Seven Sisters (colleges) - Definition and Overview

The Seven Sisters are a group of women's colleges which were organized in the United States in 1927 to better promote female education. The members are:

• Barnard College, New York, New York, part of Columbia University
• Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania
• Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts
• Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, part of Harvard University
• Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
• Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
• Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts

Two of the Seven Sisters, Mount Holyoke and Smith, are also members of the Five Colleges.

1978 marked a historic milestone when all of the Seven Sisters schools finally had woman presidents.

Not all of the Seven Sisters remain all-female colleges; some have become coeducational. Vassar began accepting men in 1969. In 1963, Harvard College assumed joint responsibility with Radcliffe over Radcliffe undergraduates. In 1999 Radcliffe College was dissolved, and Harvard assumed full responsibility over the affairs of female undergraduates. Radcliffe is now the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Women's Studies at Harvard University.