Is this article true about Smith?

Colleges & Universities Smith College
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<p><a href=“http://www.smithsophian.com/media/storage/paper587/news/2006/09/05/Opinions/Letter.To.The.Editor-2257568.shtml?norewrite200610152115&sourcedomain=www.smithsophian.com[/url]”>http://www.smithsophian.com/media/storage/paper587/news/2006/09/05/Opinions/Letter.To.The.Editor-2257568.shtml?norewrite200610152115&sourcedomain=www.smithsophian.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I have been reading past issue’s of the newspaper at Smith to get a feel of how current students feel about the school. Reading this article made my heart sink because all of the aspects of Smith that has drawn me to it seem like a lie. Can any parents of current students or current students give their opinion on if the traidtions at smith and the house community is truly like they say on the website. Thanks.</p>

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<p>First of all, first year retention correlates rather strictly with income status. Of schools with more than 25% of students on Pell Grants, Smith has (actually by far) the highest first-year retention rate in the United States, which is pretty astounding, given that one would assume there are more than a few students who figure out that single gender colleges aren’t for them.</p>

<p>The house dining thing is a mixed bag. On the one hand, having all students in a house eat together does lend to cohesiveness. On the other hand, it was serving less than half the students well. All dining rooms were serving the same food at the same time. In sports and missing dinner (or breakfast) because of the time? Tough. Short time between classes around lunch time, and there is no 'grab’n’go? Tough? Have a rehearsal or a class at Amherst or Mt. Holyoke and can’t get to dinner at the standard time? Tough. Want to keep working in the lab during the issue dinner time? Tough. Want a special diet? Asian food? Kosher/Hallal food? Mediterranean diet? Vegetarian options? For the most part, tough!</p>

<p>Now, as I understand it, there are 16 different dining options. You can freely eat with friends from other houses at any of them. There is much more flexibility in meeting dietary needs, and immensely more flexibility in meeting timing ones. But there is loss that comes with it. Now 16 different options is a little bit more than the one at Swarthmore, or the one at Amherst, or the one at Pomona, etc., but it does mean less “house eating community”.</p>

<p>If you don’t like any of those options, you can join one of the coop houses, and cook (with your friends) for yourself. That’s what my d. did before heading to Florence, and is a very happy camper. (she now has cooking classes in Italy, and I expect will wow her friends when she gets back.)</p>

3

<p>I agree with Mini, and just for the record, I was one of those who complained about the dining changes at first. There appears to be much more of an option now than ever before, and it was a wise decision by Smith administration. The traditions still live; like Friday afternoon tea which my D absolutely adores. A time to relax and reflect with housemates each Friday before going out to eat in NoHo together.</p>

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<p>Wow, that letter pretty much sums up my complaints to my friend in the admisisons when I told her that I decided to leave Smith. Excellent job! Completely disillusioned by the legends of Smith such as tea, dining, faculty (not to say that I did enjoy some of my professors as people but as professors?), rigorous academics.</p>

<p>“The house dining thing is a mixed bag. On the one hand, having all students in a house eat together does lend to cohesiveness. On the other hand, it was serving less than half the students well. All dining rooms were serving the same food at the same time. In sports and missing dinner (or breakfast) because of the time? Tough. Short time between classes around lunch time, and there is no 'grab’n’go? Tough? Have a rehearsal or a class at Amherst or Mt. Holyoke and can’t get to dinner at the standard time? Tough. Want to keep working in the lab during the issue dinner time? Tough. Want a special diet? Asian food? Kosher/Hallal food? Mediterranean diet? Vegetarian options? For the most part, tough!”</p>

<p>Yes… I know about these dining changes- I was in your D’s class year. While they do sound appealing but as another post somewhere stated, there is simply more bad food than good food for you. No brown rice. Meat were deep-fried. Vegetables loaded with butter/oil (gained that 5 pounds from eating eggplant parm). The wraps weren’t well done or satisfying. But I won’t complain about the dessert- gotta loveeee that apple crisp a la mode. That’s the difference. A student expecting a Mediterrean diet filled with steamed/raw vegetables, hummus, bread with oil on the side, lots of fish can’t except everything to be close to natural as possible (in other words, no more oil than necessary). Even so, the fish wasn’t that great. Bottom line: Though the variety is great but don’t expect healthy eating out of it.</p>

<p>I did live in a house (Albright '04-'05) that wasn’t so great in terms of community. I think it was really segregated by class- the first years (us) didn’t really hang out much with the sophomores, or the sophomores hung out that much with juniors/seniors… you get the drift. I spent a lot more time outside of the house than with my housemates because I couldn’t “get” them- the dynamic had a lot of character… a-hem. Some house communities don’t exist, some do- it all depends on the chemistry. It’s my only regret about transferring out- not trying to switch houses (probably should’ve gone to the Quad on hindsight). It’s a hit or a miss thing.</p>

