Seven Sisters (colleges)

The Seven Sisters are a group of seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that are historically women's colleges.^[1] Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and Wellesley College are still women's colleges. Vassar College became coeducational in 1969, and Radcliffe College was absorbed in 1999 by Harvard College and now offers programs in advanced study.

These colleges were created in the 19th century to provide women with the educational equivalent to the historically all-male Ivy League colleges. (Cornell, one of the eight Ivy League schools, has accepted women since its founding in 1865).^{[citation needed]} The seven sisters are considered academically prestigious,^[2] and like their once male counterparts were founded in the Northeast.

The name Seven Sisters is a reference to the Greek myth of The Pleiades, goddesses immortalized as stars in the sky:^[1] Maia, Electra, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope, and Merope.^[3]