Sarah Lawrence College: A Pioneering Liberal Arts Education

Sarah Lawrence College, founded in 1926, is a prestigious, residential, coeducational liberal arts college known for its pioneering approach to education. Consistently ranked among the leading liberal arts colleges in the country, it boasts a rich history of impassioned intellectual and civic engagement, and vibrant, successful alumni.

Overview

Located in a suburban setting in Yonkers, NY, just north of New York City, Sarah Lawrence College offers bachelor's, master's, and certificate degrees. The college's campus occupies 42 wooded acres, providing a beautiful and intimate setting for its diverse community of students and faculty. The college is easily accessible, as a 30-minute train ride from the Bronxville station takes students into Midtown Manhattan, providing access to unparalleled offerings of New York City.

Key Facts

Location: Suburban, Yonkers, NY (near New York City)
Type: Private, 4-year liberal arts college
Campus Setting: Primarily residential
Size: Small
Student-Faculty Ratio: 10:1
Acceptance Rate: 61.72%
Graduation Rate: 76%
Undergraduate Enrollment (Fall 2023): 1,521
Campus Size: 42 acres
Test-Optional Admissions: Yes
Tuition and Fees: \$66,862
Average Per Year After Aid: \$44,000
Average Net Price for Federal Loan Recipients: \$33,701
Four-Year Graduation Rate: 59%
Median Salary Six Years After Graduation: \$34,251

A Personalized and Rigorous Education

Talented, creative students choose Sarah Lawrence for the opportunity to take charge of their education. The academic structure combines small seminar classes with individual, biweekly student-faculty conferences. Students choose from a wide variety of disciplines and subjects with the guidance of their faculty advisor (or "don").

At Sarah Lawrence, students spend more time one-on-one with award-winning faculty than do students at any other college in the country. In close collaboration with dedicated, distinguished faculty, students create a rigorous, personalized course of study, conduct independent research, and connect a wide array of disciplines. They graduate knowing how to apply the knowledge, skills, and critical thinking necessary for life after college.

Admissions

Sarah Lawrence College is committed to enrolling students from all backgrounds and perspectives. The College considers many factors in evaluating applicants, including intellectual promise, motivation, and creativity, in addition to the quality of each student’s secondary school program and writing skills. Teacher recommendations and extracurricular activities also play a role in admission decisions. A personal interview is recommended.

The college does not require submission of standardized test scores, Sarah Lawrence being a test optional school.

Financial Aid

Through a combination of grants (that do not need to be repaid), student employment, and student loans, the Office of Financial Aid works with information you provide to us to create an aid package that makes a Sarah Lawrence education possible for admitted students. More than 70 percent of the student body receives financial assistance.

History

Sarah Lawrence College was established in 1926 by the real-estate mogul William Van Duzer Lawrence on the grounds of his estate in Westchester County and was named in honor of his wife, Sarah Bates Lawrence. The college was originally intended to provide instruction in the arts and humanities for women. A major component of the college's early curriculum was "productive leisure", wherein students were required to work for eight hours weekly in such fields as modeling, shorthand, typewriting, applying makeup, and gardening.

Its pedagogy combined independent research projects which were individually supervised by the teaching faculty, and seminars with low student-to-faculty ratio, a pattern that it retains to the present. Harold Taylor, President of Sarah Lawrence College from 1945 to 1959, influenced the college. Taylor was elected president at age 30, maintained a friendship with the educational philosopher John Dewey, and worked to employ the Dewey method at Sarah Lawrence. Sarah Lawrence became a coeducational institution in 1968. The first president of the college was Marion Coats from 1924 to 1929. She was a friend of Vassar College president Henry MacCracken and William Van Duzer Lawrence. Coats had traditional views of women's role in society that were at odds with her progressive approach to women's education.

Rankings and Recognition

In the most recent edition of Best Colleges, Sarah Lawrence College is ranked among the top National Liberal Arts Colleges. It's also ranked highly in Best Undergraduate Teaching.

Read also: Applying to Sarah Lawrence College

It is important to note that colleges and universities, particularly their perceived impact on the college admissions process, gained national prominence due in part to the article "The Cost of Bucking College Rankings" by Michele Tolela Myers, a former president of Sarah Lawrence College.

Campus and Facilities

Much of the 42-acre (17 ha) Sarah Lawrence campus was originally a part of the estate of the college's founder, William Van Duzer Lawrence, though the college has more than doubled its size since Lawrence bequeathed his estate to the college in 1926. The terrain is characterized by outcroppings of exposed bedrock shaded by large oak and elm trees. Many of the older buildings are in the Tudor Revival architecture style that was popular in the area during the early 20th century, and many of the college's newer buildings attempt an updated interpretation of the same style. The area outside the original Lawrence estate holds the college's newer facilities.

