Women's Colleges Pro's and Con's

[wisteria]

<p>

@interesteddad

Notice that the bellyaching about women’s colleges comes from those associated with all-male schools whose Presidents have been known to say there’s no place for women in science.

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<p>If you are referring to Harvard “bellyaching about women’s colleges”, interesteddad, it is worth noting that</p>

<p>a) Drew Faust, Harvard’s first woman president (2007-present), is a Bryn Mawr alumna, class of 1968. (She also served on Bryn Mawr’s Board of Trustees for four years.)</p>

<p>b) Hannah Holborn Gray, the first female member of Harvard’s 7-person senior governing body, who served in that capacity from 1997 to 2004, was a Bryn Mawr alumna, class of 1950. (She was also Provost and Acting President of Yale and President of U of Chicago.)</p>

<p>c) Sally Zeckhauser, Harvard’s first female vice president, is a Bryn Mawr alumna, class of 1964. (In addition to serving as Harvard’s Vice President for Administration since 1988, she is also President of Bryn Mawr’s Board of Trustees.)</p>

<p>Pretty impressive record for a small college hundreds of miles away from Cambridge!</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>its interesting that sexual orientation is brought up as a point to quibble over- unless you feel that sexual orientation has a negative effect over the strength of academic studies.</p>

<p>Should it really matter if young adults consider themselves,straight/gay/questioning?</p>

<p>I only think it is relevant if you are looking for a more varied student body ( or the reverse)</p>

[tom1944]

<p>My D’s friend was accepted at Barnard- D is a very similar student and I was hoping she would apply. No luck. I would have been thrilled if my D was lucky enough to apply and be accepted at any of the women colleges. I have a strong feeling that they offer a very exceptional college experience.</p>

[Bay]

<p>My intent is not to “quibble” over sexual orientation. My intent is to quibble over unsupported statements of “pseudo-fact” made on this website. It is my understanding that the purpose of this site is to provide fact and opinion about colleges. If posters want to state their opinion or “hearsay” about certain subjects, I am all for it, especially if there is no factual data on the topic. I object to posters falsely providing information as “fact” when there is no basis to do so.</p>

<p>As evidenced by the many threads on this website, student body sexual orientation information is obviously important to many prospective students, especially those who are looking for a comfortable LGBT environment.</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>student body sexual orientation information is obviously important to many prospective students, especially those who are looking for a comfortable LGBT environment.
I would agree with this.</p>

<p>although my daughter for instance- who is gay, just wanted a college where she felt accepted, not necessarily one that was full of out homosexual students.</p>

<p>I also don’t think it is helpful to post statements as if they were facts, because while some of us may be critical and take the statements with a large lump of salt, others may actually use it as a point for/against without anything to back it up.</p>

<p>[Lauded</a> Holyoke Must Work to Lure Students - New York Times](<a href=“http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E2DE1539F93BA35756C0A960958260]Lauded”>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E2DE1539F93BA35756C0A960958260)</p>

<p>I think smaller schools can be a more comfortable place to become who you are.
[Girls</a> will be boys … at women’s colleges? - Broadsheet - Salon.com](<a href=“http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/03/17/girls/]Girls”>http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/03/17/girls/)</p>

<p>coed schools have more women than male applicants- so much more competitive to be accepted as a female- but then you are in class with men that may be- lower ranked?
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>womens colleges may be mainly single sex, but they are working hard to insure diversity in student body.
[Recruiters</a> for top women’s colleges in U.S. see a bounty in the Middle East - International Herald Tribune](<a href=“http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/03/america/03sisters.php]Recruiters”>http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/03/america/03sisters.php)</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>I also wanted to add that I have never heard of Yale having a predominately large number of homosexual students.
But then I read the NYT far more than I read the WSJ

