Agnes Scott Ranks #1 in State for “Friendliest Girls”? Okay.
Allison | July 12, 2011College Prowler recently released the weirdest ranking of institutions of higher education I have stumbled on in quite some time. According to what I’m sure was a highly scientific survey, it has determined that mine own beloved alma mater, Agnes Scott College, is numero uno in Georgia for “Friendliest Girls,” with a 6.57 ranking out of 7. (Kind of makes you wonder about the other .43, doesn’t it?)
According to the site, “Nothing makes a girl seem nicer than when she’s friendly and approachable. According to students across the U.S., you’ll find those types of girls” at Agnes Scott and the other institutions that topped the list.
ASC just squeaked by Wesleyan’s 6.46 ranking but totally blew all the friendly girls Emory University, at 5.58, out of the water. Huah!
Friendliest? More like baddassiest. (I know that’s not a word.)
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I was so totally not friendly when I was there. But I was totally the badassiest (I think you spelled it wrong, which is why it did not look like a word).
I’ve got to say that, despite the denials of Nelliebelle and Allison, my experience with ASC women is that they are some of the friendliest, brightest, warmest young women I’ve ever run into. I was at the track one day with my son and a young lady who was studying in the nearby grass, just piped up and started informing us about how ASC is the best college ever with small classes, caring professors, thoughtful and creative students, etc. etc. etc. So when my high school niece was in town, I made a point of making sure she got a tour and interview at ASC–the young lady giving the tour was positively chirpy. And all the staff I know there are also in the friendly category from cafeteria to professorial to administrative staff. Even the grad school is friendly: I went to an information session for one of the programs and they provided a delicious dinner. This survey may have some validity because, over the years, we’ve had a Wesleyan babysitter who was fantastic and our one Emory babysitter lost commitment quickly.
Addendum: Whoa. Just visited that website. Boy, I sure didn’t have that kind of data when I went to college.
Those were the Stepford Scotties. They are the only ones allowed outside.
Of course! That explains the Bryn Mawr, Mt. Holyoke, and Smith College ratings too. Anyone knows that girls are mean.
I remember freshman year at Mount Holyoke back in the 80s, when we newbies were just barely lurching past 18. So, there we were, walking into the dorm one day (shamelessly calling each other girls, no doubt) when we were confronted with a lopsided poster board taped to the wall, featuring furiously drawn ponytailed stick figures. It said in red marker: “THESE are GIRLS!!! WE are WOMEN!!!!!!” The scribe included a devil-horned “frowny” face to further emphasize the point.
Isn’t the saying: Not a girls’ school without men, but a women’s college without boys!
Nelliebelle: You were badassier but I was badassiest!
YOU? Badassier than I? Maybe for about 11 minutes. Do you remember my wardrobe and my dates? And, after all, who loves whom here???
Who do you think taught you everything you know? Plus I was sooo bad, I scared you when you were still in high school!
Nelliebelle, I also heart you. And you’re right, I spelled it wrong. But I was trying to add some urban slang cool to it. And Karass, all the things the Stepford Scotties said are positively true. It’s just some of us are friendlier than others when we tell total strangers all that stuff.
This is a weird post.
Very.
I find it quite interesting, since it’s probably one of the first times that there’s been a sustained conversation about ASC subculture discussed on DM.
These student spend years of their lives in our city and they’re just a stones throw away, and many of us don’t know diddly about what goes on there.
You probably don’t know about Black Cat, the Hub, the ghosts, the secret passages, the magic of second floor Inman, the bell tower suicide, Hopkins in its heyday….oh, so much the poor average Decaturite misses!
Hopkins in its heydey? We really weren’t there at the same time? The Socialist Butterfly Balls were definitely legendary.
I was a freshman in the last year of Hopkins before it was shut down. I only know the last gasp and the legends!
Oh, the stories I have. And also photos (I was always the quiet one with a camera . . . heh heh heh). The blackmail potential is enormous.
Ok, I was staying out of this, happy to maintain my lovely image of ASC women as friendly, thoughtful, chirpy young women who extolled the virtues of their warm school community. But now I have to know: What was Hopkins? Why was it shut down? What were the Socialist Butterfly Balls? (Their title is great.) Was this part of the transition of ASC from a more debutante atmosphere to an atmosphere of women’s advocacy and academics? I apologize in advance for any ignorance and stereotyping. I didn’t know about Agnes Scott until I moved here and my understanding of its history is limited.
Karass, Karass, Karass. These are powerful questions, and you are sweet to ask (check me out with the friendly!) Let me start by clarifying that Agnes Scott College was, from its beginnings, always an institution serious about academics. You didn’t go there for a debutante atmosphere, a finishing school training, or an “MRS degree.” Its alumnae have been breaking barriers in all manner of professions: Evangeline Papageorge, Class of 1928, for example, was the the first full-time female faculty member at Emory’s School of Medicine. Constance Curry ’55–an important activist in the Civil Rights Movement, even as a student at ASC, and still an award-winning writer. Judges, legislators, Decatur’s first female mayor. Georgia’s first female Rhodes scholar. The first woman to be ordained in the Presbyterian church. Country music and rock stars. I could go on, but I think you get the picture.
