<p>i didn't mean it was similar, just meant that it's too much estrogen :)</p>
<p>Having no daughters meant we didn't have to ponder this choice. My son has two high school friends who are twins. They wanted a women's college and applied to all the usual Northeast suspects. Go into most, but decided they didn't want to go the same school. Twin one chose Barnard and is ecstatic. We often see her and her friends when we're in NY. They are vibrant! Twin two chose Holyoke and was so miserable that she dropped out. May have been the school, the place, the roommates, the girl herself, can't say. Plans to go back, but definitely will go coed next time. So what's the moral of this story? Maybe all women's colleges are not created equal and it's fit, not gender, that's still the determining factor.</p>
<p>I have a close friend who went to Smith in the 70's. She originally wanted Princeton, but in retrospect, said getting rejected was the best thing that ever happened to her. Eventually she got a masters at Princeton and now has a top US government job in Asia. Married a Princeton man whom she managed to meet while she was at Smith. She's a Smith proselytizer, big time. Convinced me thirty years too late.</p>
<p>I've got to say that I haven't met a single ditz yet at Smith. D says there are a couple but "most girls at Smith are there to get away from ditzes."</p>
<p>On another note, within the past 24 hours D's summer plans have evolved. She's been invited to particpate in an NSF-funded research project for 6-7 weeks beginning the week after school is out. A great opportunity...and her summer home has just gotten much shorter, sigh. She already has a research assistant position this year and I really hadn't suspected anything else would come along. A mega-point being there are some great opportunities at womens colleges that are hard to beat.</p>
<p>Can someone tell me how selective SSEP (Smith) is?</p>
<p>Smith is highly selective.....always has been...check out the stats.....for serious serious students only</p>
<p>"Smith College does not discriminate in its educational and employment policies on the bases of race, color, creed, religion, national/ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, or with regard to the bases outlined in the Veterans Readjustment Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act."</p>
<p>This is directly from Smith's website. Does this mean that if a male applied he would not be discriminated against? I don't get it.</p>
<p>Sorry TheDad - couldn't resist.</p>
<p>I never thought I'd go to a woman's college, got interested in one and decided I'd attend "in spite of" the fact that it was a woman's college. It ended up being the making of me.</p>
<p>I was always someone who had more guy friends than girl friends. I feel like one of the things I learned was to get to know women better and to appreciate them.</p>
<p>I think my daughter probably appreciates women more than most, but I had the impression the estrogen factor was too much for her too. While most of her friends have been male, her closest have usually been female, and her ECs were generally dominated by girls ( horses ;) )</p>
<p>I do have a question about the discrimination. Where my daughter attends ( Reed) they have unisex bathrooms in the dorms although public bathrooms are sexed. There are a few students who are contemplating sex changes and strongly identify with the other sex. additionally before they go through surgery, they must "live" as the sex that they identify with. It doesn't matter when living in a coed dorm, but how would a school deal with it if they for example had the genitalia of a man, but identified as a women and wanted to attend a womans college?
alternately, while it is probably less common but there is at least one student at Reed who was born a "girl" but lives as a man and as far as I can tell, everyone thinks of him as a man, are DNA tests going to be required? ( rhetorical?)</p>
<p>The whole concept of a single sex college admitting to having a Non -discrimination policy that specifically adresses sex (gender), seems like an oxymoron to me!</p>
<p>Wells College started admitting men recently. I think 3 are attending. Is it still considered a women's college?</p>
<p>No, they are on their way to becoming a coed colllege --but many women students are unhappy about that--there was a piece on NPR about it.</p>
<p>Yeah, one of my friends at Wells was involved in protests and lawsuits to at least hold it off until current first years had graduated. Talk about unfair for those who wanted to graduate from a women's college.</p>
<p>Thanks, TheDad and hoedown, for corroborating my point. :)</p>
<p>re: transgendered students, there's been a LOT of talk about it lately among women's colleges and a lot of trans activisim. There was a discussion about it on another message board already (I'd link to it if I could), but for those curious, here's an article about how Barnard's dealing with the issue.</p>
<p>TheDad, Momrath, you are right about Smith getting really smart women. One of the smartest friends I know went to Smith. From her Smith friends and from just knowing her, I know Smith has per capita the smartest girls...err women.</p>
<p>Setting aside the transgender issue, and all kidding aside, what does Smith mean by saying they don't discriminate by "sex"? (At first I thought it was maybe an employment thing, but the sentence says "educational and employment policies.")</p>
<p>"All Estrogen, 24/7" is how I've heard it rendered. Closest experience I've had is that out of some fluke on the orchestra trip, the bus I was on had three males...me, the orchestra director's husband, and the driver, for 10 days. All the guys in the orchestra were split between the other two buses and as people were assigned to buses so that staff, chaperones and associated students were kept together, it would have been a nightmare to reassign.</p>
<p>The whole status of transgendered students thing gives me a headache. Wake me when it's resolved.</p>
<p>Sokkermom, within the context of Smith being a womens college, the statements apply. Certainly, there are a large number of men working at Smith though the faculty has a much higher percentage of women than many colleges...I'd guess around 50/50.</p>
<p>Thedad: the quote doesn't seem to just refer to employment policies; it says "educational and employment."</p>
<p>I know Smith, along with some other women's colleges, has post-bac opportunities open to all genders. And some women's colleges even allow male visiting students.</p>
<p>But more generally, I think the definition of discrimination is structured so that it's not an issue for most admissions policies. For example, Columbia College won't admit students who have taken more than a year off from college. This effectively discriminates against people over 20 or so, but they have the same equal opportunity statement as everyone else.</p>
<p>So in short, I don't really get it, but it's somehow not considered discrimination in the eyes of the law.</p>
<p>Columbia College won't admit students who have taken more than a year off from college. This effectively discriminates against people over 20 or so, but they have the same equal opportunity statement as everyone else.</p>
<p>It is not unsusual for different schools with in a university system to have different requirements for admissions. Remember each school under the university: Barnard, Teachers College, Coumbia College, School of General Studies, Fu Foundation, etc. all have separate admissions committees and specific requirements for admission. </p>
<p>The university as a whole usuallly refers students who have been out of school for more than 1 year to apply to and welcomes them at Columbia University School of General Studies in which persons whose education since high school has been interrupted or postponed for at least one academic year are eligible to apply. </p>
<p>It is is no more discrimantory than GS not allowing High school seniors to apply or men applying ot Barnard.</p>
<p>Um, yes, I know. That was my point.</p>
<p>the consortium is Amherst, Smith, Mt Holyoke, Hampshire and U Mass- Amherst am I correct?
a friends daughter who attends Holyoke says that there may not be a lot of men in her classes, but there are lots of men on campus and there are some men in most if not all her classes. They also regularly apparently go elsewhere to "party" often at MIT frats from what I hear. SHe has a much more laidback attitude than I do, she doesn't think anything of her daughter going to Vancouver where the drinking age is 19. Not to get off track but maybe by allowing men to attend classes is how the school deals with discrimination policies.</p>