<p>Again, the success of the teas correlates on the house community. My house did get together but I was too conscious of myself to go to all of them (and also the food!).</p>

<p>Never saw a real candlelight dinner that the alums talked about- actually forgot about them until two or three months into my first year (partially because I had a late riding lesson). The only time i had “real” candlelight was during prospectives weekend in April!</p>

<p>Smith isn’t as proper and traditional as it used to be. It has become more like its peer colleges that I decided, what’s the difference? Might as well go to a school with boys! <em>winks</em></p>

<p>But no, I decided to transfer out mostly because I was so disillusioned by all the “promises” that the alumnae and admissions made when I was a prospective and thought I could go someplace where it could be so much better in keeping its promises to their students. I don’t deny it- I still miss Smith at times and do enjoy getting together with other Smithies at Colgate and during my summer internships because there’s that special bond over our struggles in adjusting to our first year at a <em>very</em> liberal, all-women’s colleges filled with unique traditions beyond our alumnae’s stories <em>coughs</em> Conovcation <em>coughs</em></p>

<p>But to cz1824- yes, that writer’s e-mail to Christ is very true and do take it into consideration if you’re looking to go there. As I said, we share the same complaints but unlike her, I got myself together and applied for transfer and got out. I still don’t think Smith has improved THAT much since I left in spring 2005.</p>

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<p>“But no, I decided to transfer out mostly because I was so disillusioned by all the “promises” that the alumnae and admissions made when I was a prospective and thought I could go someplace where it could be so much better in keeping its promises to their students”</p>

<p>You said you transferred b/c you didn’t like the history dept. I certainly hope it wasn’t b/c you didn’t (although you could) eat with the lights out and watch candle wax drip on the table. :)</p>

<p>But you’re correct about one thing; you should have tried moving to the Quad. You might still be a Smithie today ;)</p>

<p>“Might as well go to a school with boys! <em>winks</em>”</p>

<p>Then again, maybe not</p>

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<p>Well, I have to admit that most of the things Dara complains of in the article have a degree of truth to them. The teas are fun and I love them, but they may not be quite what they sound like in the literature. The dining is good – a lot better than comparable schools, but perhaps not as great as advertised. Yes, candle light dinners are basically tea lights on the table with an otherwise “non-special” meal. But they did go from 2 tea lights to 4 this year and we use them to roast marshmallows and make s’mores :-). I expected more academic rigor and better professors – again very good, but not as good as I anticipated. House community can be a hit or miss thing year by year and it isn’t an automatic thing that happens in every house. Even so, though I’m not a really outgoing, socially skilled person, and live about as far from the infamous quad (socially speaking) as you can get, I’ve made a lot a very good friends in and outside of my house – friends I expect to have forever.</p>

<p>What I don’t agree with about the article is that these things are so bad that they cause a lot of people to have a such a miserable experience that they end up leaving. Despite wishing that the “truth in advertising” Dara speaks of were closer to the truth, I still LOVE – oh wait, not enough emphasis – <strong><em>LOVE IT</em></strong> here. Even though some things like teas, dining, house community and academics may not be exactly what I expected, there are so many good things about being here that I can’t imagine being at any other school. I know so many people who feel the same. I and many of my friends are really excited about going abroad next year. But the one reservation I hear most is that it means we will have one year less to spend at Smith.</p>

<p>I don’t have time to go into all of the things I love about Smith. Academics may not be as rigorous as I anticipated, but they aren’t a cake-walk by any means and I have a ton of studying to do. :slight_smile: But, you can get a good idea from the earlier posts on this forum what people really love about Smith. </p>

<p>I don’t doubt that there are people who transfer for some of the reasons stated in the article – TMP says that was at least part of the reason for her. But I don’t think that is the reason in the majority of cases. Some people transfer because they find they really do want a co-ed school, some want a larger environment, a few (please don’t stone me people) aren’t comfortable with the level of gay culture (not huge, but fairly well represented), some say that for them, the political environment is too “PC” and too homogenous. But as Mini said, given the number of lower income students at Smith and the correlation of income to first year retention, our retention rate is actually very good.</p>

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<p>This article speaks to somewhat lauereldj refers to when she writes about diversity at Smith. IMO, diversity must have a socio-economic component. The article is a view on the 22% of new Smith students that are first-generation college students, the hurdles they had to jump to get to Smith, the fact that Smith identifies areas/schools and works with guidance counselors to recruit these students, and the very different kind of support systems required to enable success. It is likely that for a variety of reasons, a high percentage of these students may not be retained. My previous statement is an assumption and not one which I can factually support. As a parent, I am proud to be sending my child to such a school. Oh and BTW, like laureldj my dd also LOVES SMITH.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.smith.edu/newssmith/fall2006/cover.php[/url]”>http://www.smith.edu/newssmith/fall2006/cover.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>The single largest factor in students leaving college nationally is family problems/lack of income. This is true at both state and private colleges. You can pretty much draw a straight line association (with the usual number of outlyers) between family income and college leaving. </p>

