In high school, Smith excelled in honors and AP classes and scored very high on the PSAT. Her grades and test scores gained her entrance to Mount Holyoke College in 1965, but, fatigued by racial animosity at the college, she transferred to the New School for Social Research in New York City, where she studied social sciences for a year. She returned to Mount Holyoke for her senior year and graduated in 1969.

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