<p>D is a rising junior with decent credentials. She is considering schools like Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Barnard, Mount Holyoke. I would like to hear from parents and students about the benefits and drawbacks of such an education?</p>
<p>I am a parent now but a Scripps College grad (which is located in so cal and has 4 other colleges connected to it). Here's my list of highlights:</p>
<p>Benefits: loved having seminars with women mostly in them, I developed as a person who could articulate herself well. Great education. No greek scene- each dorm was organized into an organization. Took many classes at the other campuses to meet guys. Great abroad program. Lots of opportunity to be a leader, great professor interaction and advising. My peers went on to harvard, stanford, ucla grad schools. I went into business from a campus interview.</p>
<p>Drawbacks: artificial living and social environment, which was o.k. since I spent alot of time socializing at the other colleges. No big uni sports feel. I missed having guys around in the dorm. My school was very small; if the other colleges wouldn't have been there it would have been too small for me.</p>
<p>I think what would bother me most would be the culture shock. I've spent 17 years hanging out with guys (not exclusively, but you get my point). To be suddenly cut-off from them in what takes up a significant part of my life would be very difficult.</p>
<p>Also, realize that girls are catty and vicious and this does NOT end after high school (in most, yes, but definitely not in all). Be prepared for some nastiness. It's bound to intensify when you spend all your time with the same girls.</p>
<p>a) Excellent colleges with significant endowments and large per student expenditures</p>
<p>b) Superb locations, beautiful campus facilities</p>
<p>c) Terrific admissions value. The decreased demand for single-sex eduction makes these colleges easier to get into than their endowments and overall quality would suggest.</p>
<p>d) Lower binge drinking rates and more student engagement than at many co-ed liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>Disadvantages? Aside from the lack of male students, I can't think of any particular disadvantages of these schools, other than the usual stuff like one may offer more in certain fields, another in other fields.</p>
<p>Significant focus on women as women, not just students who happen to be female. Attention to the trajectory of women's lives. Specific preparation regarding entry into male-dominated professions. Lots of female role models. Strong, highly supportive alumnae networks. Among the better ones, the quality of advising is unparalleled.</p>
<p>My friends at women's schools would probably agree with the positives re the eduation. They also say there is way too much drama to the living situation in all-women dorms.</p>
<p>My daughter is at Barnard but the environment there is not really single-sex because of the affiliation with Columbia and the Manhattan location. Barnard students do live in all female housing at least for their first year (and usually mostly-female housing in subsequent years) -- and they will end up having many classes that are all or mostly women. </p>
<p>My d. does not particularly like the idea of a womens' college and would rather have more men in her classes; however, as a college the structure of Barnard is wonderful -- great relations between faculty & students, great academics, very supportive and flexible for all academic needs. Plus, I do think that being at Barnard gives her a much greater awareness and sensitivity to women's issues. But for Barnard, I think being in Manhattan is far more significant, simply because activities are not centered around or tied to campus.</p>
<p>I have always felt living in an all women's dorm would be more civilized than living in a coed one (ie, less puking on weekends), but perhaps I'm mistaken.</p>
<p>Fendrock is totally correct from what my friends tell me. I am at Wellesley, and whenever I had friends over for the weekend, they were shocked that the dorm was quiet by 1 or 2 in the morning, and nobody was puking or falling over drunk all down the hallway.</p>
<p>My daughter does not attend a women's college, but she has recently gotten to know several girls who do.</p>
<p>She says that she is glad now that she didn't choose a women's college. The reason: the main way that students at women's colleges meet men is through social activities at nearby co-ed schools (e.g., fraternity parties). There are few opportunities to meet guys in more natural, everyday situations. From my daughter's viewpoint, this is a significant disadvantage.</p>
<p>fendrock, my daughter did live in an all-women's dorm at college last year, and it was indeed a civilized environment, although that may reflect the personalities of those who would choose a single-sex dorm, rather than gender per se.</p>
<p>I attend an all-women's college, and would be happy to answer any questions your D may have. PM me if you would like to chat.</p>
<p>Here's another slant. Back-in-the-day, I attended the nation's oldest all-female public high school. It was established single gender in the l9th Century because it was the first to offer public schooling to girls beyond 8th grade. Long after the entire nation moved to public coeducational high schools, this school remained single-gender as an historic tradition. It was an urban academic magnet school and had a 50-50 percent black and white enrolment.</p>
<p>At one point in the l970's, when the school was rebuilt on a shared campus with the city's all-male Polytechnic institute, the girls' families sued successfully for the right to attend coed science classes because new laboratory facilities in the boys' school were far superior. That's what happens when l960's blueprints were implemented in the l970's, with the Women's Movement launched in between. The case won under Title IX, which was helping girl's public h.s. sports teams all over the country gain equal funding as the boy's sports. </p>
<p>Since I attended the all women's school pre-Women's Movement, it always felt a mixed bag. We were all the leaders of our school; every club presidency, newspaper editorship was ours (women's). We also had an insecurity, wondering if we would have gotten those same top positions if in a coed high school. My friends all became exceptionally confident academically, even though our families ranged in financial background from wealth to poverty. </p>
<p>Several went on to the all-women "Seven Sister" colleges, some of which later became coed, and all have done wondrous things with their lives. </p>
<p>I went in the other direction, to the nation's very first coeducational undergraduate institution, Oberlin College. I simply wanted to experience the difference, was tired of the all-female setting. It took me a year to adjust to studying with men in the class, actually, but then it was fine.</p>
<p>So one case to be made is, if your D has been in a coed high school, she might go to an all-women's college simply to explore and experience the difference. She could find out what, if anything, that difference means to her personally.</p>
