Getting To Know: Sarah Lawrence College (NY) In Person
About two years ago I profiled Sarah Lawrence College from a virtual distance. However, an opportunity to visit Pace University in nearby Pleasantville prompted me to visit Sarah Lawrence College in person. I met up with members of the admissions team, including a brief chat with Jennifer Gayles, the college’s director of admissions, whom I interviewed virtually. I hope that you will listen now!
Sarah Lawrence College will soon celebrate its 100th anniversary.
Originally founded as a junior college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence became one of the original Seven Sisters women’s colleges along with Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Vassar and Wellesley. The college became co-ed in 1968, after declining an opportunity to merge with Princeton the year before.
Sarah Lawrence College has approximately 1,500 undergraduate students as well as more than 200 grad students. Legendary journalist Barbara Walters, award-winning actor Julianna Margulies, U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel and cinematic director J.J. Abrams are among this college’s distinguished alumni. The student center, which opened in 2019, is named for Walters, whose awards can be seen on the second floor.
The location is a plus.
Sarah Lawrence College is located in Bronxville, New York, about 40 minutes by train from The Big Apple. However, you need to walk into downtown Bronxville to make the train, which adds about 15 minutes to the trip. The college also provides a shuttle into the city that drops students off at the Metropolitan Museum of Art! Bronxville is a nice place to get a cup of coffee or a meal off campus. But it does not have the amenities that appeal to college students I have seen in a community such as Saratoga Springs, home to Skidmore College, also in New York State.
The campus is eclectic but parts of it are aging.
Older buildings on campus have a dominant architectural style, following the facade of Westlands, the main administration buildings, that you see up top. However, newer buildings were not designed to blend with the older ones. As I toured it felt like the school had tried hard to raise money and construct new buildings but lacked the funds to update the exteriors and interiors of the older ones. However, when I took virtual tours I saw rooms with picture windows, cozy living rooms and other amenities not usually seen in most college residence halls. I also saw a nice selection of upper-class living options for cooperative and apartment-style housing on my tour.
There are some interesting landmarks on campus, including the Wisteria Arch and the Ono, named for Yoko Ono, who attended Sarah Lawrence, but did not graduate. You can see these below. Graduating students will walk under the Arch on their special day. I don’t know how students use the Yoko. The college also has two unofficial mascots who make their home in the library!
The Barbara Walters Student Center is really the signature building.
Opened in 2019, it has a “cozy lived in” look that I don’t see at most schools. There’s no food court that dominates the student traffi. The coffee shop and dining hall lead into more open spaces with tables, lounge seating, and stair steps. On the day that I visited one senior was selling her clothes to raise funds to cover her graduate school expenses! I have never seen that at another school. Nor do I know if other schools would allow a student to do that in their student centers. I dropped photos of the building interior below.
Everyone earns a BA in Liberal Arts.
But each student decides how they will earn their degree. It’s possible to design a degree program that’s more like a conventional major with minors, a conservatory like approach with a mix of classes and one-to-one instruction in art, music or theatre, or a highly customized program around multiple interests.
While there are no formal majors, there are over 50 disciplines within four areas of study. Sarah Lawrence students must take at least one course in three of them: Humanities, History and the Social Sciences, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Creative and Performing Arts. However, there is a much smaller number of courses within each discipline than you would find at schools that have more traditional majors and degree requirements. Beyond this, they have total freedom to choose their classes. However, they must interview with each professor to be admitted into the classes that they want. I was told on my tour that students who could not get into a popular course the first time around can often get into the class the second time they try.
Students take three courses a term, some carry five credits over one semester, others ten credits over two.
Each class has “conference work,” which can be research papers or projects. This is much like taking two classes within one or like being in graduate school instead of an undergraduate college. Students receive written evaluations. The written evaluation is a preparation for real life where you are evaluated by an immediate superior, an independent reviewer or expressions of public opinion. But they also have a traditional transcript at the end of their four years to submit to graduate schools, employers, etc. Much of the focus when thinking about a student’s success in a course is on the written evaluation, but the grades are there as well.
With academic empowerment comes great responsibility.
It takes an intellectually mature person to understand how courses in different departments could support a career objective. I thought that was an important purpose of the Donning System, which sets the direction for academic advising, was to help. But the dons need to know their faculty colleagues well enough to be an effective advisor. It’s quite possible that every student the don advises will have their own unique interests, but the don will know some academic colleagues better than others.
There are other learning opportunities at Sarah Lawrence outside of classes.
These include:
- Independent study options for juniors and seniors
- Internships for credit combined with fieldwork
- Study abroad–including the only program offered by an American college in Cuba
- A senior thesis option that would be one-third of the senior year course load
Who fits best within Sarah Lawrence College?
