Seven Sisters (colleges)

The Seven Sisters is a group of seven private liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States that were historically women's institutions of higher education. Five remain women's colleges: Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and Wellesley College. Of the other two Vassar College became coeducational in 1969, and Radcliffe College's undergraduate functions were absorbed by Harvard College when the institutions merged in 1999.

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

These colleges were created in the 19th century to provide women with a high-quality liberal arts education comparable to that offered by the historically all-male Ivy League colleges.