About the Seven Sisters Colleges

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Seven Sisters Colleges

A campus building at Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts — LawrenceSawyer / Getty Images

Founded in the mid to late 19th century, these seven women's colleges in the Northeast of the United States have been called the Seven Sisters. Like the Ivy League (originally men's colleges), to which they were considered a parallel, the Seven Sisters have had a reputation of being top-notch and elite.

The colleges were founded to promote education for women that would be at an equal level to the education offered to men.

The name "Seven Sisters" came into use officially with the 1926 Seven College Conference, which was aimed at organizing common fund-raising for the colleges.

The title "Seven Sisters" also alludes to the Pleiades, seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the nymph Pleione in Greek myth. A cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus is also called the Pleiades or Seven Sisters.

Of the seven colleges, four still function as independent, private women's colleges. Radcliffe College no longer exists as a separate institution admitting students, dissolving in 1999 after a slow integration with Harvard beginning formally in 1963 with joint diplomas. Barnard College still exists as a separate legal entity, but is closely affiliated with Columbia. Yale and Vassar did not merge, though Yale extended an offer to do so, and Vassar became a coeducational college in 1969, remaining independent. Each of the other colleges remains a private women's college, after considering coeducation.

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Mount Holyoke College

Located in: South Hadley, Massachusetts
First admitted students: 1837
Original name: Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
Also commonly known as: Mt. Holyoke College
Formally chartered as a college: 1888
Traditionally affiliated with: Dartmouth College; originally sister school to Andover Seminary
Founder: Mary Lyon
Some famous graduates: Virginia Apgar, Olympia Brown, Elaine Chao, Emily Dickinson, Ella T. Grasso, Nancy Kissinger, Frances Perkins, Helen Pitts, Lucy Stone. Shirley Chisholm served briefly on the faculty.
Still a women's college: Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts

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Vassar College

Located in: Poughkeepsie, New York
First admitted students: 1865
Formally chartered as a college: 1861
Traditionally affiliated with: Yale University
Some famous graduates: Anne Armstrong, Ruth Benedict, Elizabeth Bishop, Mary Calderone, Mary McCarthy, Crystal Eastman, Eleanor Fitchen, Grace Hopper, Lisa Kudrow, Inez Milholland, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Harriot Stanton Blatch, Ellen Swallow Richards, Ellen Churchill Semple, Meryl Streep, Urvashi Vaid. Janet Cooke, Jane Fonda, Katharine Graham, Anne Hathaway and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis attended but did not graduate.
Now a coeducational college: Vassar College

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Wellesley College

Located in: Wellesley, Massachusetts
First admitted students: 1875
Formally chartered as a college: 1870
Traditionally affiliated with: Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University
Founded by: Henry Fowle Durant and Pauline Fowle Durant. Founding president was Ada Howard, followed by Alice Freeman Palmer.
Some famous graduates: Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, Madeleine Albright, Katharine Lee Bates, Sophonisba Breckinridge, Annie Jump Cannon, Madame Chaing Kai-shek (Soong May-ling), Hillary Clinton, Molly Dewson, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Norah Ephron, Susan Estrich, Muriel Gardiner, Winifred Goldring, Judith Krantz, Ellen Levine, Ali MacGraw, Martha McClintock, Cokie Roberts, Marian K. Sanders, Diane Sawyer, Lynn Sherr, Susan Sheehan, Linda Wertheimer, Charlotte Anita Whitney
Still a women's college: Wellesley College

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Smith College

Located in: Northampton, Massachusett
First admitted students: 1879
Formally chartered as a college: 1894
Traditionally affiliated with: Amherst College
Founded by: bequest left by Sophia Smith
Presidents have included: Elizabeth Cutter Morrow, Jill Ker Conway, Ruth Simmons, Carol T. Christ
Some famous graduates: Tammy Baldwin, Barbara Bush, Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Julia Child, Ada Comstock, Emily Couric, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Margaret Farrar, Bonnie Franklin, Betty Friedan, Meg Greenfield, Sarah P. Harkness, Jean Harris, Molly Ivins, Yolanda King, Madeleine L'Engle, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Catharine MacKinnon, Margaret Mitchell, Sylvia Plath, Nancy Reagan, Florence R. Sabin, Gloria Steinem
Still a women's college: Smith College

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Radcliffe College

Located in: Cambridge, Massachusetts
First admitted students: 1879
Original name: The Harvard Annex
Formally chartered as a college: 1894
Traditionally affiliated with: Harvard University
Current name: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (for Women's Studies), part of Harvard University
Founded by: Arthur Gilman. First woman donor was Ann Radcliffe Mowlson.
Presidents have included: Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, Ada Louise Comstock
Some famous graduates: Fannie Fern Andrews, Margaret Atwood, Susan Berresford, Benazir Bhutto, Stockard Channing, Nancy Chodorow, Mary Parker Follett, Carol Gilligan, Ellen Goodman, Lani Guinier, Helen Keller, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Anne McCaffrey, Mary White Ovington, Katha Pollitt, Bonnie Raitt, Phyllis Schlafly, Gertrude Stein, Barbara Tuchman
No longer admits students as a separate institution from Harvard University: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study - Harvard University

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Bryn Mawr College

Located in: Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
First admitted students: 1885
Formally chartered as a college: 1885
Traditionally affiliated with: Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Haverford College, Swarthmore College
Founded by: bequest of Joseph W. Taylor; associated with the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) until 1893
Presidents have included M. Carey Thomas
Some famous graduates: Emily Greene Balch, Eleanor Lansing Dulles, Drew Gilpin Faust, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Josephine Goldmark, Hanna Holborn Gray, Edith Hamilton, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton Hepburn (the actress' mother), Marianne Moore, Candace Pert, Alice Rivlin, Lily Ross Taylor, Anne Truitt. Cornelia Otis Skinner attended but did not graduate.
Still a women's college: Bryn Mawr College

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Barnard College

Located in: Morningside Heights, Manhattan, New York
First admitted students: 1889
Formally chartered as a college: 1889
Traditionally affiliated with: Columbia University
Some famous graduates: Natalie Angier, Grace Lee Boggs, Jill Eikenberry, Ellen V. Futter, Helen Gahagan, Virginia Gildersleeve, Zora Neale Hurston, Elizabeth Janeway, Erica Jong, June Jordan, Margaret Mead, Alice Duer Miller, Judith Miller, Elsie Clews Parsons, Belva Plain, Anna Quindlen, Helen M. Ranney, Jane Wyatt, Joan Rivers, Lee Remick, Martha Stewart, Twyla Tharp.
Still a women's college, technically separate but tightly integrated with Columbia University: Barnard College. Reciprocity in many classes and activities began in 1901. Diplomas are issued by Columbia University; Barnard hires its own faculty but tenure is approved in coordination with Columbia so that faculty members hold tenure with both institutions. In 1983, Columbia College, the University's undergraduate institution, began to admit women as well as men, after negotiation efforts failed to merge the two institutions completely.