Cornell or Wellesley
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Anonymous
| I really think the hetero dating culture is toxic in womens colleges. The neighboring schools all have women there who the men view as friends and colleagues and peers, as well as potential dating partners. When they meet someone from W, they see you as a slight intellectual/prestige inferior (just slightly, w is very prestigious, please dont yell at me) and as a potential dating partner, not as much a peer, colleague, dorm friend etc. Its so much better to meet someone as a fellow student. It also feels odd to show up at parties and try to befriend the women at local colleges, it just doesn't work. When you show up at a party, you are creating a zero sum game for the resident women: you bring your lonely female friends, and no male friends with you? no thanks get outa here, is the vibe from the resident women, and I get it. |
Anonymous
| I am going to push back on OP’s assumption that research opportunities are better at an R1. My DD went to a SLAC and had really great research opportunities because there was less competition to get them. She was on publications as a undergrad. Now she is a PhD student at an R1. Their lab is entirely staffed by grad students. There are no undergrad opportunities there. Her colleagues that went to R1s have less research experience than she does. Sure an R1 has more sophisticated research, but your undergrad may never get the opportunity to be part of it. I think at any school, it is important to ask what the opportunities are for undergrads and if the particular lab you are interested in has undergrads working there. |
Anonymous
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My DD is also choosing between Wellesley and a different Ivy. We were so impressed when visiting W last week. The UROP (research) opps between Wellesley and MIT are amazing and sounds like they are often used. Cross registration was amazing. But it does mean the student has to have initiative to take advantage.
My DD made the comment that it seems that W has the benefits of a sorority without having a Greek culture (she's not interested in rush-parties, etc, but very interested in the community and service orientedness of Greek culture). But if your DD wants to participate in Greek life, Cornell might be better. She also liked that it was near a city. As a parent, I've been very impressed by how impressive the student tour guides, panelists have been. I think it depends on the major or area of study for your student. Congrats--both great options! |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| Wellesley also has the babson/olin consortium to give access to business and engineering courses. Lots of opportunities for a small school. And Olin/Babson are very close by. |
Anonymous
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This is my last time posting as I’m a recent Wellesley grad so I’m one of the only people who can actually testify to the school.
Wellesley students do research at both MIT and Wellesley. Half of my friends did research. Wellesley students do so much research that departments will hold mini seminars for students to showcase it AND the school has a literal day called the Ruhlman conference where classes are canceled. It’s a huge deal with catered food that lasts all day with people presenting the research they’ve done all year. There is no shortage of recent opportunities and I’ve even had a couple friends who did research at Harvard. There’s no beef between Wellesley students and other female students at colleges. Many people have friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc. at different colleges. Many of those people visit Wellesley and eat at the dining hall with their partner or friends. I’m happy to answer any questions. But the misinformation about women’s colleges is frankly tiring and shows that people view them as lesser or inferior on outdated preconceived misogynistic and homophobic notions. If you’re so afraid of your daughter meeting LGBTQ+ people I’d send her to Brigham Young, Liberty, or Hillsdale. No fear of corruption there. 
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Anonymous
Thank you for inadvertently making the case for women's colleges, Dad. OP, the world is full of people like the above poster who (consciously or subconsciously) put a premium on male voices and opinions. Wellesley offers a four-year reprieve from that. What a gift. |
Anonymous
100% |
Anonymous
+ 1000 |
Anonymous
| Proximity to the greater Boston area is a plus, with so many colleges and universities within a 30 minute ride. |
Anonymous
| Cornell in a heartbeat. |
Anonymous
| Girls at our NYC private often face this choice between an ivy and Wellesley. About 4:6 or 3:7 choose Wellesley over ivy. |
Anonymous
Actually, no. I really, really don't understand the univ./LAC dichotomy that exists on this site. The undergraduate A & S program at Cornell is a liberal arts program, just as it is at the other Ivies, Chicago, Stanford, Duke and LACs. My classmates and I were interested in gaining admission to the most rigorous schools that would accept us, and frankly it was more difficult to gain admission to Williams, Amherst and Swarthmore than it was to our feeder Ivy (or to any of the rest of them, with one possible exception). Plenty of my classmates who earned SCEA acceptance to our local Ivy then applied to only one or two more schools they were seriously considering (no one was an a****** who wanted to run the table for bragging rights), and in many cases, those other schools were LACs. I myself attended an LAC with classmates who chose it over the Ivies, Stanford, Duke and Chicago. I am not sure what there is to "outgrow." Wellesley offers more courses than any one student can possibly take, and as someone who teaches at a very competitive R1 institution, I can tell you that students' skill sets over the past 20+ years have really deteriorated. As for research, most opportunities at R1 schools go to grad students and post-docs (and right now, given Trump's targeting of certain universities, I think the research opportunity landscape for undergrads at R1 univ. is really uncertain). By contrast, all of the research opportunities at LACs go to undergrads, and it is worth noting that on a per capita basis, many LACs are amongst the top producers of S & E Ph.Ds (see https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf22321). But in any case, Wellesley students can take classes at MIT and Olin: see the description of opportunities here: https://www1.wellesley.edu/ engineering/opportunities. As for how to make a decision, if it's affordable for your daughter to attend both schools' open campus days, she should . . .and then, assuming finances aren't a major factor (because you're full pay at both or fin. aid packages make both schools comparable in cost), she should choose based upon fit. |
Anonymous
Wellesley students can cross register at a number of Boston-area schools, MIT in particular. The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) program at MIT is open to Wellesley students, as are all of MIT's extracurricular activities; some of them are joint ventures between the two schools. Additionally, Wellesley students can earn a 5-year dual degree B.A. from Wellesley and MIT. So it's more likely that students at MIT, both men and women, do in fact perceive Wellesley students as friends and classmates; also, many Wellesley students who work, do research or intern in Boston during the summers rent rooms in MIT frat houses or other MIT summer housing, so they likely perceive them as dorm mates as well. Patriarchy is everywhere. What would make you think that anyone misogynist enough to think of Wellesley students as intellectually inferior would perceive their own female classmates any differently? But also, a sizable number of men and women at MIT identify as LGBTQ. For obvious reasons, LGBTQ women at MIT certainly do not perceive Wellesley women as a source of competition for romantic interest from MIT men. And the same is true at other area colleges. If anything, your comments say more about your own insecurity about Wellesley women than they do about MIT students' perception of them. |
Anonymous
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Why is MIT being mentioned so many times? Are sheldon coopers there even desirable dates?
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