<p>I mean, what's the attraction?</p>
<p>It’s a personal choice, but here’s mine.</p>
<ol>
<li>Social Life: The women’s college I’ll be attending (Smith) has a social scene I love. You live in houses, not dorms which is great. Also, without men present, friendships grow even stronger and last for lifetimes. The bonds of Smith sisterhood were something I wasn’t willing to pass up for anything</li>
<li>I want to take some upper level math and science. I do think that many of these classes at coed schools are male dominated. That’s not a bad thing, but sometimes professors cater towards male learning and not female learning. I didn’t want that to be a problem</li>
<li>I also like the ability to explore yourself in a non judgmental environment. Smith is a great place to explore your religion, life outlook, sexuality and everything. It’s a far more open environment than a coed school.</li>
<li>The girls! THe girls attending Smith(and the ones I met at other women’s colleges) are the kind of girls I want to be friends with. They have priorities where I do, and have a similar belief system. I didn’t get that at coed schools.</li>
<li>The alumnae system: Not saying coed schools don’t have a great one, but the Seven Sisters is top notch. I’ve had many women’s college grads want to talk to me/help me just based off of the fact I was attending “one of their” schools. There’s a bond between women’s college grads that is wonderfully unique!</li>
</ol>
<p>Women’s colleges tend to have a strong sense of tradition and identity, and they have great alumni support networks. It’s like joining a lifelong sorority in many cases.</p>
<p>I attended a women’s college not because of its single-sex environment but because of the academics and amazing financial aid. I was looking for a small school that offered a wide range of courses in my major. What I found was a college with 10% of the student body majoring in my field, and with cross-registration agreements that allowed me to take courses at three neighboring institutions, including a prestigious research university.</p>
<p>How many coed colleges can offer that?</p>
<p>Males and females learn differently. Unfortunately for males the most important years for single gender education are the first five, while for women the later years of high school are more important. In single gender education both males and females feel free to violate gender stereotypes. For example when was the last time you saw a high school football player try out for a speaking role in the school play. In a similar way in an all female environment you will get more women trying out math and hard science (and excelling at it). The advantage missed by going to a coed high school can be regained by going to a women’s college. Most are located close to coed institutions so that important socializing can go on. The unfortunate fact in general is that there are fewer men than women going on to college. This might be remedied by more single gender education in the elementary schools so that boys wouldn’t get the idea early in life that school is for girls.</p>
<p>The sister colleges have good resources and good aid because of historic strength (smartest, wealthiest women attended) yet are much easier to get into today than equal coed schools. That’s a big draw for many.</p>
<p>This would be true in strictly statistical terms, but many high school seniors apply to name schools that they really have no chance of getting into. I, myself, back in the day applied to Yale even though I was a complete slacker. I really didn’t have a chance in reality, but I did statistically: “they take one in ten, so I have a 10% chance.” Your adviser tells you to apply to: safeties, matches and reaches, but many people add in a fourth category, the moon shot. These moon shots are the name colleges that have such a high selectivity rating. Someone might apply to an Ivy League school or an Amherst or Williams like buying a lottery ticket. No one is going to apply to a seven sister or a Davidson as a moon shot. A reach, yes, but not a moon shot. What I’m trying to say is that for the person who is qualified applying to a seven sister will be a little easier to get into but not a lot easier (as you will have removed the people like me who never should have applied to the coed school in the first place.)</p>
<p>People who are unqualified will very rarely get into ANY school where they are underqualified. For those who are considered “top students” statistically, women’s colleges can be a terrific “academic bargain” because their rigor is disproportionate to their acceptance rates.</p>
<p>This was posted on another thread, and while it is about Smith, I think it is generally true - - namely, that many young women attending women’s colleges might have pref’d a coed school, but the women’s college offered something particularly attractive that the coed school did not.</p>
<p>“Many attend(ed) Smith because they received the most lucrative financial aid award…e.g. STRIDE, Zollman, Phi Theta Kappa and Springfield/Holyoke Partnership scholarships; STRIDE research opportunity; it was the “best” (read, highest ranked) college to which they were accepted; the town of Northampton was superior to middle-of-nowhere co-ed; housing/dining system; five college consortium; Smith name recognition and prestige, etcetera.”</p>
<p>Personally, I’m looking at Wellesley for its financial aid opportunities. It’s not my top choice because I’m a little put off by the all-women thing, but it isn’t an instant turn-off for me.</p>
