Ivy League Aspirations Unleashed (NYT Q&A with Harvard's DofA)

[Anonymous]

Ah, but yes it does, 14:29. Having a strong and independent mom helps boys respect girls and women more as well as understand those unrecognized sexist comments and behaviors. It also makes us more cognisant of the issues boys face - speaking as a Seven Sister and mother of a boy. I personally see how schools make it harder for boys and how many teachers don't take boys' learning styles into consideration.

Smith College's tongue in cheek motto puts it best: When better men are made, Smith women will make them."

[Anonymous]

I am also a Seven Sisters grad and turned down acceptances to Yale, Harvard and Princeton. I saw the women's education as essential to my happiness and success and believe I got a much better education than if I had gone elsewhere.

As a pp mentioned, it's all about the fit. It should never be about the label.

[Anonymous]

I think 7 sisters need their own forum....have a lot of comments

[Anonymous]

I liked 7 sisters too but that was 100 years ago. The times have changed and a lot of girls don't want to go to them anymore.

[Anonymous]

10:20 Per Boston Business Journal, applications to Smith were up 6% this year, up 1% to Wellelsey in 2007 (same increase as Tufts and Harvard, suggests a peak in demographic growth.) I imagine the remaining Sisters have their pick of highly qualified students.


http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2009/02/23/daily15.html#
Smith College, a liberal arts college for women, has received a record number of applicants for the 2009 academic year.
The Northampton, Mass.-based college has received 4,009 applications, a 6 percent increase over the previous year.

http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2007/02/26/story1.html
Applications at the area's selective schools indicate that they may have already reached the peak of their popularity. Harvard College set a new record of at least 22,920, but the gain was less than 1 percent. Tufts University and Wellesley College also reported similarly slight increases.

[Anonymous]

Please get a separate forum Seven Sisters...my daughter refuses to co single se

[Anonymous]

None of the 7 Sisters have single sex classes anymore. They all can take classes at nearby colleges - Bryn Mawr at Haverford, Smith at Amherst, etc. Vassar co-ed and Radcliffe merged with Harvard as well as Barnard with Columbia. They can also do a year away at another top liberal arts or Ivy.

[Anonymous]

No one has mentioned a very delicate topic -- what about the issue of same sex partners and transies at the 7 sisters? The WSJ had an article about transies at Vassar about one year ago.

[Anonymous]

Vassar is co-ed, so I am not sure how its issues are any different from any other co-ed school.

There is no "issue" about same sex partners. Yes, there are lesbian couples at women's colleges, just like there are at co-ed schools and the general population (gasp!).

I agree that the seven sisters talk on this thread has gotten out of hand, and I even went to one. But this post is the lowest form of stereotyping. Oh well, if you do have a kid at an independent school, with that kind of rigid thinking being taught at home, I'm sure my kid will be in the Ivy line ahead of yours - if my kid wants to be.

[Anonymous]

Sorry but you can keep your all women's colleges and by the way, my kid is already at an Ivy...good luck with yours...but then again I'm sure yours will go to a seven sister...good luck with that

[Anonymous]

I saw that article in the paper -- it must have been in multiple papers since I don't get the Wall Street J anymore. I thought it was really quite intrusive to talk about all of those transexuals and then they talked about kids having to dorm with transexuals. It was a little too liberal for my taste.

[Anonymous]

Oh, please. This is classic media trying to get circulation up by going after the bizarre. You could find something strange anywhere you looked. These types of stories are not indicative at all of the schools they represent.

Bizarre story = controversy = sales = $

[Anonymous]

DC is much more liberal than where I come from. That story was really odd to me. It seems some people are so blase her -- nothing surprises them. And, if my kid has a roommate who was a transexual - I would consider it really absurd to have a kid have to deal with. It wasn't just one person in the story -- it was a number of kids.

[Anonymous]

I am with you above. Does everyone have to have this liberal stuff ... stuffed down their throats?

[Anonymous]

Those stories were not about liberalism. They were about sensationalism brought on by the media to sell papers. The colleges had no idea these situations would happen until the wo(men) were already students. The reason they go to a women's college is for safety reasons - women are less likely to beat them up as they go through the transgender process. This is why they avoid colleges that are co-ed.