The popularity of prestigious universities like Harvard, Stanford, NYU, UCLA and many more have always been there and is only growing. For the incoming fall class of 2024, UCLA received 173,651 applications, making it the most applied to university in the United States. Following behind it were many of the other UC schools, with most of them having around 80,000 to over 100,000 applicants. 

While all of these institutions provide incredible opportunities, some that cannot be found anywhere else, I would like to pitch to all of the girls reading this that you should consider an all-women’s college.

I am a senior this year, and I will be attending Scripps College which is the all-women’s college within the Claremont College Consortium. I was accepted ED, so there is no going back or changing my mind. Going into college application season, I was planning on attending an all-women’s college, whether it was Barnard, Wellesley, Scripps, Bryn Mawyr or any other women’s institute. I did apply to my fair share of co-ed universities, including the UC schools, but ultimately I wanted to go to an all-women’s college. 

If you asked me during March of 2024, I would have been dead against it. Even during the summer before this school year when I was doing college tours, I skipped over Scripps when we were visiting the Claremont Colleges. I complained about the size being too small and that it wasn’t super close to any major city. 

But as I read more into women’s colleges, there were a few characteristics about them––particularly Scripps––that had pulled me into a spiral of research on these special institutions. For one, the class sizes are amazing. The average class size at a women’s college is small, ranging from five to 40 students. This allows for more support and the ability to build personal relationships with professors, which is important for getting letters of recommendation for post-graduate opportunities. I didn’t think that it would be that much of a problem to be in a class with 1,000 other students, but I tried to imagine myself going to office hours or asking a professor a question when there are 500 other students waiting in line to also ask a question. I also had no clue how I would have been able to stand out in a crowd of hundreds of other kids all asking for a personalized recommendation letter. 

Another thing that I noticed as I was doing college tours, was that the vibe at an all women’s college was completely different. It’s hard to explain, but the whole campus felt very intimate no matter where I was, whether Barnard or Scripps. They’re on completely different coasts, yet I still felt the same welcoming atmosphere from everyone around me. I truly felt that the students and staff all wanted the same thing for each other: to succeed in college and the future. I would argue that the generation that we are living in right now is the generation that has the ability to create the largest impact on issues like gender bias in higher education and the workforce. All women’s institutions allow for a place where women can be taken seriously as students pursuing a degree, and there are endless opportunities that are offered to us without needing to compete to even have a chance at consideration. Most curriculums at all womens schools are also tailored to fit the student body, and faculty work tirelessly to incorporate relevant courses relating to women’s studies and gender science in their core curriculum. I feel that making it required for all students to take courses on––to put it simply––themselves, not only gives a unique opportunity to look through common subjects through a feminist lens, but is also extremely empowering to take a deep dive below the surface on what women have accomplished. 

Whether you’re just a freshman girl, or a junior girl starting to do research on colleges, I would highly suggest putting an all-women’s college on your list. Sleeping in the dorms feels like having a sleepover with your best friends, and “weekend girls trips” can easily become a reality. Even if you are dead against it, I would still give it a try. You may end up like me and absolutely fall in love with the idea of an all-women’s college.