Yale : “One in Four, maybe More” (last updated August 25, 2001) (back to top)
“One in four, maybe more.” This slogan refers, without much factual basis, to the prevalence of homosexuals in the Yale student body, and it has been around the Yale campus for about 15 years, the legacy of a Wall Street Journal article based on a writer’s observations and minimal reporting. A look at the slogan and the controversy around it says something about how bad statistics live on and on how far society has come in acceptance of gays since the 1980s.</p>

<p>Yale University had a rocky period in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with a controversial restructuring of its faculty, debates over Western Civilization’s place in the curriculum, and growing fears over the decline of New Haven, especially with the murder of one student and a New Yorker series that depicted the city as a kind of urban hell (written by William Finnegan, reprinted and expanded upon in his 1998 book Cold New World).</p>

<p>And then, on August 4, 1987, a new controversy erupted.
That day, the Wall Street Journal published a piece by Julie V. Iovine about the changes at Yale since she had graduated a decade earlier. The article dealt with fraternities and campus parties, but the first and foremost change described was Yale’s new reputation as a gay school. Iovine wrote that a thousand students attended the annual gay-lesbian ball, apparently implying that only gay or lesbian students would go to such a party.
She also reported that a student said she had “received a notice before registering freshman year that said one in four Yale students was gay. That would put it on a par with San Francisco.”</p>

<p>Iovine also described how one student broke down the gay student population into three three categories: “lipsticks” who were “radical-chic” lesbians; “crunchies” who were “granola dykes who have old-fashioned utopian ideas about feminism;” and assimilationists who “don’t want to draw attention to their sexuality.” Gay men were described as being mostly assimilationist.</p>

<p>Yale had been previously identified in a 1982 Newsweek article as a school with an unusually visible gay community, but this Wall Street Journal article put Yale on the defensive.
In a September 17, 1987 letter sent to about 2,000 volunteer fund-raisers, President Benno Schmidt Jr. attacked the article as “journalistic drivel” and calling its depiction “an extremely misleading picture of the student body.” In particular, Schmidt and others attacked Iovine for writing her article after interviewing only three people and not double-checking their assertions.</p>

<p>For example, Schmidt said in his letter that no one at Yale had knowledge of any mailing to incoming students that a quarter of the student population was homosexual. He added in his letter that a 1986 survey by the Yale Daily News, the campus student newspaper, reported that 3 percent of the males and 1 percent of the women in 11 of the 12 residential colleges were homosexual (a head of the school’s leading gay, lesbian and bisexual organization estimated at the time that about 10 percent of the student population was homosexual, about the same as other large liberal universities).
“I can understand your concern about the nonsense,” Schmidt wrote. "If I thought there were any truth to the article, I would be concerned too.</p>

<p>“The article resorted to innuendo and exaggeration to paint a lurid picture of this place. No responsible newspaper would run such a piece by an unknown writer, not a reporter, and without checking to test for minimal accuracy.”
The controversy is long-gone but the statistic remains a fixture in Yale campus life. Its source still remains somewhat unclear.</p>

<p>Sources: Julie V. Iovine, ‘Lipsticks’ and Lords: Yale’s New Look, Wall Street Journal, August 4, 1987, page 32. Nick Ravo, Yale President rebuts story that depicted school as 'gay," September 29, 1987, page B1.

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<p>

But recently, Mr. Kramer, 62, the novelist and playwright, seized on a way he could get the last word in against his antagonists: he would bequeath Yale University, his alma mater, several million dollars to endow a permanent, tenured professorship in gay studies and possibly to build a gay and lesbian student center.</p>

<p>Yale will have none of it.</p>

<p>It has declined Mr. Kramer’s offer – at least on his terms – and in a letter from the provost, Alison Richard, expressed the hope that he would consider other ways of directing his generosity, ‘‘thereby benefiting gay studies and, perhaps, other endeavors here at Yale.’’

