Thread by @CynthiaMN5

So, to correct something I read in a @Wikipedia article, John's Hopkins University is not the brother university to Bryn Mawr College. Haverford College used to be informally the brother institution. Before Haverford went co-ed, it was the all-male college close to Brym Mawr.

There are seven colleges that used to be known as the Seven Sisters. They were historically all female colleges. Of the seven, I think that Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, and Mt. Holyoke are still all-female. I believe Vassar is now co-ed.

Barnard College was the women's college associated with Columbia University. Radcliffe College was the women's college associated with Harvard. I don't think Smith college was associated with a larger men only university. Okay, so, Smith College is probably still only women.

These historically female colleges were established on the East Coast in the 1800s because the East Coast Ivy League schools did not admit women. These colleges were usually for elite women, but these women were serious scholars.

My grandmother and great-aunt went to Mt. Holyoke. My aunt went to Radcliffe/Harvard where she studied biology with Watson/Crick/(the woman whose name I forget because she wasn't acknowledged at the time).

I had not intended to go to a women's college. I did not date in high school, and have chosen an engineering school, where there would have been way more men than women. But my foolish intellect and love of books got in the way.

In the fall of 1979, in my senior year in high school, I applied to three schools: Harvard, Swarthmore, and Bryn Mawr. I did not get into Harvard. I had intended to go to Swarthmore, which is co-ed. But I did campus visits to both Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr.

The moment I stepped on the Bryn Mawr Campus, it just felt right. I liked the tour guide a lot. Also, Bryn Mawr College is modeled on Oxford and Cambridge. It looks like that school in Harry Potter. I should note that Oxford and Cambridge were around long before the Potter books.

So, yes,I attended an elite East Coast women's college. But it was the only time in my life,both before and after,that nobody was mad at me for being smart. I could be myself, in the sense that could be really smart and intellectual and nobody called me names, stole my car, etc.

Bryn Mawr College is on my yearly giving list.