The Seven Sisters is the name which was given in 1927 to seven liberal arts women's colleges in the United States (the colleges, themselves, were all founded between 1837-1889). The colleges included Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar and Wellesley.
Five of the seven remain women's colleges
today and only one (Radcliffe, which merged into
Harvard) no longer exists.
Mount Holyoke, Smith College, Bryn Mawr College, and Wellesley College are still women's colleges. Barnard College is still affiliated with Columbia University but remains an independent women's college.
Irene Harwarth, Mindi Maline, and
Elizabeth DeBra also state that "the 'Seven Sisters' was the name given to Barnard, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, and Radcliffe, because of their parallel to the Ivy League men’s colleges.