[Writing</a> Own Script, Yale Refuses Kramer’s Millions for Gay Studies - New York Times](<a href=“http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503EED61539F93AA35754C0A961958260]Writing”>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503EED61539F93AA35754C0A961958260)</p>

[interesteddad]

<p>

He added in his letter that a 1986 survey by the Yale Daily News, the campus student newspaper, reported that 3 percent of the males and 1 percent of the women in 11 of the 12 residential colleges were homosexual …

</p>

<p>Stop it, you’re killing me. 3%? What’s was next from Schmidt? Mandatory screenings of Reefer Madness?</p>

[emeraldkity4]

<p>

Half a dozen studies in the last five years have put the gay population in the single digits, though none as low as 1 percent. “They tend to be in the range of 2 to 2.5 percent,” said Robert C. Colodny, medical director of the Behavior Medicine Institute in New Canaan, Conn., and a consultant to the Masters and Johnson Institute, which studies sexual behavior.

</p>

<p>[Survey</a> Stirs Debate on Number of Gay Men in U.S. - New York Times](<a href=“http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DD143BF935A25757C0A965958260]Survey”>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DD143BF935A25757C0A965958260)</p>

<p>I don’t think 3% sounds so low, you think it is higher?</p>

<p>

What have Gates and Sanders learned? They estimate that the gay and lesbian population is at least 2.5 percent of the general population, the estimate for gay men (from 2 percent to 5 percent) exceeding that for lesbians (from 1 percent to 3.5 percent). Removing the definition that refers only to experimentation (the top set of bars in the figure above) narrows the ranges to 2 percent to 3 percent for men, and 1 percent to 3 percent for women.</p>

<p>The figure shows more than just the size of the population. It also confirms what other sources have shown about women being more fluid in their sexuality than men. That is, “Once men identify as gay, it appears to have a stronger kind of staying power than for women,” said Gates.

[Out</a> of the Closet and Onto the Census Long Form - Population Reference Bureau](<a href=“http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/OutoftheClosetandOntotheCensusLongForm.aspx]Out”>http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/OutoftheClosetandOntotheCensusLongForm.aspx)</p>

[blossom]

<p>Back to the OP- I find it fascinating that long time posters here who care so desperately about diversity when it means a campus filled with Pell grant kids, Latino kids, Native American kids, etc. get all excited about campuses which by definition exclude 50% of the population right off the bat- no men allowed.</p>

<p>I think Womens schools can be fantastic places- but I think a bunch of you ought to examine your own hypocrisy. It’s important for your D’s to learn how to live with the child of migrant workers in their Freshman dorm but not with men???</p>

[jmmom]

<p>

It’s important for your D’s to learn how to live with the child of migrant workers in their Freshman dorm but not with men???

As an aluma of a woman’s college, I don’t think I was in any danger of failing to learn to live with men. </p>

<p>How absurd is that statement? </p>

<p>If there is some poor girl out there in the world who has never had the opportunity to live with males or around males, maybe she might want to take that into account when selecting a college. Maybe she might want to stick with her comfort level, this hypothetical female with zero exposure to “living with males,” and choose a woman’s college. Or maybe she might want to choose a coed campus so she can overcome this deficit.</p>

<p>Now, if there are male and female students out there who have little exposure to a variety of ethnic groups, racial groups, socio-economic groups, they might want that diversity on a campus. Or who have experienced that diversity and want to continue it. Or who are members of such groups and want to find critical mass.</p>

<p>I think there is a lot more reason to consider those types of diversity on a campus than to choose a college to “learn to live with” men.</p>

<p>How sad that the OP’s genuine question about the pros and cons of women’s colleges is taken by some as open season to (1) bash them (2) bash those who might itemize their advantages (3) use the thread to trot out stereotypes and other useless tripe.</p>

[jmmom]

<p>Certainly there is a degree of artificiality when classes are virtually all female, when all leadership roles will be held by females. I felt that way when I was a student at Wellesley.</p>

<p>That is a factor for any prospective student to consider. Is that artificiality an issue? How does it compare with the advantages of the environment?</p>

<p>There is artificiality in many aspects of the college experience. We tend to go to institutions where we find our academic peers. By definition, we are “artificially” excluding those without high school educations… people with whom we will come into contact, need to be able to relate to and work with in our careers. That is not a reason to avoid attending college any more than the “artificiality” of an all women’s school is.</p>

