- Introducing the Class of 2001
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- By Winston Smith
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- Ruth Bader Ginsburg Receives
First Sophia Smith Award
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- Smith in 2020: Innovative But
Tradition-Minded
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- WNBA Notes Smith's Role in Women's
Basketball
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- Plath Beyond the Plinth
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- Smithellanea: Dodging Flak from Click and Clack
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- They've arrived. The 657 first-year students who currently make up
Smith College's class of 2001 are now on campus and showing all the savvy
and verve that have set Smith women apart for the past 122 years. That
these traits are largely inborn became obvious in comments three of the
newcomers made to NewsSmith this summer, several weeks before setting off
for Northampton.
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- Native Minnesotan Stephanie Faith Wiens said that one of the first
things she planned to do after settling in on campus was to form a "girlie
rock band."
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- "I'm into every kind of music," she said. She added she wanted
to dance, try horseback riding and "do some photography and theatre"-though
she conceded that "I'm not going to have enough time to do everything
I want."
- Stephanie chose to attend Smith because of its history of excellence
in educating women and its track record in encouraging diversity and looking
after the well-being of all of its students. "I attended an inner-city
high school," she explained. "A lot of times I was in the minority
as the only white."
- Dania V. Frank of Gardena, California, spent parts of the summer of
1996 helping her coworkers learn Japanese when she interned at a local
Nissan plant. She had actually been hired to troubleshoot bugs in equipment.
- "Employees were expected to take Japanese," Frank explained.
"So people who worked there asked me to help with their homework."
She fell into the role of tutor because she had studied the language for
two and a half years in high school.
- Frank is planning to continue studying Japanese at Smith. She said
she likes the language because of its simplicity and elegance. Ultimately,
she would like to get to Japan through Smith's Junior Year Abroad Program
in Kyoto, she noted.
- Seneca Rachel Nelson Rosenberg of Muncie, Indiana, knew even before
arriving on campus that she'd be joining the Smith chapter of Students
for a Free Tibet. "That's one of my priorities," she said, explaining
that she first got involved with the parent organization last year while
helping to bunk members of the New York chapter who had come to Indiana
to hear the Dalai Lama speak at a nearby conference. She became fast friends
with one of the New Yorkers and almost decided to attend Bard College,
which he was entering as a freshman. But even with other options, she ultimately
chose Smith. Its strong science program is a good fit for Seneca, who was
described by one of her high school guidance counselors as an "exceptional
science student."
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- The college received approximately 27,000 inquiries from students interested
in joining the Smith ranks. According to Nanci Tessier, director of admission,
some 2,996 students applied for admission for the class of 2001, and of
those, 1,647 received acceptance letters. By the time of Opening Convocation
in early September, some 657 new students had settled in.
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- "Most students who apply to Smith would do well here; they're
bright and talented. They've also done their homework and know that Smith
would be a good fit for them,'' Tessier says.
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- Two admission officers are assigned to read and evaluate each application
received. The first reader reviews applications from across the country
in order to get an overview of the entire applicant pool. The second reader
reads by geographic area. She is able to develop a strong understanding
of school systems in various parts of the United States and the world.
Students are evaluated within the context of opportunities available to
them at their own high schools and are not compared to students from other
schools or other parts of the country.
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- In determining who would make the cut into the class of 2001, Tessier
says, college preparatory work and performance, standardized test scores,
extracurricular activity and letters of recommendation were the key criteria.
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- "We're looking at the rigor of an applicant's course work and,
obviously, how well she did," she notes. "And we're looking for
potential to be successful at Smith."
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- This is all the more true, Tessier explains, in that the faculty have
high expectations of students in terms of their abilities to express their
opinions and contribute to classroom discussion. "You want a student
to be in a place where she is going to be challenged, where she is going
to grow but where she is not going to be overwhelmed," she says.
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- So, when reviewing the application folder created for each student,
admission officers "look far beyond the surface and give each individual
folder much more than a glance. We really dig into these folders,"
Tessier says.
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- With more than 3,000 colleges in the country, adds Tessier, "there's
a good fit for every student, and maybe more than one good fit. Our challenge,"
she continues, "is to determine who we believe will not only benefit
from a Smith education, but also will contribute to the college and the
community."
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