Getting to Know: Bryn Mawr College (PA)-Again
Nine years ago I visited Bryn Mawr College. It was two degrees outside in January. However, that was also an open house where I got a day-long exposure to the college. I had an opportunity to re-visit the college on a much warmer day. This visit also made me think about how community works at a small school. Bryn Mawr has one of the nicest campuses that I have ever seen anywhere.With a mix of architectural styles spread across three centuries, Bryn Mawr’s 135-acre campus is a smaller version of the setting at schools such as Duke or Princeton. I invite you to check out an updated Pinterest page. This is one campus that shows very well in cold and warm weather. I was also fortunate to be accompanied by Lena Brooks, a college admissions advisor who is also a Bryn Mawr alumna, who explained some of the campus lore and traditions.
Bryn Mawr is one of the original “Seven Sisters” women’s colleges.
Founded in 1885 just outside of Philadelphia, Bryn Mawr is one of the five that has remained all-female for undergraduate education (men have been graduate students since 1931). While Bryn Mawr was not the first all-female college, it was the first to grant degrees through the Ph.D. But among the Five Sisters women’s colleges (Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Wellesley) Bryn Mawr has the smallest undergraduate student body, with approximately 1,400 students. It also has over 300 graduate students.
While less selective than Barnard or Wellesley, undergraduate admissions to Bryn Mawr are hardly easy.
Just under a third of applicants for the Class of 2026 were accepted. Sixty-two percent of those who applied Early Decision got in. They made up approximately half of the class. Nearly half of the Class of 2026 submitted test scores. The overall acceptance rate dropped to 29 percent for the Class of 2027.
Note to students who are thinking about submitting scores: it helps to have scores of 650+ on each section of the SAT or 30+ on each section and the Composite for the ACT. Bryn Mawr is also one of the more aggressive liberal arts colleges with respect to partnering with Community Based Organizations to attract a diverse student body. Over half of the Class of 2026 were women of color. Sixteen percent of the Class of 2026 were first-generation college students. This rose to 19 percent for the Class of 2027.
Bryn Mawr does not admit students based on major.
Nor does it “cap” enrollment in popular majors. However, all sophomores are expected to submit a Sophomore Plan that indicates their intended major, the courses they intend to take, possible electives and their resume’. It must be completed, discussed and approved before a student may formally declare their major. Sophomores also meet with staff in the College’s Leadership, Innovation and Liberal Arts Center (LILAC) to discuss possible career directions. Ninety percent of a first-year class will return to prepare a Sophomore Plan. Approximately 80 percent of the women who start at Bryn Mawr graduate in four years, unless they want to tackle a combined program or joint degree.
Bryn Mawr meets 100 percent of need, though there are very few merit scholarships.
It helps that the college’s endowment, in excess of $1 billion, is greater than those of many other exceptionally selective schools, including Carleton (MN), Bucknell (PA) and Lafayette (PA), according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Approximately half of 2021 graduates borrowed to cover their educational costs. They owed just over $30,000. That’s approximately $3,000 more than they could borrow for four years through the Federal Student Loan Program.
Bryn Mawr offers 37 majors, 47 minors and four concentrations.
These include multi-disciplinary opportunities in Geoarcheology, Gender and Sexuality, Latin American, Latino and Iberian Peoples and Culture and Peace, Middle East Studies and Conflict and Social Justice. Some of the more unique majors include Astronomy (through Haverford), Classical and Near Eastern Archeology, Geology, Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies,, Geology, Growth and Structure of Cities and Linguistics. The college also offers some unique minors in Computational Methods, Education and Health Studies. There are also unique multi-disciplinary course sequences called BMC 360; some include a trip abroad. The college also appears to be willing to add majors and minors following student’s past actions to design their own. Bryn Mawr also offers six combined programs where students may work toward a master’s degree while still completing a bachelor’s degree.
Bryn Mawr students share access to college consortia, popularly called “BiCo” and “TriCo,” with Haverford College, Swarthmore College and Penn.
The consortial arrangements create a co-educational setting for academic courses and social events. They also make Bryn Mawr less of a fishbowl than liberal arts colleges inmore isolated locations. Byrn Mawr students, aka “Mawrters,” are most likely to take classes at Haverford, the closest campus, which is about two miles away, and the easiest to reach by bus. Buses to Haverford leave every half hour. Haverford students regularly take classes at Bryn Mawr, too. Ninety percent of ‘Fords take at least one class at Bryn Mawr during their four years! Penn is a longer schlepp by train, but it is also possible to take classes there. Bryn Mawr also has four bachelors-masters partnerships with Penn. While Bryn Mawr has had these consortial relationships for a long time, it also has small classes on campus. Less than ten percent of all classes taught on campus had more than 29 students.