<p>The question is what are the pros and cons of attending one of these institutions. Not whether they represent the country or universe at large. They don’t. Nor do most any colleges, whether those attracting only the very top students or those attracting a disproportionate number of under-achieving students. Or the HBCU’s, for example. Or Brigham Young.</p>

[theocmom]

<p>My life has been proof that the women’s college education I received 28 years ago did not impact my ability to be successful in a male-dominated business field. Being in a women’s college environment is not for every student, but suggestions that for those who do choose it they will be impacted in life relationships with men is not accurate.</p>

[roshke]

<p>

There is artificiality in many aspects of the college experience.

</p>

<p>Quite true. I remember babysitting on some weekends in college just because I wanted to spend some time with an age group that was out of the 17- 22 year old range once in awhile. Still, I don’t know anyone who makes the argument that men or women are at a life long disadvantage and won’t be effective parents because they do not spend enough time with children for four years!</p>

[geezermom]

<p>emeraldkty–the NYT article on Mount Holyoke is 12 years old. Applications are strong there now.</p>

[BarristerDad118]

<p>Although I am a bit disappointed with some of the meanderings and musings about student sexual orientation, many of you have nevertheless made some thoughtful points for d and I to consider in the next 14 months before she begins the application process to college.
D has been attending a medium-large public high school surrounded by lots of boys and girls. She is pretty grounded and balanced in her life, but is sometimes distracted by things that high school girls tend to worry about aside from academics: boys, personal appearance and petty jealousies. . .
By contrast, one of the benefits of an all-girls college (especially schools like Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke and Wellesley)seems to be that the young women can choose to be focused on academics while in the classroom, knowing that they can take a bus to a coed university, or into the city, when they want to meet boys after classes or on weekends.
How impressive and proud must the alumnae feel at Bryn Mawr with the notable achievements of some of their graduates! I have also read somewhere that Bryn Mawr boasts one of the highest rates of graduates attaining science PhDs!
Our family will consider carefully a number of college options for d, and women’s colleges will be part of the equation.</p>

[mythmom]

<p>My daughter attends Barnard. Unlike Calmom’s daughter, it is her dream school and she has had a wonderful experience. She will be a senior this year.</p>

<p>She is the assistant to the Chair of her department. She didn’t have to compete with guys to get the gig.</p>

<p>She is confident, poised, beautiful, straight (not that that matters at all) and ambitious.</p>

<p>The support, advisement, academics, etc. have proved to be peerless.</p>

<p>She did date someone at Columbia for a while, but her current boyfriend just graduated from Wash U. in St. Louis and is trying to decide what to do with his life.</p>

<p>She is very focussed on her future plans, not dating. Her best friends are two Barnard women and two Columbia guys. Just worked out that way.</p>

<p>At Barnard/Columbia you don’t have to go anywhere to see guys; they come to Barnard. More Columbians take Barnard classes than vice versa.</p>

<p>She seems quite confident to me. Would she be at a coed college? Probably. Not sure.</p>

<p>S’s friends at Williams don’t seem to date very much either, though the environment is, of course, coed.</p>

<p>However, I am appalled at many comments about sexual orientation. Not all, of course. Sexual preference does not define people; it is one aspect of their personality. College is not EHarmony.com. If dating is THE goal, then maybe a women’s college isn’t the best place, but most women from women’s colleges do marry.</p>

<p>As a feminist, my D was attracted to women’s colleges because she admired their historical mission. She applied to coed institutions as well. Barnard was her first choice, Brown her second, Smith her third.</p>

<p>She hasn’t been disappointed, nor have I. Rumors of “lesbians” were not troublesome to me because neither my D nor I are concerned with others’ sexual preferences.</p>

<p>Oh, I think the references to Wellesley students is totally uncalled for here.
Whatever one’s political orientation, a Wellesley woman was almost her party’s candidate and married a man who served as president.</p>

<p>And as admissions get increasingly competitive and men often get an admissions leg up, the women’s colleges are doing what they always have: providing a place where capable women can become very well-educated.</p>

[calmom]

<p>

By contrast, one of the benefits of an all-girls college (especially schools like Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke and Wellesley) seems to be that the young women can choose to be focused on academics while in the classroom, knowing that they can take a bus to a coed university, or into the city, when they want to meet boys after classes or on weekends.