From a virtual distance, and when I came in person, I felt that Sarah Lawrence attracts bright, creative individuals, who might or might not be experienced in being part of groups. Intellectual loners in high school who learn quickly that they cannot do everything alone can succeed here. Not everyone here is “artsy,” devoted to developing talents and a resume in the visual or performing arts. However, it really helps to enter Sarah Lawrence with an appreciation of the arts. The students at Sarah Lawrence are more likely to see students attend a dance performance, play or concert than a sports event on or off campus.
Sarah Lawrence College does not appear to bond around traditions.
Students appear to bond around shared struggles with the workload or similar interests outside of classes. There are NCAA D-3 athletic teams and various arts and identity groups that you will find at other schools. But no one group appears to dominate the campus culture. However, I did believe that the community has a liberal-leaning vibe.
There were several mini-ads and at least one larger one, when I was on campus encouraging students to push the college administration to divest the endowment of investments in any company that did business in and/or with the State of Israel. Interestingly, this is happening as the college community awaits the re-opening of a student-oriented center named for a Jewish alumna. The college will, in its own words, “reincarnate” the Siegel Center to be a home and meeting place for multicultural student organizations as well as a food sharing center with kosher and halal kitchens. The building was closed after the Walters Center opened five years ago. I dropped a photo of the Siegel Center below.
When I listened to YouTubes or read reviews. I heard a phrase “to Sarah Lawrence.”
I took this to mean that some try to impress others with their creativity or intellect, not caring about the opinions or feelings of others. But I did not get that impression from the students who spoke to me within and outside the admissions office. I spoke to more students at Sarah Lawrence than I have at many other schools. They were not shy about helping me to understand and find my way around this community and proud of the ways in which they were able to design their education.. I felt welcome, not lost, though I clearly looked more like a tourist parent or prospective professor than a future student. One student who was in line behind me at the Walters Center even insisted on paying for my lunch! I later heard that such generosity was a “Sarah Lawrence thing.”
But I have also noticed that freshman retention and graduation rates have slipped.
Twenty-one percent of the students Class of 2026 did not return for their sophomore year. The most recent four-year graduation rate I could find was for the Class of 2020 (64 percent). That’s not bad, but I have been to other schools that do better. I have to guess that the academics and/or the community do not work for everyone.
Sarah Lawrence is one place where I recommend two visits.
The first would be to gather initial impressions, the second to confirm or refute them after receiving an acceptance. I would also suggest speaking with alumni in your area. Sarah Lawrence has over 6,000 alumni registered in LinkedIn.com who are based in or near New York City. However, the communities in Los Angeles (1,000), San Francisco (750), Boston (650) and Washington DC (500) are large considering the small size of the college.
The Sarah Lawrence experience is quite expensive. But scholarships do help.
This year, the estimated cost of attendance is nearly $87,000. However:
- In 2021-22, the last year I could find data, the average need-based award was nearly $39,000 and the average merit-based award was $27,000.
- Need-based scholarships were awarded to 57 percent of the freshman class. These covered, on average, 65 percent of tuition and fees.
- Merit-based scholarships were awarded to 28 percent of the freshman class. These covered, on average, just over half of tuition and fees.
The awards can make Sarah Lawrence’s tuition and fees less expensive than those at many private colleges as well as non-resident tuition and fees at many public institutions. Interestingly, the average student loan debt among borrowers was less than $26,000. That’s just over $1,000 less than the maximum that a student can borrow over four years through the Federal Student Loan Program.
Conclusions
Sarah Lawrence is a great school for someone who comes to college with an idea that they would like to become a reality, even if is not tied to a major. Such ideas might be a research interest, a film or play, a manuscript, even a business plan. I also felt that a prospective student should have an interest in exploring New York City. A bright, creative student who can find their friends quickly could have a rewarding experience at Sarah Lawrence.
Report Card-Sarah Lawrence College
- Four-Year/Six-Year Graduation Rates: B/B
- Freshman Retention: C+
- Costs: B+
- Curriculum: A
- Community: B+
- Comforts: B
- Connections: A (NYC)/B (LA, SF, DC, Boston)/C (elsewhere)
Check out my conversation with Jennifer Gayles!
Buy my new book, The Good College!
Listen to my latest interview on ‘Tests and the Rest’ with Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin!
Check out my talk, What Exactly Is a Good College? hosted by test-prep experts Amy Seeley and Mike Bergin on Tests And The Rest!
Listen to my talk, College Is A Learning AND Living Community hosted by Dr. Cynthia Colon from Destination YOUniversity on Voice of America Radio!