<p>Smith is a rather spectacular outlyer. There is no college or university in the country that is even close to its retention rate with similar levels of low-income/Pell Grant students. I think that can be attributed to the extraordinary high level of student support/advising. (Other factors include excellent financial aid - yes, there is a high level of student debt, but that is, in reality, a statistical factor - with very, very few exceptions, schools with low levels of reported student indebtedness are so because PARENTS (with higher incomes) are taking out the loans, second mortgages, etc., rather than the students. At Smith, there are simply more parents without the resources to do so.)</p>

<p>Yes, there are folks who transfer out, though if you look at the data, you quickly discover that more students transfer IN to Smith than transfer out. I think both are good, as students seek the place they feel they really belong.</p>

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<p>This article bears a repeating.</p>

<p>"If wealthy, prestigious colleges are increasingly serving the nation’s privileged elite, then Allison Bellew is not the type of student you would expect to find on the campus of one of those institutions.</p>

<p>She spent most of her childhood in foster care in Southern California and attended a public school in Los Angeles where more than two-thirds of the students qualified for the federal school-lunch program.</p>

<p>But like many students looking at colleges far from home, Ms. Bellew wanted a place totally different from where she grew up. That search led her here, to the hills of western Massachusetts, to what has become in some ways a haven for financially needy students like her: Smith College</p>

<p>Although the women’s college has a sticker price north of $40,000 a year, and many of its students are well-off, it is among the most generous when it comes to serving low-income students."</p>

<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i36/36a01401.htm[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/free/v52/i36/36a01401.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Smith’s ADA program isn’t mentioned enough, the great contributions these women make to the college, and the adversities many overcame. </p>

<p>“Ms. Nolan is now 28, a long-limbed, wheat-haired young woman with hopeful grayish blue eyes who retains something of the teenage rebel in the Yankee cap she slaps on backward. This onetime dropout is a senior at Smith College,”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/education/18education.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/education/18education.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I could not help but notice that the lead article (in the box to the right of the letter) is the announcement than an alumna just won a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship - the “genius grant.”</p>

<p>Just to add to the voices here: my daughter LOVES, LOVES, LOVES Smith. (Is that the right amount of emphasis, Laurel?) Yes, she hasn’t made huge connections to the women living in her house, so instead, she spends most of her time at another house, where a lot of her friends live. Academics? That’s hard to tell in the first semester. I do know that education is largely what you make of it, and that an intelligent student will always excel, even in a less than perfect intellectual environment. </p>

<p>The women who attend Smith make it special.</p>

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<p>Meanwhile, mine went to Assisi over the weekend with two Smithie friends. She says her reading is intense (since her reading in Italian is still only half her English speed, but is picking up.) Loves her classes (I think she’s bitten off more than she can chew, but we’ll see.) Meeting lots of new folks (Italians of course) in her orchestra. Plans to spend her break in Spilamberto (near Modena) with a third world development organization with which we have worked), and then go up to Turin to see friends, and then to Genoa for the Slow Foods Conference if she can figure out how to get in.</p>

<p>Now trying to get tickets for the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the first production of Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo” in Mantua next February.</p>

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<p>Very well stated MWFN and RLT; very well stated indeed! TMP, I hope Colgate is fulfilling all of their promises they made to you when you transferred. Something tells me that the boys had more to do with your choice, though I may be wrong. College is what you make of it, I don’t care where you attend. My D LOVES Smith, and cannot see herself anywhere else. She is part of a research project in her first year dealing with e coli bacteria, and using very advanced equipment. She will be named in this research at the end of her 2nd year. Not many colleges can brag about that one; if any! She loves her profs, has made numerous friends in numerous houses, and has involved herself in extra-curricular activities. Again, it is what you make of it.</p>

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<p>Exactly. Sometimes we all need a certain compound/element or two (or three…) of college to make chemistry work wherever we are. </p>

<p>RLT- Yes, I still stand by my chief reasons and you know what they are. But the feeling of disillusionment only came to be in focus when I spoke with alumnae over breaks and it was hard because I really looked up to them and wanted to follow their footsteps through their lives at Smith.</p>

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<p>TMP, it sounds as though Colgate was right for you from the start, but it took Smith to teach you that. :-)</p>

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<p>“I really looked up to them and wanted to follow their footsteps through their lives at Smith”</p>

<p>I once blindly followed others footsteps. I ended up stepping in cow manure. As is often the case, walking where others have yet to tread is the best path. ;)</p>

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<p>Hence your screenname? :)</p>