I think you (or your daughter) really need to visit Barnard. Your statement may be true as to the other colleges you mention - I don’t know – but you can’t lump Barnard in or characterize it that way. </p>

<p>Barnard is essentially part of Columbia. There is no “bus” to be taken to get to the “co-ed” campus – there is a street to cross. But after the first year, when most Barnard students move to housing off the “quad”, there is at least one street to cross to get to Barnard, as well. Barnard shares its athletics with Columbia; almost all clubs and other activities are also shared. Orientation week is shared. Many of the departments are integrated and jointly administered, whereas in some cases a Barnard student might take a major through a Columbia-administered department, or a Columbia student might take a major via a Barnard-administered department. It would have been impossible for my daughter to meet the distribution requirements for her Barnard degree without taking courses at Columbia; in fact, most semesters about half of her classes are at Columbia. </p>

<p>Barnard is in Manhattan. There are males all over the place. When a Barnard woman goes to buy her books, or goes for cup of coffee, or decides to get a little greenery and goes for walk in Riverside park… she is in a world inhabited by males. </p>

<p>As a women’s college, Barnard is also female-dominated in many ways – but it isn’t in any way isolated. My d’s best friends her freshman year at school – the ones she hung out with all the time outside of class - were male Columbia students. She lived in single-sex dorm, but the bathroom nearest her room - she one she told me to use when I visited - was designated “co-ed”. </p>

<p>I have a feeling that Scripps is probably similar to Barnard. I haven’t been there, but I checked a map and I can see that Scripps is in the middle of a bunch of co-ed colleges – it is bounded on 3 sides by Harvey Mudd, Claremont-McKenna & Pitzer.</p>

[interesteddad]

<p>

I don’t think 3% sounds so low, you think it is higher?

</p>

<p>Yes. Considerably higher. Although 3% may have been the figure back in 1980 when students were still hesitant to come out. After all Williams had its first ever gay student in 1972!</p>

[unalove]

<p>wait… I thought gays were invented in 1983!</p>

<p>(sarcasm)</p>

<p>I first entered this thread to comment more on Bryn Mawr alumna Hanna Holborn Gray, former acting president of Yale, first appointed female president of a “major university” in the U.S. (according to wikipedia). And that was in 1978. She rawks. And she’s a great prof, according to friends who have had her.</p>

<p>Anyway, I’m a big fan of women’s colleges. It’s funny how my social network is mostly males and women who go to women’s colleges or considered women’s colleges seriously.</p>

<p>The lesbian/queer comments really irk me. Nobody looks at an LGBTQ person and says, “Oh, you would never want to go to that school, there are so many straight people there!” So what if there are gay people there? As another poster mentioned earlier, why would it even matter? Are gay people somehow frightening, icky, and scarier than the rest of us? I hope not.</p>

<p>I ultimately decided not to consider women’s colleges that seriously, because I have so many male friends, but I think that was a dumb decision on my part. The people who choose to attend women’s colleges are exactly the kind of people I would love to spend four years with-- people who value growth, thinking, and learning and prioritize it to dating and frat parties.</p>

[2boysima]

<p>“It’s important for your D’s to learn how to live with the child of migrant workers in their Freshman dorm but not with men???”</p>

<p>Until reading this statement I never really considered learning to live with only women as a particular plus of my attending a women’s college. But I had only brothers - no sisters, and now have sons - no daughters! So, learning to live with those women who have become lifelong friends, inspiration, and confidants has indeed been one of the benefits of a women’s college!</p>