Benefits of All-Girls

As a parent, one of your most crucial duties is helping your daughter prepare for the future, and education is an important tool you can employ. While your daughter’s goals may not yet be clear to her, you already know that her happiness and success begins with decisions you make today. That is why we encourage you to reinforce and support your decisions by considering sending your daughter to Marian High School. Marian’s relaxed yet highly academic learning environment, grounded in religious values, is designed to make our young women the center of learning, leadership, growth and endless opportunity.

Sponsored by the Servants of Mary, Marian High School is Nebraska’s only Class A, Catholic, AdvancED accredited college preparatory school for young women. At Marian, each young woman will have the opportunity to develop and grow spiritually, intellectually and socially.

Research cites many factors for the positive influence of single-gender schools on young women.

Academic Achievement
  • When girls become the focal point, they achieve a greater level of development than might otherwise ordinarily be the case. (Watson, C.M., Quatman, T., & Edler, E. Career Aspirations of Adolescent Girls: Effects of Achievement Level, Grade, and Single-Sex School Environment. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, May 2002.)
  • Girls who attend single-sex schools outscore their co-ed counterparts on the SAT by an average of 28-43 points.( Sax, Linda. Women Graduates of Single-Sex and Coeducational High Schools: Differences in their Characteristics and the Transition to College. 2009.)
  • More than 80% of all-girl school grads consider their academic performance highly successful. (Sax, Linda. 2009.)
  • Girls at single-sex schools surpass their co-ed peers in reading, writing and science. They also demonstrate higher educational aspirations, spend more time on homework and are more likely to aspire to careers in engineering and science. (Sax, Linda. 2009.)
  • A study completed in the UK followed families that had the opportunity to send their children to single-sex public schools in the same neighborhood as the coeducational school. The results were staggering, in that the girls at the all-female public school “achieved gains about six times greater than girls of the same academic ability who attended a comparable coed public school.” The single-sex educational setting had a strong correlation with high academic achievement by girls. (Sax, Linda. Girls on the edge: The four factors driving the new crisis for girls: Sexual identity, the cyberbubble, obsessions, environmental toxins. New York: Basic Books, 2010.)
Math and Science
  • 48% of girls’ school alumnae rate themselves great at math versus 37% for girls in co-ed schools. (National Coalition for Girls’ Schools.The Case for Girls. 2014.)
  • Girls’ school grads are six times more likely to consider majoring in math, science, and technology compared to girls who attend coed schools. (Goodman Research Group: The Girls’ School Experience: A Survey of Young Alumnae of Single-Sex Schools)
  • Three times as many alumnae of single-sex schools plan to become engineers. (Sax, Linda. 2009.)
  • Research shows that young women in all-girl schools have higher self-esteem, are more interested in non-traditional subjects such as science and math and are less likely to stereotype jobs and careers. They are generally intellectually curious, serious about their studies and overall achieve more. (Sadker, Myra and David.  Failing at Fairness: How America’s Schools Cheat Girls. Scribners, 1994.)
  • During the middle school years, girls show a decline in both their performance in math and their attitudes towards math. New research suggests that girls’ schools may mitigate the decline when compared with coed schools. (Cerruti, Carlo Ph.d. Exploring Girls’ Attitudes about Math. Harvard University, 2012.)
Leadership
  • Graduates of girls’ schools and/or women’s colleges account for a third of female board members of Fortune 500 companies and 25% of female members of Congress. (Sax, Linda. 2009.)
  • A girl’s environment plays an important role in explaining why she chooses not to compete. Girls from single-sex schools behave more competitively than do coed girls. (Booth, Alison. Australian National University.)
  • 93% of girls’ school grads say they were offered greater leadership opportunities than peers at coed schools and 80% have held leadership positions since graduating from high school. (Goodman Research Group: The Girls’ School Experience: A Survey of Young Alumnae of Single-Sex Schools.)
  • Opportunities for girls to learn leadership skills are more plentiful at all-girl schools. All leadership roles at all-girl schools are taken by girls. When girls go to single-sex schools, they stop being the audience and become the players. (Sax, Linda. 2009.)
Self-Confidence
  • The majority of girls’ school grads report higher self-confidence over their coed peers. (Sax, Linda. 2009.)
  • All-girls settings seem to provide girls a certain comfort level that helps them develop greater self-confidence and broader interests, especially as they approach adolescence. (Salomone, Rosemary, Ph.D. Same, Difference, Equal Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling.)
Social Development
  • Single-gender activities many times serve to “inoculate” girls against some of the societal ailments that now threaten children and teenagers. (Sax, Leonard M.D., Ph.D. Why Gender Matters:  What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science and Sex Differences. Doubleday, 2005.)
  • Students in single-gender schools have fewer disciplinary problems and fewer unexcused absences. Students did just over an hour more homework per week and watched less television per weekday. (Lee, Valerie E. and Anthony S. Bryk. “Effects of Single-Sex Secondary Schools on Student Achievement and Attitudes.” The Journal of Educational Psychology, 1986.)
  • According to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education (2012), single-sex schools broke down gender stereotypes, because “Girls become more competitive and boys become more collaborative.”
The “Girl in the Bubble” Myth

Some parents — and educators — think that all-girls’ schools create a falsely safe space, removing a girl from the influences of the opposite sex. This unrealistic environment, they contend, may render her ill-prepared for co-ed life.

We disagree. Her world will continue to include boys and men — in extra-curricular activities, at home, on weekends and holidays. And, finding her voice, collaborating on projects and excelling in academics will prepare her for a purposeful life.