At What Price?

roadlesstraveled
Mon, 20 Feb 2006 02:35:54 +0000

{{{On the other hand, when the bubble bursts on the college application boom in a few years}}

A few years may not be until 2012 or beyond to 2020 when immigration is taken into consideration.

If a LAC falls far enough it won’t matter what niche they have carved out for themselves. With regard to Smith, what unique niche has the college carved out for itself other than the fact it’s a women’s college?
Sure, Smith has great advising, professors and a special housing system, but is that enough to make it unique enough it will be a /must attend/ college? The majority of students’ most important factor (after affordability) when choosing a college is the reputation and ranking, regardless of whether the college is single gender or not. Sure fit is considered, but you would be surprised how many students will decide to attended Midd and many other LACs, even though they’re miserable around the preppy student body, small size or location for the explicit reason they want to graduate from a top college.
And if attending an all women’s college is important, there will be even fewer women students’ applying in the years ahead, leading to a much less competitive or highly qualified application pool. How will Smith attract the top students? Those who attend Smith today because they were deferred/rejected from Yale, Colgate, Dartmouth, Amherst, et cetera will have a much greater chance of being accepted to the aforementioned colleges in the future and will not need to enroll at Smith as their best alternative, especially if Smith has fallen far enough in the rankings to remove it from serious contention anyway.
Wells, Skidmore and Vassar have already discovered to stay viable in a decreasing application pool it was necessary to admit men.
That’s not what I’m inferring Smith should to do. But it has been mentioned enough the pres. believed she should put out a statement that Smith is NOT considering going co-ed despite the rumors.