- the Amherst girls are definitely willing to be overshadowed by the men (except for one because she was the co-Prez). They really have the potential to be successful in themselves if only they could just put themselves forward. Because my friend already looks up to me (she explicitly told me that I'm a role model, yay!), I have to set an example for her by telling her how I'm doing and why I do this or that and such.</p>

<p>I also see that in students around me here at Colgate too. Mostly the first years. Fortunately, I see a couple of bright, outspoken minds here and there so those will do well. Currently, I am in a senior seminar where there are six women and one brilliantly smart man (Watson Fellowship recipient!) and I am amazed how far the women have come in the last 10 weeks just being in a nearly all-women's class. Now they're more outspoken than I am! At first the gentleman talked a lot but I think somebody or something kinda told him be a bit quiet and just be there for resource (his thesis is basically what we're studying). And it's really worked out... I haven't asked the girls myself what they thought personally about this kind of group setting. The professor really noticed the difference too. The guy's just incredibly supportive of their thoughts.</p>

<p>Just being in all-women's setting can truly empower them to be the best they can be. If the women can remember feeling that way, there is no doubt that she will do whatever it takes to have that feeling again when she steps out of the box, just like I did.</p>

<p>My 2 cents.</p>

17

<p>Acting as the devil's advocate on this thread, and psoting for the first time, I am not convinced that all-women's colleges are any more necessary that all women's medical schools or all women's law schools. I am speaking as the father of two bright daughters soon of college age and happily married to a Smithie. After a lengthy evaluation of the pros and cons, my wife and I have come to the conclusion that our daughters long term interests will be better served in a coeducational environment.</p>

<p>Many of the reasons advanced are either no longer relevant or simply untrue.</p>

<p>Participation in the classroom is largely a function of class size not gender. Clearly if you compare a class of 15 students at Smith with a class of 300 at UMass, you will much greater student involvement at Smith. If you believe your child (son or daughter) needs to participate more in the classroom pick a small LAC or a less popular major in a larger school. </p>

<p>Similarly those who claim that women-only colleges foster greater self-confidence confuse correlation with causation. Many co-ed institutions can and do foster confidence in their female students through greater mentoring by female (and male) faculty and other students acting as role models. The fact that women's colleges like Smith understood the unique needs of women students earlier does not mean that co-ed institutions have failed to address the issue. All top tier colleges have strong women support groups very much like law schools and medical schools. </p>

<p>At most top colleges (LACs and research Universities) satisfaction with the college experience does not vary widely by sex. Whether it is at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Williams or Amherst student satisfaction has more to do with class size, workload, living conditions, availability of extra-curricular activities. In most colleges women can live in single sex dorms or at least single sex floors if they wish. They can also join sororities or "affinity houses" if they wish.</p>

<p>The higher graduation rate of women at women's colleges is a red herring and highly misleading. Women, on average, are simply better students than men and women now enter graduate schools (including medical schools and law schools) at greater rates than men. The fact is though, that proportionately MORE women enter graduate school at Harvard, Yale, MIT, Williams or Amherst than at Smith or Wellesley. This is simply due to the fact that the best and brightest women (in their vast majority) no longer seek a women's only education, now that the doors to the top institutions are wide open to them. With the exception of MIT virtually all top rated institutions now accept more women than men. The not so hidden secret is that it is now easier for women to enter Harvard or MIT than it is for men, especially if they have an inclination for the sciences in which case they receive the red carpet treatment. Brown University has now nearly a 60% female enrollment. </p>

<p>The claim that women's colleges graduate more female engineers and scientists is simply ludicrous. The vast majority of students at Smith and other women's colleges go through their four years without ever taking a single math or science class or fill their science requirement with a class that would in most colleges be part of the humanities program not science. I have met many dozens of Smithies from accompanying my wife to many class reunions and although I consider many of them to be extremely bright most are scientifically illiterate. I realize the focus of the education has changed in recent years at Smith and other women colleges and science (and even god-forbid engineering!) now have a foothold in these schools. But they still lag far behind the leading co-educational institutions in the hard sciences and even biology where they have put most of their efforts. Using Marshall and Rhodes scholarships awarded to women Smith lags far behind schools such as MIT, Harvard or Yale. This has everything to do with the fact that small LACs simply cannot compete with top research universities in attracting the very best faculty in science and engineering. Smith does have a single member of its faculty part of the National Academy of Sciences as compared to 160 at Harvard and 101 at MIT. They are simply not playing in the same league. </p>

<p>As far as access to the faculty and to research facilities this is again a red herring. At MIT, ALL freshmen participate in leading edge research, in the same lab and same bench as graduate students, post-docs and world-renowned faculty using multi-million dollar equipment simply not available at smaller institutions. Yale recently invested 500 million dollars into new research facilities, much of it available to undergrads. The claim that underclassmen at these leading institutions do not participate in research is simply a myth. With endowments an order of magnitude greater than Smith's they can provide an infrastructure that smaller LACs can only dream of. </p>