Nearly all Bryn Mawr undergraduates live on campus.
I have not been to another small college, all-female or co-ed, that tries to bond around traditions like Bryn Mawr. These traditions including Lantern Night, May Day and more, are based around residence life. While the College does not offer on-campus apartments, it does offer opportunities to live in a cooperative house (Batten, for environmentally focused upper-class students), a Black cultural house (Perry). Bryn Mawr mixes first-year students and upper-class students in the halls. Upper-class students have several opportunities to live in single rooms. The variety of floor plans and architectural styles within the residence halls is impressive for a small school. Bryn Mawr’s Dorm Leadership teams include paid Hall Advisors (juniors or seniors), volunteer Customs Persons (usually sophomores), a Community Diversity Assistant and Peer Mentors. Hall Advisors organize programming on their floors with the student-elected Dorm Presidents. Working in pairs Customs Persons mentor first-year students to help them get settled. Fifty-four Customs Persons live in the 11 halls where freshmen reside. This is one of the better support structures that I have seen among small schools.
Bryn Mawr has a unique form of student government.
Called the Self-Government Association, it places students not only in the position of proposing and recommending changes to campus life policies; it also enables them to vote and help enforce them. The campus is a non-smoking environment, as one example, through the actions of the Association. The Association also provided a voice to ask the College to define “gender” in its admissions policies. As a result, the College’s board voted to admit trans-gender students who identify as female in 2015. The association also administers Bryn Mawr’s Honor Code which covers academic honesty (including self-scheduled exams!) as well as social interactions. The college has an Academic Honor Board as well as a Social Honor Board.
Bryn Mawr has experienced recent activism.
Three years ago, after the college reopened following the COVID-19 pandemic, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) students at Bryn Mawr organized a strike collective in solidarity with Haverford students. Striking students boycotted all academic and extracurricular activities as well as campus jobs for 16 days. They made 18 demands on the college administration. Among them was the removal of the name of M. Carey Thomas, the college’s second president, from a library facade. She espoused racist and anti-Semitic views during her tenure from 1894 to 1922. The library had been renamed Old Library in 2018, though Thomas’ name remained on the facade. The Bi-College News, a joint Bryn Mawr-Haverford newspaper, provided a chronology and interviews with organizers the next semester. Although the college administration did not accept every demand, there were several points of agreement.
In December, 2023, the Bi-College News reported on the first Jewish Conversations event held on campus the previous month. This story is worth reading given conflicts and events that have taken place at various colleges across the country.
My impressions from reading these accounts is that Bryn Mawr has students who are unafraid to find and raise their voice. But given how the community tries to bond around strong traditions and a detailed honor code, I had to wonder if Bryn Mawr also has students who “get along to go along” when it comes to politics. Further, a college leadership educated in a prior generation is not always going to understand every concern of a later generation and give student activist leaders everything they ask for. At the same time a student body that was recruited on 21st century ideas about diversity, equity and inclusion expects the administration to live up to these ideas and uses social media to air differences.
Bryn Mawr, the town, has nearly 6,000 residents.
While the downtown is not immediately next to campus, the walk there, and to the train to Philadelphia, is very short. The community is well-to-do. The downtown, while small, has a restored movie theater and several ethnic and theme restaurants. It’s a nicer college town that you would find around Villanova. It takes less than 30 minutes to get into Philadelphia via SEPTA rail, and little more time to get to the airport. I saw little need to have a car at Bryn Mawr, given the bus access to TriCo schools, the downtown, the residence life arrangements and the access to Philadelphia. Upscale shopping and restaurants are also available at Suburban Square, closer to Haverford College.
Conclusions
Bryn Mawr attracts intellectually mature women who may leave with a tight circle of friends, possibly for life. This school also has some of the best academic and career support services that I have ever seen at a small college. Bryn Mawr is a very small school that tries hard to give its students the resources that they are more likely to find at a larger school. Reading about admissions, the strike, and the Jewish Conversations also showed me that students from different backgrounds do not come to Bryn Mawr understanding each other at the start. However, enough seem willing to try and find their voices, while still upholding college traditions. I did not feel that there was a “typical Bryn Mawr student.” The only way for a prospective student to know if Bryn Mawr is the right fit is to visit and spend some time among the Mawrters.
Report Card: Bryn Mawr College (PA)
- Four-Year/Six-Year Graduation Rates: A
- Freshman Retention: A
- Costs: B+
- Curriculum: A
- Community: A
- Comforts: A
- Connections: A
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