Aurora, NY: Wells College is a small, women's college in upstate New York. Situated beside Lake Cayuga, one of the Finger Lakes, the campus is very scenic and peaceful. Aurora is a town of about five hundred people, which, believe it or not, is about fifty more people than attend the college. The town is quaint, the campus is beautiful - what more could anyone want?

Well, one problem is the isolation. Even though Wells is a twenty-minute drive from Ithaca, a busy college town, and even though a van goes there every hour, one can feel a sense of being in the middle of nowhere.

However, the academics and extracurricular activities make up for this distance. There are thirty student run organizations ranging from a model United Nations to a Science Fiction and Fantasy Club. All classes are small, and the largest introductory courses have only twenty students. One of the benefits of this small size is easy access to the faculty. When I visited, I was given the addresses of several professors and told that I could drop by on them later that day. Ninety-six percent of the faculty have the highest possible degrees in their field, and they are all committed to women's education.

If a student is looking for a small, nurturing college community devoted to educating women, she doesn't need to look any further than Wells. Everyone I met was friendly and open to answering my questions, and the student body is diverse for its size. The atmosphere is relaxed and comfortable, and very academically intense. Wells definitely deserves consideration. f




Reviewed in 1997