Smith College

Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college with coed graduate and certificate programs, located in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters. In 2015, U.S. News & World Report ranked it 14th among the best National Liberal Arts Colleges.

Smith is also a member of the Five Colleges consortium, which allows its students to attend classes at four other Pioneer Valley institutions: Mount Holyoke College, Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

History

The college was chartered in 1871-1891 by a bequest of Sophia Smith and opened its doors in 1875 with 14 students and six faculty. When she inherited a fortune from her father at age 65, Smith decided that leaving her inheritance to found a women's college was the best way for her to fulfill the moral obligation she expressed in her will: "I hereby make the following provisions for the establishment and maintenance of an Institution for the higher education of young women, with the design to furnish for my own sex means and facilities for education equal to those which are afforded now in our colleges to young men." By 1915–16 the student enrollment was 1,724 and the faculty numbered 163. Today, with some 2,600 undergraduates on campus, and 250 students studying elsewhere, Smith is the largest privately endowed college for women in the country.