Spelman College is a four-year liberal arts

Liberal arts colleges in the United States

Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...

 women's college

Women's colleges in the United States

Women's colleges in the United States are single-sex U.S. institutions of higher education that exclude or limit males from admission. They are often liberal arts colleges...

 located in Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

, United States. The college is part of the Atlanta University Center

Atlanta University Center

The Atlanta University Center Consortium is the largest contiguous consortium of African Americans in higher education in the United States. The center consists of four historically black colleges and universities in southwest Atlanta, Georgia...

 academic consortium in Atlanta. Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman was the first historically black female institution of higher education to receive its collegiate charter in 1924. It thus holds the distinction of being America's oldest historically black college

Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Historically black colleges and universities are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community....

 for women.

Spelman is ranked among the nation's top liberal arts colleges by the U.S.