Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial grouping of current and former women's colleges in the northeastern United States.

Women's colleges in the United States are private single-sex U.S. institutions of higher education that only admit female students. They are often liberal arts colleges. There are approximately 26 active women's colleges in the United States in 2024, down from a peak of 281 such colleges in the 1960s.