<p>However much my wife and I have fond memories of Smith and will continue to contribute to the school, we simply cannot rationalize steering our daughters to Smith or any other women's only college on the basis of a better education.</p>

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<p>"The claim that underclassmen at these leading institutions do not participate in research is simply a myth."</p>

<p>We visited Yale. We found none, zero, zippo paid research positions for first- and second-year students, in ANY subject, science or otherwise. I taught at Chicago. There wasn't one undergraduate in the humanities with a research position - it wasn't just that there weren't many; there weren't ANY. And the reason for that was simple: I was very well-paid, as a very valuable graduate student, to do just that.</p>

<p>The Fulbrights don't lie - and they reach far further down into the student body than the Marshalls and Rhodes. Count the number of female undergraduate Fulbrights at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, and Stanford, and Chicago. And then count the number with research (not teaching) Fulbrights. It's not just that Smith (and Wellesley) are competitive; in fact, it isn't even close. (You can count the Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore ones and add 'em together, and you'll find the same result.)</p>

<p>This can't be explained by "entrance characteristics". It is obviously the case that if you looked at the entrance characteristics (GPAs, SATs, etc.) of students at the above-named institutions, the women at these coed institutions should be doing better. They are also on average, far wealthier (which is likely to give them, if nothing else, a window on a future of greater opportunity.) Something is happening once they are there that is not easily explained by the entrance data, the fact that Smith is not attracting the "best, brightest" (or wealthiest). (The study I would really like to see - and this would NOT apply to MIT - and it's a study I never will see, would be the resultant academic status of female students who graduate from each of these institutions who came from families with incomes below the national median.)</p>

<p>It's 35 years since my alma mater went coed. The record of women's achievement there is, to put it mildly, distinctly underwhelming.</p>

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<p>Cellardweller, the only thing in your post I'd like to dispute is that it's "easier" for women to get into the Ivies because a school like Brown has classes that are 60% women. That percentage is true, BUT all the top schools, including the Ivies, have acknowledged that the women who are applying are, as a group, FAR better than the men. They are better achieving and more active high school students. That's not to say that the men these schools accept aren't qualified - they are - but that a gender-blind class of the strongest applicants might be 75% women. That means that women have to work harder to distinguish themselves at that level. </p>

<p>Here's an anecdotal illustration: at my daughter's former (public) high school, one that traditionally sends students to each of the Ivies and several of the top LACs from the top of the class, is in shock this year. The valedictorian, female, didn't get into any of the top LAC/Ivies in the Northeast but did get into Pomona. Out of the women in the top 10 (they formed the majority), there wasn't a single Ivy acceptance. Two got into Duke, and the rest got into good LACs but not the bigger names. The ONLY Ivy acceptance was a male, further down in class rank, who did not have the stunning ECs that the others did. He was not a varsity athlete, and he was not a legacy.</p>

<p>Obviously, I did not read the applications, nor do I know what went on behind the adcoms' closed doors. I know these kids, though, and while the boy who got into an Ivy definitely deserved it, I would say that the girls who were rejected across the board from the Ivies/top LACs would have been my bet based sheerly on credentials. </p>

<p>I do agree with you completely that a women's college is not the best option for every high school senior girl, and that a great education can be had at a co-ed school. When I started this whole process with my d, the women's colleges were thrown in there by her guidance counselor. They were not my d's top choices until she began to visit them. Even then, she wasn't sure until she started comparing her acceptances. Now, she probably can't imagine that she considered any school besides Smith. :-)</p>

20

<p>Smith was the only women's college (in fact the only LAC) that I applied to, and it's been great for me. Supportive profs, amazing friends, a town I love, solid prep for grad school. </p>

<p>But my class at Amherst this semester (with one other smithie, a girl from hampshire, 2 amherst girls, and about 10 amherst guys) has great participation from students of both genders. and from talking with my sister, who is pre-med and a social scientist at a different college (where she has had undergraduate research opportunities since her first day on campus) and an ex who attended a top co-ed LAC for undergrad and is now in an Ivy League phD program in the sciences, I'm not convinced that women's colleges are so essential for many people...it's certainly possible to be just as confident, and just as scientifically-minded, at a co-ed school. Smith's high science grad rate? Most of those are psych majors (not to denigrate psych, but I think it's a lot closer to anthro or soc than to physics or chem). </p>

<p>sure, it's great to have a place where the student body president is and always will be female (studies have shown that at co-ed schools women are much less likely to run for elected office, though they serve in equal or greater numbers to men in appointed positions), and the sound of 2000 women screaming at convocation is pretty cool. but i do worry about how i'll do in the 'real' (co-ed, grad school) world...and i've spent a fair amount of time taking classes at co-ed schools and working with guys my own age over the summers. So it's a mixed bag.</p>

<p>edit: I just looked at the course catalogue, and "most" is an overstatement when talking about psych majors. but in the class of 2006, there exactly were as many psych majors (67) as there are majors in the following subjects combined: math, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, computer science, geology, cognitive science, and astronomy. there are also 42 bio majors, 32 engineers, and 23 neuroscience majors. for contrast, government is the largest major and has 86 majors this year.</p>