Summary.Scores on the ‘evaluation,’ ‘potency’ and ‘activity’ of four concepts concerning school and four about the university were obtained from a Semantic Differential test completed by 274 first‐year university students. The women from girls’ schools tended to evaluate ‘my school’ and ‘school teacher’ lower than did the co‐educated women (P<<0–1 and 0–2, respectively). On the Pleasant/Unpleasant scale within the evaluation of ‘my school’ both co‐educated men and women rated their schools as more pleasant than did men and women from single‐sex schools (P<0–05).Co‐educated students rated ‘school,’ ‘teacher,’ and ‘classroom’ as significantly less potent than did those from single‐sex schools. The latter saw ‘university’ as less potent than ‘my school’ (P<0–01), ‘lecture‐t