Mills College

Mills College is an independent liberal arts and sciences college in the San Francisco Bay Area. Originally founded in 1852 as a young ladies' seminary in Benicia, California, Mills became the first women's college west of the Rockies. Currently, Mills is an undergraduate women's college in Oakland, California, with graduate programs for women and men. The college offers more than 40 undergraduate majors and 23 graduate degrees and certificates.

Located in Oakland, California, in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area, Mills College is an undergraduate college for women with graduate programs for women and men. With a total student body of more than 1,500, the Mills campus provides an intimate environment dedicated to intellectual discovery.

Rankings

In 2011, U.S. News & World Report ranked Mills fifth overall among colleges and universities in the West and seventh in the West in "Great Schools, Great Prices," which evaluated the quality of institutions' academics against the cost of attendance.The Princeton Review ranked Mills as one of the Best 376 Colleges in the nation in 2011. Washington Monthly named Mills 27 among the top master's universities in the country based on research, service, and social mobility. In 2009, Forbes magazine ranked Mills College among the Top Ten: Best of the All-Women's Colleges alongside Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, and Wellesley.

Programs

Mills offers more than 40 undergraduate courses of study in the arts and sciences. Students also have the option to create their own college major. Mills also provides the first two years of courses leading to a bachelor of science in nursing degree from Samuel Merritt University.

Undergraduate students can participate in one of six bachelor's to master's degree programs, which allow students to earn an undergraduate and a graduate degree in five years instead of six. The five-year programs include BA/MBA, BA/MA Interdisciplinary Computer Science, BA/MA/Teaching Credential Education, BA/MA Infant Mental Health, BA/MA Mathematics, and BA/MPP.

Campus

The 135-acre (0.55 km²) campus is located in the foothills of Oakland on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay.

The campus is described in alumna Jade Snow Wong's book Fifth Chinese Daughter, first published in 1945.

Alex, Undergraduate

Although I wasn’t specifically looking for a women’s college, I found that attending Mills has allowed me to focus on my academics and form strong friendships with my fellow students. I really wanted the small community and teacher relationships that have helped me during my academic career. I feel less pressure in classes at Mills because my classmates are all women, and I am able to better engage with my studies. We’re working hard because we love what we’re studying and the goals we’re working toward.“I’m living the dream!”

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