Smith College Top Questions

Smith is pretty liberal, you have to be serious about aademics to survive here but most of us know how to have a good time too.

pretty diverse for a private lib arts school in new england, particularly socio-economically; smithies tend to be very liberal, or at least open-minded; there is a very open LGBT community

During my time here at smith i have not receive any discrimination from any group of people nor does it happen often here. even if it does happen smith college knows what action to take in order to let their student know of the issues and what needs to be done to improve the community.

Everyone is different, even if they don't appear to be so. There are people from every background imaginable, every location, every country, every circumstance, etc;

there is no two way street in terms of political views

The student body is really diverse- sometimes your circle of friends or even your entire house might not be, but there are many different people that go here either by social status, class, or what have you.

There is a huge deal made about being politically correct all the time and this drives me crazy. People say that there is racism at Smith College because of a recent black face incident at a party. I say people should be able to go to parties as whoever they want and everyone else should be less touchy. There is a racism problem, it's called making too big a deal over small things when no one intended to hurt anyone else in the first place.

Smithies are independent and often opinionated. It's an interesting mix of personalities, but that is what I love about Smith. While it is a pretty white upper/middle class girls' school-- efforts are being made from the top down to shift that perception to a richer representation of backgrounds. Smith is a pretty liberal school-- but you don't let the school/people/professors push their ideas on you. And really, for all the liberals there are at Smith heated, all-out brawls over politics are rarer than you think at Smith.

I actually wish Smith was more diverse. I came from a school where only 15{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} or less of the student body was white, so Smith was something of a culture shock for me. Most students are from the East or West coast, but there are still plenty of people from the larger Midwest cities here. People here are open about everything--sexuality, politics, their backgrounds... There are few conservative students here. A large chunk of students are upperclass prep, but I'd say the majority are upper and true middle middle class. I think few lower class students go here, mostly because tuition is so expensive.

Experiences...on campus?: Smith is constantly talking about racial, religious, lgbt, socio-economic and all other possible divisions on campus. Its a very open issue and Smith is big on making a big deal of it in an attempt to be fair and for the most part, succeeds. Expect to be educated on all those issues before graduation either formally or informally. Out of Place?: Someone who is conservative or trying to be invisible or looking for an academic easy ride with good parties. Wear to class?: anything goes. Some people wear barely anything, some people wear sweats. Different students interact?: Constantly. Four tables: Each table has a mix of races, religions, sexual orientations, socio-economic backgrounds, and native languages. Three of the four tables are probably having an intellectual conversation. Most Smith students from?: New England, New York, California, South, Mid-west, international...everywhere basically. Financial Backgrounds?: Amazingly varied. Mostly middle class with a few super-rich people and a good few people on full scholarship.