Radcliffe College was a
women's liberal arts college in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as a female coordinate institution for the all-male
Harvard College. It was also one of the
Seven Sisters colleges, among which it shared with
Bryn Mawr College the popular reputation of having a particularly intellectual and independent-minded student body. Radcliffe conferred Radcliffe College diplomas to undergraduates and graduate students for the first 70 or so years of its history and then joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas to undergraduates beginning in 1963. A formal "non-merger merger" agreement with Harvard was signed in 1977, with full integration with Harvard completed in 1999. Today, within
Harvard University, Radcliffe's former administrative campus (Radcliffe Yard) is home to the
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and former Radcliffe housing at the
Radcliffe Quadrangle (
Pforzheimer House,
Cabot House, and
Currier House) has been incorporated into the Harvard College house system. Under the terms of the 1999 consolidation, the Radcliffe Yard and the Radcliffe Quadrangle retain the "Radcliffe" designation in perpetuity.