<p>dstark, I’m happy to answer but so we don’t get killed for going way the hell OT and considering the tendency I have to take arrows in my :eek: for …uhhh…whatever it is I supposedly do , I’ll start a thread if you think it may be useful to others or I’ll p.m. you. Your call. ;)</p>
<p>I will answer this one.
There is only one person in my house that ever questions her decision to attend Rhodes or her happiness at Rhodes. And he’s a bit of a jerk about it.</p>
<p>SS, it is really cool though for the right family, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Absolutely! I think any kid who has to work toward getting a scholarship, rather than being given all his $$$ because he’s low income, is going to go into college with a stronger work effort & plenty of confidence that he might not have had before. It’s all good.</p>
<p>Please answer dstark in a new thread, not a pm. We all want to see your answers!</p>
<p>Start a thread.</p>
<p>“There is only one person in my house that ever questions her decision to attend Rhodes or her happiness at Rhodes. And he’s a bit of a jerk about it.”</p>
<p>LOL</p>
<p>:Mini, and curmudgeon, does the average student at Smith and Rhodes have the same opportunities at these schools as your kids?"</p>
<p>dstark, the answer is yes and no. There are two types of opportunities. One tangible like pvt. music lessions, week in China or Cape, travel aborad etc. You have the same opportunity is the next kid if you are willing to pay.</p>
<p>The second one is GUARANTEED ACCESS like paid research or internship or getting inloved with this committee or that or getting special attention because you are poor and rubbing elbows with bigwigs. Full pay customers may not have those ACCESS opportunities. It is pressumed that you are rich and family connections will provide some of those opportunities.</p>
<p>“Mini, and curmudgeon, does the average student at Smith and Rhodes have the same opportunities at these schools as your kids?”</p>
<p>The paid research assistantships in the first two years are available to roughly 40-45 students in each class, and are the prime “merit awards” at Smith. I would also say that since they created my d’s research position where none had previously existed, that is unusual. </p>
<p>What is most extraordinary at my d’s school, in my opinion the thing that most makes it stand out, is the quality of the advising. For everyone. And it goes well past the academic stuff, though there is enormous amount of that as well. As a women’s college, Smith has paid particular attention to women’s life trajectories, and starts conversations with students about this virtually the moment they set foot on campus. From the brochures, it looks like a New England college with fall colors missing Y chromosomes. (In fact, that’s much of how I would have described it 35 years ago.) But it isn’t a college that lacks men; it is a college that is specifically geared to the needs and aspirations of women. From the creation of the engineering program, where the goal is not to produce engineers per se, but future engineering managers, to the paid involvement of women in research from the first days they set foot on campus, to the women’s financial network, things are just, well, shall we say, different, or “XX attuned”.</p>
<p>Smith both last year, and cumulatively over the past three years, had the largest number of Fulbrights, and the largest number of research Fulbrights, among LACs (and more among women than Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore combined.) It is NOT because the students are brighter - they’re not. Or because there are more academic superstars - there aren’t (or they would have more Rhodes or Marshalls, where you find the superstars.) I chalk it up to fantastic advising, and the college’s deliberate attempt to instill chutzpah - to simply create “uppity” women.</p>
<p>if they’re so smart at Smith how come they haven’t contacted you to ask for your permission to use the above description in their informational brochures? Ha, gotcha!</p>
<p>Rorosen, LOL. They should. They really should.</p>
<p>so its like 3 am in TX?</p>
<p>wecandothis, my watch has stopped and my computer is old so I’m not really sure until I find my cell phone. 
But, best guess is - I think so. Why?</p>
<p>well I’m waiting up for my d to come home from Disneyland
what’s your excuse??!! haha</p>
<p>and I am waiting for my son to come home from Newark. His evening flight left at 1:30 this morning.</p>
<p>hmm- we should start a new thread in Parents–
why are YOU up at this hour??</p>
<p>did your son get stuck in all that weather stuff back there?</p>
<p>This is nothing new for me. I have a little trouble sleeping for more than an hour at a time. Like since 1987. ;)</p>
<p>Simba , I am taking mine TO the airport. Leaving at 5:15. Have pick-up , will travel.</p>
<p>Just got back and yes the weather made this trip rather exciting. It would have been nice, if the airlines say that your plane will leave at 1:30 in the morning. But, no they keep on delaying departures in 1 hr increments.</p>
<p>“if they’re so smart at Smith how come they haven’t contacted you to ask for your permission to use the above description in their informational brochures?”</p>
<p>Nah. The informational brochures seem committed to the fall colors and the lack of Y chromosomes. ;)</p>
<p>Well at the risk of sleeping on the coach tonight I have got to say I don’t really see a shortage of uppity women in the country today - certainly not in my own family.</p>
<p>don’t sleep on the coach higherlead, the couch is much more comfortable, especially if the coach she is uppity.</p>
<p>[sorry, surely you weren’t referring to the old uppity downity]</p>
<p>Yeah that was either a typo or a Freudian slip. Since the only coach I know is a 77 year old American Legion coach I’m hoping it was a typo. Coach don’t smell so good among other things.</p>
<p>yes, definitely a freudian sleep,…</p>