But to answer your other questions: Hopkins was the smallest dorm on campus, and also the least geographically central–hence the most neglected in many ways. It didn’t get the fancy renovations that most of the other dorms got (at least, not when I was there). It was also the dorm closest to the railroad tracks, which is why I can now sleep through anything. I lived there for three years. We knew how to use our well-honed wits to make our marks, so we embraced our low status, subverted the dominant paradigm, planted our tongues in our cheeks and formed the “Hopkins Jr. Deb Society,” which threw the bestest parties ever. Those were the Socialist Butterfly Cotillions, always held on May 5–Karl Marx’s birthday. I don’t know why Hopkins was closed (Nellie, do you?), but it sounds like the character we imbued in its hallowed, cracked plaster halls lingered for quite some time.
Very helpful. And interesting! And I guess women’s colleges have always struggled with being stereotyped, even the Seven Sisters. In the old days, the stereotype was that the women were debutantes looking for an MRS., well-bred young ladies drinking tea at 4 PM, and/or unattractive bluestockings. Now the stereotype is evidently that they are lesbian, bisexual, and/or retro feminists.
As we Hopkins Jr. Debs used to say, “Better dead than well-bred.”
I believe it was honestly not safe structurally. They’ve repaired it but the crazy, wild Hopkins atmosphere is not the same
I was desperate to live there, but was, alas, too late. A lot of Hopkinsites moved to second floor Inman and we tried to carry on, but it was not the same
I used to deliver pizzas there (Athens Express!)
I’d call it “Angus Scott” to aggravate the girls a little – always good for a laugh.
Your avatar. The Punisher, right?
Oops! I did it again.
“Angus Scott”? That’s all you got? I always heard it referred to as [Preemptive EDIT]…
I’m a hottentot from Agnes Scott and I date a wreck from Tech;
He took me to the Varisty and taught me how to neck;
He filled me full of liquor and filled me full of beer;
And now I am the mother of a baby engineer.
As a tech alum, I’m sad that this is the first time I’ve ever heard that.
That is a different version than I remember
I am tiddlytot from Agnes Scott
And I go with a boy from Tech
He took me out and got me drunk
and taught me how to neck
He taught me to drink whiskey
He taught me to drink beer
And now I am the mother
of a bouncing engineer
Glad to see that Tech B!tch Syndrome (TBS) is alive and well. When I was at Tech in the 90s, we loathed the Agnes Scott girls. At a fraternity party, my sister politely told one of them to go back to Decatur and date her own classmates. After all we studied hard to get into an engineering school and we were entitled to enjoy the 6-1 ratio without interference from people who majored in unemployable liberal arts and were only in college to get an MRS. My sister is the quiet type so it was really shocking that she unleashed like that. I think she had too much beer.
Speaking not just as a (fully employed) ASC alum but as a person – what a mean thing to say…and then to repeat on a community blog.
Um, excuse me , Ms. AT, about the MRS. degree. You obviously never actually spoke with an Agnes Scott woman–who was much more into what was going on in the world and in their classes than any guy. I’ve been fantastically employed since two weeks of my graduation–with my double-major liberal arts degree in history and classical studies–as a writer, editor, historian and political analyst. Oh, and in addition to studying hard and being involved in extracurricular activities, I was a little sister in a fraternity at Tech. We Agnes Scott women can’t help it if our intelligence, creativity, and good looks make us attractive to Emory and Tech guys.
kaaaAAABOOM!
+1
AT, your sister’s admonition was hardly original, and I doubt the ASC student to whom she addressed it even batted an eyelash. Believe me: we DID go back to Decatur and date our own classmates. We weren’t really interested in any of you, just in your free beer.
Heh! Way to put the smack back down!
Like I said: Baddassiest. Or badassiest. Or badassest.
One of those.
She’s not lying, Cuba. I never set foot on Tech campus or looked twice at a Tech guy after iheartnelliebelle taught me how to make a fake ID halfway through the first semester of my freshman year. My 3 month long romance with a REPUBLICAN ATO netted me cigarettes, alcohol, transportation and free stuff. Tech frat boys, on the other hand, circled the ASC campus like flies, in response, I think, to the limited selection amongst non male Tech students.
I totes believe ya, Nell– almost makes me wish I’d gone to ASC with y’all (we would’ve been the badassiest to the nth power, fer sher)!
Oh, and I can’t make fun of you for the GOP-ATO…I married a GOP Sig Ep! Thankfully, he saw the light, and is now an independent (like moi)!
Nellie! Now you’ve told everyone on DM that I was a criminal and contributed to the corruption of a minor.
AT, good example of why ASC students are ranked a little higher on the friendly scale than the Tech “girls.”
It’s not like I didn’t follow bad examples!
I’ve never met an Agnes Scott “girl.”