Best of Smith College

Pretty Good, but Access Is Becoming Increasingly Limited

The gym is usually quite good (it's bright, clean, and the equipment is all pretty new), but they keep cutting back on hours and making you walk all the way around it to get inside cause of the budget crisis. The libraries are awesome and have an amazing collection of materials, but their hours are also being cut back. The campus as a whole is gorgeous. They're making a huge effort to renovate the dorms, and lots of them have wood floors and nifty nooks and crannies—not at all like the cookie-cutter dorms at other schools.

Lots to Choose from, but Not Cheap

There are tons of restaurants in Northampton of all varieties: American, Asian, Moroccan, vegetarian, Argentinian, etc. One is hard-pressed to find a cheap meal outside the local pizzerias, but if you are willing to shell out some cash every now and then, you are guaranteed a great meal!

Great Dorms, Other Specificites...

The dorms at Smith are some of the nicest in the country: old renovated mansions from the 1800s and some newer ones. The heating and bathrooms are good. The two extremes of dorm locale are sleepy Greet Street or the party Quad, everything else is in between. The living environment can be hostile in some ways, as everyone is overworked and can be protective of their houses (people get really close through Friday teas, house parties, studying, and going to meals together). It's important to fish around and find the house that fits you. You can get a single, double, or the rare triple in the Friedman uppeclass(wo)men apartments, a vegetarian or vegan co-op, a French house, a minorities house, or even off campus, though you have to petition for it. I give the dorms an A, the amenities an A, the social atmosphere a C, the cost a B, the convenience, because academic buildings, dining halls and dorms are close together, a B+, and the ease of the housing process a C+/B- since the school doesn't provide transportation for your stuff and since there is a bit of red tape trying to live where you want. Overall, living at Smith is fine. The town has a nice array of ethnic food, trinket sales, and coffee shops, but lovers of big cities will be bored here. Small town, small school—claustrophobia, but good individual attention from the school.