Key Buildings and Features

Barbara Walters Campus Center: The newest building on campus, finished in the fall of 2019. The building is a multipurpose space which is used for dances, speeches, class gatherings, etc. On the second floor is the Barbara Walters Reading Room.
Bates Center for Student Life: One of the original campus buildings, designed in the English Tudor style.
Alice Stone Ilchman Science and Mathematics Center: Completed in 1994, it houses science laboratories in addition to classrooms and faculty offices.
Marshall Field Music Building: Originally created as part of William Lawrence's residential neighborhood, Lawrence Park West.
Monica A. and Charles A. Heimbold Visual Arts Center: Completed in 2004, the building uses the landscape and existing campus circulation patterns.
Charles DeCarlo Performing Arts Center: Remodeled and expanded, the complex comprises the Bessie Schönberg Dance Theatre, the Suzanne Werner Wright Theatre, the Reisinger Auditorium, the Cannon Workshop Theatre, and rehearsal spaces and work areas.
Ruth Leff Siegel Center ("The Pub"): Originally constructed as a gardener's cottage on the Lawrence estate.
The Tea House ("Tea Haus"): Originally a gazebo built by the Lawrence family.
President's House: Built in 1921 and designed by architect Lewis Bowman.
Robinson House: Home to the college's communications department.
Westlands: Primarily an administrative building, but its top floor houses a number of student living spaces.
The Wrexham Road Property: A large manor house that once belonged to the government of Rwanda.
Andrews House: A former manor house known for its high ceilings, fireplaces, and its spiraling main staircase.
Lynd House: Another former mansion, home to mostly living spaces.
Hill House: A seven-story apartment building on the extreme southern end of the campus.
Kober: Home to dorm rooms, but is also a part of the Early Childhood Education complex.
Slonim Woods: The group of purpose-built living facilities constructed.
The "Old dorms": Four original purpose-built student housing structures to the immediate north of Westlands.
MacCracken: Has, at various times, housed the college library, the bookstore, and a number of other facilities in addition to living spaces.
Titsworth: An all-girls dorm and was also named for one of the college's founding trustees.
The "New Dorms": Combining the lighter brick of Westlands with concrete slender "post modern" arches and modernist glass atria.
Rothschild: Comprises apartment style, air-conditioned dorm spaces with kitchens, living rooms, and an elevator.
The Mead Way Houses: The eight former private homes that stand along the steep hill of Mead Way on the college's eastern end.

Political Activism

Political activism has played a role in forming the Sarah Lawrence community since the early years of the college. As early as 1938, students were volunteering in working-class sections of Yonkers, New York to help bring equality and educational opportunities to poor and minority citizens, and the Sarah Lawrence College War Board, organized by students in the fall of 1942, sought to aid troops fighting in World War II.

During the so-called McCarthy Years, a number of Sarah Lawrence's faculty members were accused by the American Legion of being sympathetic to the Communist Party, and were called before the Jenner Committee. Since that time, activism has played a central role in student life, with movements for civil rights and against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and for student and faculty diversity in the 1980s. Also in the 1960s, students established an Upward Bound program for students from lower-income and poverty areas to prepare for college.

Theatre Outreach, the Child Development Institute, the Empowering Teachers Program, the Community Writers program, the Office of Community Partnership, and the Fulbright High School Writers Program are among the many programs founded since the 1970s to provide services to the larger community. In the late 1980s, students occupied Westlands, the main administrative building for the campus, in a sit-in for wider diversity. Students occupied Westlands again in 2016, in a sit-in supporting improved wages and safer working conditions for the college's recently unionized facilities workers.

Read also: Discover Sarah Rafferty's roles

Athletics

Sarah Lawrence College is a member of the Skyline Conference of NCAA Division III. The college sponsors intercollegiate teams in crew (rowing), men's and women's cross country, equestrian, men's basketball, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's volleyball, men's and women's soccer, women's softball, and men's and women's swimming. The college's official mascot is a Gryphon by the name of Godric. It was chosen in the 1990s to represent the college's athletic teams after a long period of fielding sports teams without one. Unofficially, the student body had long adopted the large resident population of 'Black Squirrels' as a de facto mascot to the college.

Notable Faculty

Among the prominent current or recent faculty of the college are fine art photographer Joel Sternfeld, poet Suzanne Gardinier, novelist Melvin Jules Bukiet, novelist William Melvin Kelley, novelist Tao Lin, poet Marie Howe, film historians Gilberto Perez and Malcolm Turvey.

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