Should I go to Mount Holyoke? Opinions please!

CrewDad
Fri, 25 Apr 2014 05:01:22 +0000

I don’t understand why you would trust the judgment of (probably) well-intentioned people who are against all reason discouraging you from accepting a scholarship and internship at a top LAC. You will receive extra attention and mentoring due to your scholarship and the fact that MH is a small, intimate setting which cultivates leadership.

Excellent post. Morgan, it would behoove you to heed Momcinco’s poignant comments.



Many have said that I’m “throwing away my future” by choosing a “complete no-name school”

Nothing could be further from reality. My sister-in-law is an internationally renown researcher and was a tenured professor at Yale. She taught at the med school as well as undergraduate courses. She is very much a proponent of a LAC education in general and has the highest regard for MHC in particular.

Also, Carol Christ, the former president of Smith College, has a daughter who is a MHC alumna. Carol, as well as her husband, were highly regarded college professors, and Carol and was a very respected and admired college president. The fact that their daughter chose to attend MHC is, in my opinion, a very impressive endorsement.

People have warned me that Mount Holyoke has severe financial issues

MHC has one of the highest percentages of Pell Grant students (very low income) of any LAC in the country. I.e., MHC is almost fully financing ~23% of the students. Additionally, MHC awarded 82% of first-years institutional grant or scholarship aid totaling $13,880,001
Smith awarded 63% of first-years institutional grant or scholarship aid totaling $13,806,549

When you consider that Smith has an endowment of over twice the value of MHC, I find it astonishing that MHC matched Smith’s grant and scholarship aid for first-year students. It certainly doesn’t appear to me that MHC has any ‘severe financial issues’. :)