All-women colleges pull graduates

Since childhood, Tessia Wilson, 18, always expected to attend the University of Notre Dame.

She did not expect to end up at a women’s college.

"It still kind of shocks me, thinking that I’m going to an all-girls college," she said.

But when she visited St. Mary’s College close by Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., she liked the environment so much she decided to apply.

"I think it’s a comfort zone, knowing that it’s all women — it’s like a huge sorority," Wilson said. "I think it will help me adjust to being so far away from Arizona."

Wilson and a handful of other local female graduates are bucking a national trend by enrolling at women’s colleges.

Attendance at women’s colleges has fallen since the 1970s, leading some institutions to become coed to survive.

The number of women’s colleges dropped from approximately 300 in 1960 to 80 in 1998, according to government data. Today, only 65 women’s colleges remain in the United States.

"It is rare that women choose women’s colleges, but some of the ones that are available, they have some very wonderful experiences to offer," said Brenda Mueller, a retired Saguaro High School guidance counselor.

Women’s college proponents say research indicates their graduates make better gains in academic involvement, self-esteem and leadership.

At single-sex colleges, women take all leadership roles, form study groups composed of only women and take charge in lab exercises and classroom discussions, according to a study by the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership Studies at the University of Iowa.

It’s all about empowerment, Mueller said.

But that’s not what Betsy Mortenson, 18, was thinking about when she decided to attend Stephens College in Columbia, Mo.

She was thinking about the stories her mother, Tina, a Stephens alumna, told her about the school.

And she was thinking about the college’s theater department, ranked No. 4 in the 2005 Princeton Review.

The college has shrunk since her mother attended it, now teaching roughly 700 students. But that size attracted her, especially after attending Coronado High School with roughly 1,300 students, she said.

"The all-women’s part really didn’t play a deciding factor. It was mainly the size that I wanted," she said.

Brittany Dion, 18, of Cave Creek said the single-sex aspect of Sarah Lawrence College really didn’t affect her decision to attend the New York school — rather, it was the school’s academics that drew her.

Dion, a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sylvia Plath, as well as writing and art, said she believes she can grow in those areas at Sarah Lawrence. She likes the fact that the curriculum means she doesn’t have to choose a particular major, and she is not required to take math.

But this is college, so what about a social life? What about finding a date?

"I worried about it for maybe, like, five seconds," explained Dion, who said she then realized she wouldn’t have to worry about looking her best every morning.

"And from what I hear, the NYU guys come over to visit us," she said.