March 7, 2003

In Defense of Women's Colleges and Their Goal of Diversity

To the Editor:

What is Peter Wood's beef with the four remaining Seven Sisters ("When Women's Colleges Sell Diversity, It's a Con," The Review, January 31)? His outrage over the rhetoric of diversity at Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Smith, and Mount Holyoke Colleges is overwrought, considering the tiny percentage of college students these institutions educate.

Most students who choose to attend a small college are attracted by the particular kind of community it is -- a