<p>If graduate school is your goal, Bryn Mawr ranks very highly in "[Ph.D</a> productivity](<a href="http://www.brynmawr.edu/institutionalresearch/phd_productivity.html]Ph.D">http://www.brynmawr.edu/institutionalresearch/phd_productivity.html)" for women.</p>
<p>Personally, I’m attracted to Bryn Mawr for the rigorous academics and strong community. I love the idea of going to school surrounded by intelligent and passionate women, without having to worry about impressing boys or whatever. I feel like an all-female classroom would be very different from a co-ed classroom, and more supportive. Bryn Mawr is small and has lots of cool traditions that bring the campus together, so there’s the tight-knit family feel, but also has so many academic options available through the partnership with Haverford, plus Swarthmore and Penn. Bryn Mawr’s own classes and professors, of course, are supposed to be quite challenging and personal. Also there’s Bryn Mawr’s beautiful campus as well as its lovely dorms.</p>
<p>There’s just something about the idea of being part of this, I dunno, sisterhood, if you will. Students at women’s colleges seem to have this pride and support and collective drive for success that you don’t see elsewhere. I would tell my parents the community and attitude towards learning at Bryn Mawr would help me grow and achieve my ambitions more than at other colleges. If your parents are the type to worry about the typical college lifestyle, partying and whatnot, you could emphasize to them that at Bryn Mawr, people are there to learn and work hard, not get wasted (not to say people there don’t have fun).</p>
<p>I don’t know much about Marist, so I can’t make a direct comparison, except to say that Bryn Mawr is smaller and more diverse (ethnically, anyway, from looking at stats on CollegeBoard). But I hope some of this helped at least a little. Good luck convincing your parents! My parents aren’t totally thrilled about my wanting to go to Bryn Mawr either, for financial reasons as well, but my mom’s on board so we’re keeping fingers crossed for good aid…</p>