When Boy Meets Girl

High school minus the prom and plus a less awkward health class, single-sex education has long been a contentious hotspot of the academic world. Many proponents argue that adolescents benefit socially and academically from being able to develop without feeling pressure or judgment from the opposite sex; but others feel that single-sex education creates an unrealistic bubble that inhibits the development of social skills and reinforces gender stereotypes.

Harvard, with many of its students hailing from the various single-sex high schools across the country, is the perfect place to test this debate. These students’ experiences at Harvard, while as varied as those of students from coed schools, are nonetheless fundamentally unique and different from their coed counterparts.

It is widely recognized that following attendance at a single-sex high school, the transition into the coed world can be frustrating. And yet there seems to be among these students a clear sense of confidence and comfort inside the classroom. Proponents of single-sex education say this confidence stems from a non-coed environment with uninhibited academic development, which often translates into academic success and a willingness to debate in that battle-field of a Harvard section.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS

It isn’t a secret that a certain amount of gender stereotyping occurs during high school—especially at a testosterone-jammed all-boys prep school. And this stereotyping, that is frequently exacerbated at single-sex schools, can oftentimes affect a student’s college career.

Alexander M. Fuller ’10, who attended Belmont Hill School, an all-boys private school in Belmont, Mass., notes that the typical male stereotype definitely had a presence on his high school campus. “You are required to play three sports, and [Belmont Hill] is absurdly dominant in athletics,” says Fuller, who ran cross-country, wrestled, and rowed. “Part of the school’s philosophy is that boys will be boys, they have a lot of excess energy so let’s get them out onto the fields.”

But he also notes that the school was diverse, and it was possible, if unusual, to break through the traditional macho-man mentality, and participate in other, less traditional, masculine pastimes—like the arts.

Sumorwuo K. Zaza ’11, who attended the all-boys Delbarton School in N.J., recalls a similar stigma surrounding his high school experience. According to Zaza, the stereotypes “come with the territory. It’s so much athletics and manliness. There was a certain pressure to be the best at what you do.”

Although both boys noted a certain pressure to be one of the guys, Zaza recalls that forming female friendships in high school was easy—maybe even easier than at Harvard. Friendships with members of the opposite sex are typically encouraged by these schools, many of which have counterparts in their “brother” or “sister” institutions.

o were girls all throughout high school, and in fact feels that he had more girl friends during his time at Belmont Hill than he does at Harvard. “If anything, I miss the girl experience I had at [Belmont Hill],” he says.

MEAN GIRLS

For Maddy Fleming, a recent Harvard acceptee and current senior at the Winsor School, a private all-girls school in Boston, the small amount of gender stereotyping she encountered was quickly outweighed by the positive nature of her experience.

Fleming felt that when she made the decision in eighth grade to attend an all-girls high school, her choice was met with biting responses. “There was an assumption that people made, that I might be a feminist, and in middle school the boys would joke about lesbianism,” Fleming says.

Joanna Marquina ’10, didn’t want to leave her guy friends behind and attend an single-sex school. In fact, the decision to enter Woodlands Academy, an all-girls Catholic day school in Illinois, was her parents’. However, upon beginning high school, she decided that the stereotypes she feared were more speculation than fact.

“It wasn’t like ‘Mean Girls’ or anything. It wasn’t 24-7 drama,” she says, eagerly noting that she made lifelong friendships in her four years at Woodlands. “They in a sense become your sisters, and after four years you are so close.”

In terms of male friendships, Marquina notes, “I’ve always had guy friends, so it’s not a new thing with college.”

BAND OF BROTHERS...AND SISTERS

While they agreed that it was easy to find and maintain friends of the opposite sex, single-sex high schoolers are quick to acknowledge that the coed atmosphere does differ greatly from the one found at Harvard. Often times these high schools fostered such close relationships among their students that the social scene of college seems cold.

“When I got to Harvard, I tried to recreate the environment I had at high school. I ended up with maybe two or three friends as good as the 12 I had at Belmont,” Fuller says. “College is too big a place to get that band of brothers feel that Belmont had.”

David T. Ahlborn ’11, who, like Zaza, attended Delbarton School, also attests to intense friendships made in prep-school—friendships not possible at either a coed high school or college. “You didn’t have the distraction of girls around, and there was a brotherhood that you form with the guys that you wouldn’t get at a coed school,” Ahlborn says.

While they miss the closeness that they felt at their small, single-sex schools, many agree that this same closeness helped them develop confidence to succeed, if not socially, than at least academically at Harvard.

“There was such a strong sense of community that conversations were encouraged,” Zaza says. “I now feel very comfortable talking to professors, TFs, and non-students.”

All-girls schools also help students participate in the classroom—traditionally a tough sector of the academic world for women to succeed in. “Woodlands definitely helped with my development as a person. I started to feel more comfortable with who I was and speaking up in class,” Marquina says. She carried this sense of self-confidence from the uniform-clad halls of Woodlands Academy to the steps of Widener Library, citing her single-sex education as the main reason for this easy transition.

But even with a high school emphasis on feminist confidence, it remains that single-sex schools cannot possibly superimpose their academic philosophies onto larger, coed universities. While within the confines of a small high school traditional classroom dynamics can be nullified, when such students graduate to larger institutions, this dynamic is often left behind.

Such was the case with Katherine M. Savarese ’11, a Brearley School alumna. “I was in one class where I was one of two girls,” she says, “and I did sort of notice how proponents of single-sex high schools say that boys are more confident in the classroom.”

Fleming, for her part, believes that the presence of boys will not overwhelmingly effect her lifestyle. She does note, however, that she might be more likely to back down in an argument with a boy in class because “at Winsor we are very careful not to step on each other’s toes, because girls are more sensitive.” But overall, Fleming is confident that her all-girls education will be a benefit for her, and not a source of discomfort, in the transition to the coed life.

One thing she might have a problem with, though: “I’m going to have to remember I can’t go out into the hall and yell if anyone has a tampon.”