The Seven Sisters are a consortium of prestigious, historically women's liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern U.S., founded between 1837 and 1889 to provide education comparable to the all-male Ivy League.

 

The Seven Sisters are a consortium of prestigious, historically women's liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern U.S., founded between 1837 and 1889 to provide education comparable to the all-male Ivy League. The original members are Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley.

 

Key Details About the Seven Sisters:

Current Status: Five remain women's colleges (Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley). Vassar became coeducational in 1969, and Radcliffe merged with Harvard University.

Locations: Most are in Massachusetts (Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, Radcliffe/Harvard) or New York (Barnard, Vassar), with one in Pennsylvania (Bryn Mawr).

Reputation: They are known for high selectivity, strong academic traditions, and producing notable alumni in leadership, politics, and literature.

 

The Seven Member Institutions:

Barnard College (New York, NY): Founded 1889; affiliated with Columbia University.

Bryn Mawr College (Bryn Mawr, PA): Founded 1885.

Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA): Founded 1837.

Radcliffe College (Cambridge, MA): Founded 1879; now the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard.

Smith College (Northampton, MA): Founded 1871.

Vassar College (Poughkeepsie, NY): Founded 1861; now coeducational.

Wellesley College (Wellesley, MA): Founded 1870.

 

The name "Seven Sisters" is a reference to the Greek myth of the Pleiades, goddesses immortalized as stars in the sky: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope, and Merope.

 

In 1915, Vassar President Henry Noble MacCracken called together Vassar, Wellesley, Smith, and Mount Holyoke to work together “to deliver women opportunities for higher education that would improve the quality of life for the human family and that would put them on an equal footing with men in a democracy that was about to offer them the vote.”The success of this informal association of colleges led to the decision to establish a larger and more formal group in 1926. That year Bryn Mawr, Barnard, and Radcliffe were added and the group gained the name “Seven Sisters” after the Pleiades.Together, their aim was to address financial inequality with elite men’s colleges, in particular, the need to raise endowments so faculty salaries could approach those at top male institutions. The group launched coordinated fundraising and public-awareness efforts to secure better support for women’s higher education. Through 1935, the colleges continued collaborating on fundraising while also using their meetings to exchange ideas on broader academic and student-life issues, such as undergraduate culture, governance, religion, and leisure.

 

The Seven Sisters colleges continue to collaborate through the Seven College Conference, which is hosted annually on a rotating basis by one of the seven original member institutions and brings together senior administrators and faculty around a theme. Recent topics have included the value of the Seven Sisters brand and issues of diversity, equity, and achievement. Although Radcliffe no longer participates and some schools, such as Vassar, have evolved from being primarily women's institutions, they share enough common history and institutional character to make ongoing collaboration meaningful and productive.

 

Four of the original Seven Sisters are in Massachusetts, two are in New York, and one is in Pennsylvania.

 

In Massachusetts, Mount Holyoke College and Smith College are part of the Five College Consortium with Amherst College, Hampshire College, and University of Massachusetts Amherst. Wellesley College is part of the Boston Consortium for Higher Education, established in 1995 and now comprising 23 institutions across New England. Wellesley College also allows students to cross-register with MIT, Babson College, Brandeis University, and the Olin College of Engineering. Radcliffe College shared a common and overlapping history with Harvard College from the time it was founded as "the Harvard Annex" in 1879. Harvard and Radcliffe integrated genders in 1977, but Radcliffe continued to be the sponsoring college for women at Harvard until the entities officially merged in 1999.

 

In New York, Vassar College ultimately became co-educational in 1969 and remains independent. Barnard College was Columbia University's women's liberal arts undergraduate college until its all-male coordinate school Columbia College went co-ed in 1983. Barnard continues to be a women's undergraduate college affiliated with (but financially, administratively, and legally separate from) Columbia. At graduation, students attend both a Barnard College commencement ceremony and a commencement ceremony that grants degrees to all students graduating from a Columbia-University-affiliated school. The diploma lists both Barnard College and Columbia University.

 

In Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College, along with Haverford College and Swarthmore College, make up the Tri-College Consortium, which belongs to the Quaker Consortium along with nearby University of Pennsylvania. Bryn Mawr students may attend classes at Haverford, Swarthmore, and Penn, and vice versa. A merger between Bryn Mawr and Haverford College was considered at one point.