“Why did you go to Smith?” (Part 1 of your responses compiled, with permission, by Kim Boestam, class Secretary; edited versions feature in the Winter 2024 Quarterly edition.)
Lia Brassord
I took one look at the inside of Morrow House and knew it was the place for me.
Ann Ahearn Mayo
My grandparents lived just down the road on State St. so the campus has always felt like a second home to me. I especially loved the trees and landscaping (and still do). After I was accepted I found out that my great grandmother (maternal), grandfather (fraternal) and father spent some time working for the College. As I started working here almost immediately after graduation and am still here, I guess it’s still home.
Anna Purves
I went to Smith because I had a great Gold Key guide experience, an even better overnight stay in early October of my senior year in which I was invited to go with my student host with some of her friends to a lecture in the theatre building and we were talking animatedly afterwards about the lecture . Those current Smithies said, “Anna, you belong here.” So that’s why I applied early decision. It was all about feeling welcome and stimulated. I had no interest in any other women’s colleges.
Eryn Perry Utz
My family was not available to take me to visit colleges, but a high school classmate was taken on a tour of Eastern colleges by her family. On her return, she told me that she liked Smith the best and I should apply there. I also applied to my parent’s alma mater, Berkeley (CA), and Harvard/Radcliffe. I was accepted by Smith and Berkeley, Smith offered the best financial aid package, and I went, sight unseen, in late August.
Susan Ellis
I went to Smith because during my senior year of high school I visited both Smith and Wellesley, and the students were nicer to me at Smith. More importantly, because I’d had such a great two years at a mostly girls’ high school and gained a lot of confidence there, I thought an all-women’s college would be a good fit.
Kim Longworth
I went to Smith because it had a strong biology program, and only after I was there did I appreciate its value as a women’s college. One weekend in August my parents took me to see Cornell University (also strong in biology) and Smith. Cornell felt huge and impersonal. Smith was warm, inviting, with a beautiful campus. I loved the idea of living in a house with its own dining room and having Friday afternoon tea. Years later I understood how important that model was to forming friendships. I also appreciated my excellent biology professors!
Sarah Pennywitt
Wow, this is going into the way back machine! My memory is that I was allowed to apply to three schools and Smith was on the list because my mother went to Smith, as did a number of my other amazing relatives. My older sister applied but opted for Carleton College instead and I was the last option to keep our tradition alive. I applied for my mother, but ultimately went to Smith for me! I remember talking to alumni from my other two choices and both (men, by the way) spoke poorly about Smith. I wanted nothing to do with schools that spawned men like that and started looking hard at Smith. I came to see the great value in participating in a community that was led by women. In a way, I’m so very grateful for those two unfortunate men that thought so poorly of our amazing alma mater!
Luisa Motten
I saw Smith on an October weekend with fall colors peaking….the three things that helped me choose Smith were the amazing art collection at the museum, the fact that so many students study abroad and the kind admissions director Yvonne.
Carol Fresia
I learned about Smith from my childhood best friend’s mother, Susan (nee Taylor) Smith who was an alumna (I’m not sure what class, but likely mid-1950s) . While she was probably hoping her own four daughters would choose Smith, I was the one who ended up there. Because I was planning to major in French, I was looking for a place with a good study-abroad option, plus a strong French department. And, having grown up in a New England college town, I loved Northampton. These reasons seem a little ordinary now, but luckily, Smith delivered much more than I was even looking for.
Julia Jubb Iuretig
One of the big draws about Smith for me was (to my best recollection) that the one and only course requirement was that half your courses be outside your major. That was it. I didn’t have to take math ever again!! That, plus a high academics reputation, beautiful campus, walking distance to downtown, an easy drive from my NH home, and a state-of-the-art theater building (I was a theater major) all pointed me to one of the best, life-changing decisions I ever made. Little did I know that I would leave in May 1983 with a group of lifelong sisters with whom I remain close even today.
Carrie Wroth O’Leary
I went to Smith because the campus just felt like “home” when I visited during my senior year in high school. The minute I stepped out of the car I knew it was the place for me, in a way I had not felt at any other stop on the endless college visit trips with my parents. I knew a few older ladies in my family and neighborhood who had gone there and that it was prestigious/had an excellent academic reputation. But I didn’t know much more about it, and honestly didn’t even think much about the fact that it was a women’s college, just went with that gut feeling on that day in October, 1978!
Suzanne Lerner Knuiman
I didn’t really want to go to Smith, I wanted to go to Duke, in my hometown in North Carolina. My parents felt strongly that I should go away to College so I applied to Smith Early Decision, figuring I wouldn’t get in and my parents would leave me alone. By the time my acceptance came in, I was sick of small town North Carolina life and ready to go out into the world. I accepted the offer and never looked back. Smith has made me the person I am today and while I can’t even remember most of the things I “learned”, I have used my Smith experience every single day in my life. Smith made me independent, a critical thinker, and a strong woman not afraid to speak my mind. It also gave me some of the dearest friends whom I will cherish to my last breath. Thank you Smith, I didn’t want you at the beginning, but you were my savior!
Amy Resner
Dance studios! The New England Smith campus was beautiful, and offered an intriguing contrast to California. But I really fell in love with the Mendenhall Center for the Performing Arts. Other colleges had dance programs, but from what I remember, very few had such a strong ballet emphasis. There were so many talented, smart and academic dancers on campus! And beautiful spaces for class and performing. Smith offered a very special combination, and a strong motive to move across the country.
