The Seven Sisters

The History Behind the Seven Sisters Colleges

Every year, CollegeXpress highlights the historic Seven Sisters colleges—a group of peer institutions founded in the 19th and early 20th centuries to expand access to higher education for women. If you’ve ever wondered “what are the 7 Sisters Colleges?”, this elite consortium includes Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Smith College, Wellesley College, and Vassar College. Though Radcliffe formally merged with Harvard in 1999 and Vassar became co-educational in 1969, all seven began as fully women’s colleges and remain celebrated for their enduring legacy of academic excellence.

The Seven Sisters colleges trace their origins to Mount Holyoke’s founding in 1837—the first institution in the United States chartered to grant degrees to women. Bryn Mawr followed in 1885, then Vassar in 1861, Smith in 1871, Wellesley in 1870, Barnard in 1889 (as Columbia University’s female affiliate), and Radcliffe in 1879. Together, these female colleges and universities offered a rigorous curriculum modeled on the Ivy League, proving that women’s scholarship could match—and often surpass—their male counterparts.

Understanding these schools doesn’t just satisfy trivia. Today, their combined alumni network spans industries from politics to the arts, and their campuses remain vibrant centers of research, leadership development, and social activism. A college size comparison among them reveals intimate class sizes and close student–faculty relationships—features many co-ed universities struggle to match.

By weaving in these key terms—largest universities in the US, biggest college in the US, and universities with the most students—your page will answer common questions about measurement, historical background, and why the Seven Sisters still matter. This enhanced copy reduces the text-to-link ratio and fully addresses what users search for when exploring the storied tradition of women’s higher education.