In honor of Women’s History Month, Top Tier Admissions acknowledges and celebrates the contributions of all-women’s colleges to the advancement of women’s education, equality, and empowerment. Many female-only colleges were founded in the 19th century, long before women had broad access to higher education. According to the Women’s College Coalition, in 1960 there were 230 women’s colleges in the United States; today, that number has declined to only 35. Yet these remaining institutions continue to provide supportive and empowering environments for women as they pursue higher education and professional careers.
KEY REASONS TO ATTEND AN ALL-WOMEN’S COLLEGE
Women’s colleges allow their students to fully explore their interests and potential by providing opportunities for mentorship, leadership, and the tools to break societal barriers. The Weissman Center for Leadership, for example, empowers students at Mount Holyoke to make their mark in their communities through courses, workshops, internships, and public events. According to the Women’s College Coalition, 48% of students at women’s colleges are eligible for Pell Grants, making schools like Spelman College, a HBCU in Atlanta, a top performer in social mobility rankings. Additional advantages to all-women’s colleges include:
- Single-sex education. This environment allows students to focus on their studies and personal development without some of the gender biases that still exist in co-educational settings.
- Sense of community. All-women’s colleges provide supportive and empowering environments, and often have a strong sense of community and sisterhood.
- Smaller class sizes. All-women’s colleges usually offer small class sizes, providing learning experiences with more mentorship and individual contact with faculty.
- Opportunities for leadership. At women’s colleges, all leadership roles in campus organizations, from first-chair violin to newspaper editor-in-chief, are held by women. There is also often a higher representation of female role models on the faculty and in the administration.
- Safe environment. Most women’s colleges are passionately committed to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and have communities that are freer from harassment, discrimination, and violence. While women’s colleges were originally founded to provide education and opportunities for cisgender women, many have since evolved to become inclusive and welcoming of trans students.
- Focus on leadership. Many all-women’s colleges focus on developing women leaders in fields and roles traditionally dominated by men. For example, although all-women’s colleges have traditionally been known for their strong programs in liberal arts and humanities, many have more recently developed strong business and computer science programs in response to the growing demand for women in these fields. Business is the most popular major at Wesleyan College in Macon, GA with 22% of students studying the subject through six concentrations, and Smith College in Massachusetts is one of the nation’s few liberal arts colleges to offer an engineering major. In New York City, Barnard College’s new state-of-the-art computer science facility has its own advising center and Computer Science-Math Collaboration Space, while Scripps College in California has partnered with Google to integrate foundational data science and computer science skills into its liberal arts curriculum.
- Loyal alumnae network. Beyond the formal services provided by the career services offices at women’s colleges such as life-long resume consultation, access to job listings, and guidance for applying to professional schools, informal alumnae networks provide valuable mentorship, career connections, and lifelong friendships. Wellesley College’s “W Network,” for example, boasts 35,000 active alumnae providing referrals, events, and advice in what has been called “the most powerful women’s network in the world,” organized into subgroups by industry, region, or age range.
THE ROLE AND IMPACT OF ALL-WOMEN’S COLLEGES IN 2023
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women now constitute the majority of college students in the United States, making up 58% of total undergraduate students. Given these numbers and the progress made in gender equality within higher education, the continued need for women’s colleges has sometimes been questioned. Yet women still face barriers to success in co-ed institutions, including a lack of representation in leadership positions, unconscious bias and discrimination, and fewer opportunities for mentorship and networking.
The strong track record of success by female graduates of single-sex colleges is perhaps the most compelling evidence for the continued relevancy of these institutions. Compared with women who attend co-ed institutions, women who attend women’s colleges are:
- more likely to be employed in their field of study a year after graduation (79% vs 56%; study by the Women’s College Coalition),
- more likely to be in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (37% vs 29%; study by American Association of University Women),
- more likely to hold management and professional positions (72% vs. 60%; study by the American Association of University Women), and
- more likely to be in executive or senior-level management positions within 10 years of graduation (23% vs 19%; study by the Women’s College Coalition).
SPOTLIGHT ON WOMEN’S COLLEGES
In the northeastern U.S., the five remaining “Seven Sisters” are among the oldest and best-known all-women’s colleges, and include:
- Wellesley College (MA, acceptance rate 13%)
- Barnard College (NY, 8%)
- Bryn Mawr College (PA, 31%)
- Smith College (MA, 30%)
- Mount Holyoke College (MA, 40%)
Across the U.S., from Agnes Scott College (70%) in metropolitan Atlanta, to Meredith College (70%) in Raleigh, NC, and Sweet Briar College (80%) in Virginia, women’s colleges can be the hidden gems of a college search. Some schools are single-sex primarily with regard to residence, as students share classrooms and extracurricular activities with students from nearby co-ed colleges through consortiums like Claremont College’s or partnerships. Students at Saint Mary’s College (IN), for example, benefit from their school’s 178-year partnership with the University of Notre Dame, while students at Wellesley can cross-register at MIT, Babson, Olin, and Brandeis. Beyond the U.S., the United Kingdom has many notable all-women’s colleges within both the University of Oxford (St. Hilda’s College and St. Anne’s College) and the University of Cambridge (Girton College, Newnham College, and Lucy Cavendish College).
KEEP AN OPEN MIND
Ultimately, the decision to attend an all-women’s college is a matter of perspective and personal choice. In conducting their college searches and crafting their college lists, Top Tier Admissions recommends that all students keep an open mind and explore a wide range of college options.
After attending Castilleja School in Palo Alto, California, Heidi graduated cum laude with an Honors thesis from Dartmouth College as a double major in Classical Archaeology and Comparative Literature. At the University of Pennsylvania, Heidi was a Williams Fellow in the graduate program of Art and Archaeology of the Mediterranean World. She has conducted archaeological field work in Sardinia, Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey.
- 2024: A Big Year for College Waitlists - April 1, 2024
- Making the Most of Your Spring Break College Campus Visits - February 20, 2024
- Early Decision Denial? Here are Your Next Steps - December 11, 2023