<p>A generation later, my D was at the stage of making a preliminary list, and didn't know what to think of all-women's colleges. She visited Smith and looked up a current student there, whom she knew from a summer writing workshop at Bard. That Smithie said something meaningful for my D: "If your h.s. friendship circle is basically all female, you won't miss the male presence at college. If you already hang with a mixed-gender group, you will notice the difference very much, and you might really not like it." </p>
<p>D reflected: most of her h.s. friends were male, and she grew up sandwiched between 2 brothers. That could also be reason to try the all-female setting, but she thought her friend's advice had merit. D believed her college life would be too strange without men as course study partners, weekday friends and housemates. </p>
<p>Although she also chose a coed LAC, we both agree that the first thing we think about when someone says, "a Wellesley grad", "a Mt. Holyoke grad" or "a Smith grad" is: wow, she must be really smart and sharp!</p>
<p>I believe today, for a young woman with good focus, she'd excel at either an all-women's or coed environment, because the opportunities are so much better than 30 years ago. The question is more, "where would she feel happier and more in charge of herself?" </p>
<p>Have her note also: there might be ways where a particular all-women's college is far superior for women's development. For example, I read that Smith requires every student to take one basic course in personal financial management and investment before graduation. </p>
<p>So, the days of the Seven Sisters as a tea-spot for ladies is long gone, although I did enjoy seeing those 20-foot-wide dorm halls at Vassar dorms, built for 4 ladies across with hoop skirts. Now that they've gone coed, I can't imagine how the students of both genders fill those wide halls, but I'm sure they do. </p>
<p>ALso I'd recommend running a thread search using "Seven Sisters" to see what others have said on CC over the years.</p>
<p>^^in my reflection above, I left out listing Bryn Mawr and Barnard, but the same personal response holds true. My mental image is: smart! sharp!</p>
<p>Two nieces of mine attended Barnard and speak extremely well of it. They married Columbia students whom they met in classes and extra-curriculars.</p>
<p>If your D looks at Mt. Holyoke or Smith, also consider them in context of the Five College Consortium which is coeducational. She might find a few male students from Hampshire or Amherst in her classes and EC's. She could enrol in courses at Amherst, Hampshire or UMass at Amherst, schedules permitting of course. </p>
<p>Bryn Mawr may also have cross-registration, I just don't know that campus as well.</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr does indeed have cross-registration (with Haverford and Swarthmore).</p>
<p>Scripps has cross-registration with the other Claremont Colleges.</p>
<p>Schools like Scripps, Barnard, and other women's colleges that are integrated with larger coed environments might offer the best of both worlds. But my D at college in metro Boston has a poor impression of Wellesley women from their need to forage other campuses for male companionship. She portrays the ones who visit her campus as predatory and the shuttle system that brings them there is commonly known as the "F*** Truck." When I attended Wake Forest, men were at one end of the campus and women at the other with the classroom buildings in between. Even that degree of segregation led to unnatural inter-gender relationships with men going out in hunting parties rather than regarding their female classmates as equals who shared their campus spaces.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>She says that she is glad now that she didn't choose a women's college. The reason: the main way that students at women's colleges meet men is through social activities at nearby co-ed schools (e.g., fraternity parties). There are few opportunities to meet guys in more natural, everyday situations.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Wellesley runs a shuttle bus that takes its students to Harvard and MIT weekend parties and social events. It has a crude nickname that I can't write here. I suppose it gets the job done, and the girls who want to do get to meet guys one way or another. But it always seemed a little weird to me - something of an air desperation about it: a gang of hungry women out on a hunt....</p>
<p>But beyond that I've always thought very highly of Wellesley as a school. And it has one of the most gorgeous campuses I've ever seen.</p>
<p>Edit: I see gadad provided the nickname of the Wellesley shuttle bus. And its true that the Harvard coeds tend to be both dismayed and at the same time amused by the sight of the Wellesley shuttle pulling up to their campus and disgorging a large group of women dressed in their party clothes.</p>
<p>One of the things you learn at a women's college is to get over ideas like this:</p>
<p><<also, realize="" that="" girls="" are="" catty="" and="" vicious="" this="" does="" not="" end="" after="" high="" school="" (in="" most,="" yes,="" but="" definitely="" in="" all).="" be="" prepared="" for="" some="" nastiness.="" it's="" bound="" to="" intensify="" when="" you="" spend="" all="" your="" time="" with="" the="" same="" girls.="">></also,></p>
<p>Unbelievable. Also unbelievable the vicious things that some posters have chosen to write or repeat on this thread. I can't write more. I am too angry.</p>
<p>D is attending Mount Holyoke in the fall. And yes, it's unbelievable how in the many discussion threads (not only here in cc), instead of encouragement new students are in so many ways told "You will be a *****." Or, "a lesbian." Or "hungry for men." As in, "this is what going to school without men does to you."</p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>"Also, realize that girls are catty and vicious and this does NOT end after high school (in most, yes, but definitely not in all). Be prepared for some nastiness. It's bound to intensify when you spend all your time with the same girls."</p>
<p>The only people who I have heard say this are people who have no idea what they're talking about. That statement is unbelievably untrue. Every women's college graduate I've spoken to says the exact opposite: that standards of behavior, cooperation and maturity level go way up when males are removed from the immediate equation. I stayed overnight in the dorms of many women's colleges and the vibes were ten times better than many of the co-ed institutions.</p>
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Also, realize that girls are catty and vicious and this does NOT end after high school (in most, yes, but definitely not in all). Be prepared for some nastiness. It's bound to intensify when you spend all your time with the same girls.
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<p>You don't need a women's college to have this happen. I would be willing to bet money that to some extent it happens in and on every campus in the country because everywhere there are groups of people who consider themselves the queen bees and the wannabees (and maybe even moreso on a campus where one's social heirarchy is tied to a greek system).</p>