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Bingo. There are very few schools where I would have Smith concede on rigor to: Swat, U/Chicago, Reed… It’s an “admissions bargain.” And it comes with a lot of amazing bells and whistles, from the counseling to the richness of it’s year abroad and/or Washington programs, to its housing…<br>
D had it in the same league as Yale and ahead of Harvard.</p>
<p>As an engineering major in a co-ed environment I might be one of a handful of women in a giant lecture hall, instead, at Smith, I am surrounded by fellow women interested in engineering. Also, instead of a faculty which is maybe 10% women, over 1/2 of engineering professors are female.</p>
<p>Rocket6Louise, I would not want to send my daughter to any college, but particularly to a women’s college, to explore her sexuality. She can do that on her own dime after graduation.</p>
<p>I feel women’s colleges are excellent institutions for women to excel in the sciences, and in Math. </p>
<p>*I would have hated it.</p>
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<p>Isn’t that part of college though? I think exploring things like that are a HUGE part of the college experience</p>
<p>Strong tradition! Tendency to b more focus</p>
<p>What is the problem with learning math and science in a coed environment? I mean, I’ve never had a problem in high school and although I was in a male-dominated class, I could do very well in the class and beat they boys without much effort. I never understood this problem.</p>
<p>Maybe women choose a single sex college so one day they can become Secretary of State, and possibly President of the United States. :)</p>
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<p>Are you in Hong Kong or the United States? Two different cultures.</p>
<p>I went to an all women college 35 years ago. I was tired of male-dominated classes. I felt a lot more free to try hard areas, like math, when i didn’t have to deal with guys talking down to the women. I was able to develop my confidence in my ideas and in public speaking. I have no regrets. I ended up in an LL.M program after law school, where women were only 10 percent of the class, but I no longer worried whether I could hold my own.</p>
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<p>Why does that matter? I mean, I am a double major on mathematics and mechanical engineering and yes, although for most of my life was classes were dominated by men (And I mean, size-dominated, I was always acknowledged as one of the best, if not the best in class), well, I never really cared. I mean what does it matter than I can poke the student next to me and ask her for a tampon? The gender of my fellow classmates makes zero difference to me. The same can be said about the gender of my professors. I don’t care if they have a vagina or not, that they are elves or hobbits or pirates, I just care that they are good professors. I want to learn from the best professor. If that happens to be a guy, hey, no prob. Women, no prob. Elf? No prob. I just want the best. If that means 10 male Nobel Laureates, I’ll take it.</p>
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<p>I very much agree with this. I grew up in South Florida, down to the very South of the U.S. And although since I started taking physics in my junior year of high school, my classes were VERY MUCH male-dominated (again, in size), this made zero difference to me. No one “put me down” or anything of the sort and I wasn’t afraid to try out the “hardest” classes (as a matter of fact, I was unofficially declared the student with the “hardest courseload” in my high school’s 30-year history by my peers) I was even elected as President of my class 2 years in a row, as well as President/Captain of several other organizations- by both men and women. I don’t understand this whole “afraid of been around men” mentality comes from. If you asked me where would I want to study, I wouldn’t say “in a room full of the smartest girls in the country,” I would say “in a room full of the smartest students in the country.” Because if I picked the former I know, deep down, that as challenging as my class could be, I COULD be surrounded with just-as-bright or even brighter students (the males not attending a female school.) I feel that limiting your experience to “only girls” EVEN if it’s some of the brightest girls in the country, it’s equivalent to saying “only Christians” (even if its the brightest Christians) or “only Jews” or “only Blacks” etc etc. You are LIMITING your scope of interactions. </p>
<p>This of course, is simply MY opinion gained from MY personal experiences. I am aware that some of these all-girl schools (i.e. Wellesley) are prestigious. But they simply don’t cut it for me. As aforementioned, I’d feel that I’m massively limiting myself and missing out. </p>
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<p>This has to be one of the weakest arguments for Women colleges I’ve ever heard. I mean, you do whatever you want with your time, that is your business, but telling a parent “you should send your daughter to a women’s college so she can explore her sexuality with other women” well… eh. Might not be the selling point.</p>
<p>^ I think that generally the problem with these threads is that people use their own personal experiences as proof that the large body of literature and empirical research on the subject of gender and classroom performance are false. Just because it wasn’t true in your case, or because you don’t think it’s true in your case, hardly means that the entire concept is invalidated. I encourage you to get more educated on the topic if you so choose, there are a number of excellent books that are accessible for the layperson including “Queen Bees and Wanna Bes”, “Reviving Ophelia”, and “Odd Girl Out”</p>