Frances Fabian
When I was 10 years old my grandmother, mother, sister and I took a car trip across the country from Southern California to Washington D.C. On the way, in an effort to motivate my sister to higher college aspirations (which she did not have) my mother and grandmother enthusiastically told my sister she could attend a college like William and Mary in VA if she would like, and apparently this permission stuck with me in the ensuing years.
I was a very “straight-A” student in South Pasadena, CA, and I participated in all sorts of debate/government types of organizations (correlated to a July 4 birthday I’m pretty sure). As it turned out, I went the farthest east from my high school (the next furthest was Brigham Young University). But in those state-wide organizations (yeah “Youth in Government” summer school!) I interacted with many peers from other high schools planning to apply to the Ivies, and East Coast schools that I was less familiar with.
When it came to applying to schools, I was determined to choose a school where I would see what it looked like to have snow fall from the sky. I did not have the confidence to apply to a full Ivy, and so I went to get a Barron’s book and copied the list on the “most competitive” schools given my SAT/GPA. Also, I began receiving pamphlets in the mailbox apparently from some box I checked when taking the SAT.
I chose (with absolutely no sophistication) Willamette as my safe school in Oregon, William and Mary (well, because), Smith, and Holyoke as my four applications. I really liked the pictures and descriptions of Smith and Mt. Holyoke, I don’t believe I knew of them before application time. When I was accepted at Smith and Holyoke, I think I chose Smith because (who knows?) better pictures, and more cultural references? My AP English teacher had me read Sylvia Plath books (how the Bell Jar should have comforted me on my decision I do not know), and apparently an old family friend was a Smith alum, who took me to lunch and financed my first wool possession of a long coat from Macy’s in New York City.
Later people would ask me how I was going to handle an all-women’s college (in those days it was often called a girls’ school, and we got very experienced at correcting people). I had never really considered the single sex status as a variable, so I sort of dismissed their question. In retrospect, this sex segregation was incredibly consequential as my equally-competent friends at UC Berkeley were held back (imho) on a number of identity barriers vis a vis factors like pursuing math and science, graduate school, dating and the sorority life.
We all have our own journeys, and mine was especially serendipitous. I was voracious for learning and hit every department (usually with overwhelming 100 courses) except dance and psychology. (The latter is especially funny as I now employ a great deal of theory from cognitive psychology for my occupation as a professor of management). The upshot of being a Government major (and taking the bare minimum in the department so I could forage across the college departments) is that I actually got pretty smart, and aced the GRE and went to Harvard’s Kennedy School right after. Had I not been in a house (Wilder, the best) where the socialization with upper classes set expectations to attend graduate school, I cannot believe I would have gone such a path at all.
Sylvia Henderson
Truth be told, initially it was both to please my mother as well as prove to my mother and myself that I was Smith material. My paternal great aunt was class of 1902 and my mother class of ’50. Getting a great education was always an expected path in our family and my grandparents and parents worked hard to make it possible. I was so lucky. One of four daughters, each of us received the Smith application unbidden (well, except by my mother) during college application season. I watched two older sisters do the college tour rounds, with both of them deciding on small women’s colleges (Goucher and Mt. Holyoke). I knew I wanted to go to a smaller school and preferably a woman’s college. I was a good but not great student, a terrible SAT/ACT tester, and active in after school (theatre arts/music) and volunteer activities. I’m not sure my parents thought I’d get in. Heck, I wasn’t sure I’d get in. Mommy was ever hopeful that at least one of her daughters would go to Smith. And though Daddy hoped the same, he said I had to apply in-state too, so I applied at UVA and Hollins. I also applied to Mt. Holyoke and God knows why, Trinity. Fortunately, I got into both state schools (phew!), immediately rejected at Trinity, and wait-listed at Mt. Holyoke. Then the great waiting. I found out I was in, via telephone (my mother opened my mail at my request), while visiting my sister and her soon-to-be fiancé in Boston/Cambridge during my high school spring break. WOOHOO! So that’s why I went to Smith, but it’s not why I stayed at Smith. It turned out to be a great place for me for so many reasons, and so much so that I will likely retire to Northampton in the not-too-distant future.
That’s my story!
Madonna Burke Quinn
I was Professor Sten Harold Stenson’s student at Hartford College for Women. Sten was a very kind man. He informed me that the Smith Admissions Office gave him all of his students, so he was going to give one to the Admissions Office. I am grateful to him for the opportunity to study at Smith, as well as his faith in me. I was able to study religion and education and those studies led to an almost four-decade career.
I had not consciously planned on pursuing transfer admission to Smith, but I was well aware of the college’s history and positive reputation. When I was accepted, I happily informed our next-door neighbor. Ivy was a woman whom we have since discerned must have been at Bletchley Park during WWII. We knew that she was a veteran of the British military, but she never elaborated on specifically how she had served. She was extremely advanced in computer knowledge during the fifties, sixties and seventies, and she was a very cultured woman, an international traveler, and had been resident of four different nations. She asked me, “What is Smith College? I’ve never heard of it.” That comment has sustained my personal sense of perspective ever since.
>>Read here Part 2 of our classmates’ responses to this question.
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