SCRIPPS COLLEGE NICHE PRO

There were plenty of smart girls in my school and in advanced classes, and we even had a vice-principal who was a woman. If you want to learn in an environment that prioritizes women's leadership and academic accomplishment, then a women's college might be the right place for you.Īs a student who had attended co-ed public school up through high school, I didn't really expect this to make such a big difference.

SCRIPPS COLLEGE NICHE PRO

Pro 1: Prioritization of Women's Achievement That said, as a graduate of Wellesley College, there are definitely some benefits that I got from attending a women's college that my friends who attended co-ed colleges did not get. Indeed, for most of the distinguishing points for any given women's college (reputation, academic excellence, religious affiliation, historical importance), there are dozens of co-ed schools with the same claims to fame. In 2020, it might seem odd that students are still interested in attending women's colleges. Pros and Cons of Attending a Women's College In the next section, we'll discuss why students still go to women's colleges in this day and age (and why others choose not to). Still, the top women's colleges continue to thrive and keep pace with their co-ed siblings in academics, financial aid, and graduation outcomes for students. In 2020, fewer than 40 all-women's colleges remain in the US, with some schools evolving their admissions policies to be more inclusive of trans and non-binary students, while others continue to debate remaining all-female or all-women. When more historically men's colleges started going co-ed in the 1960s and 1970s, many former women's colleges merged with or were subsumed by nearby men's schools (e.g., Pembroke into Brown) or went co-ed themselves (e.g., Vassar). The oldest women's college in America chartered as a degree-granting college is Wesleyan College (chartered 1836), while the oldest continuously operating women's school (now a college) in the US is Salem College (founded 1772).ġ80+ years of having women's colleges in the US is nothing to sneeze at, but considering that the oldest college in the US (formerly all-men) was founded 200 years earlier in 1636, women's colleges are still a relatively new phenomenon. The first women's colleges were formed so that women who were interested in post-high school academic education could have that option. Most women's colleges in the US are undergraduate-only institutions (or if they do have grad programs, those programs are not women-only).Īs of 2020, all but a few colleges in the United States are co-educational (admitting students of all genders), but this is actually a fairly recent development.įor most of the country's history (up through as late as the 1960s), the vast majority of undergraduate colleges did not admit women (with exceptions like Oberlin, which was conceived as co-educational from the beginning). We'll also go over the top 17 women's colleges in the US and explain why these schools made the cut.įeature image credit: 1917 Smith College Graduation 9/23 by Richard/Flickr.Ī women's college is a college that admits only or primarily women. In this article, we discuss what women's colleges are and why you'd want to apply to them. Many people are familiar with the idea of all-girls' schools for elementary, middle, and high school, but did you know there are also women-only colleges?

Scripps college niche