Women’s colleges may be struggling in the United States, but they got a warm reception when several elite women’s institutions went recruiting in the Middle East this spring, The New York Times reported today.

Representatives of Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley Colleges traveled to Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates to talk about their success in training female leaders.

“You could almost see light bulbs going off in students’ minds, as if, ‘Why didn’t I think of them a while ago?’” Jennifer Melton, a counselor at the American School in Dubai, told the newspaper.

Although some local parents seemed more at ease with the idea of sending their daughters to a women’s college than a coeducational institution abroad, the story notes that such colleges are often quite politically and socially liberal, something that Middle Eastern students have had to adjust to. —Beth McMurtrie