Sarah Lawrence College

The best thing about Sarah Lawrence is that if there is something you feel is lacking at the school you can work with the administration and your teachers to bring it to campus. If it is an area of study you can work on it through your independent conference work until there is a class that addresses it. The attention you get from teachers and the administration (with the admin you have to get off your butt and ask for it, but all that entails is just an e-mail requesting time) is incredible. I don't think there is another school where face to face time is available on such an equalizing basis. Yes teachers are teachers, but most of them are addressed by their first name (in fact I think that is the case for all of them), yes they know more than you, but you aren't expected to censor yourself for them. I also love the ability to work in multiple disciplines. So many school section off each discipline, if you are in one you are highly limited in all others. There are some limits here, but there is a lot of room to work in many fields to a higher degree then anywhere else I looked at during my college search. Linked to this is the sense that it is never too late to learn. As opposed to conservatory based performing arts programs at SLC you can join the theater, dance, music, or arts programs having never done anything in these fields and still be accepted as much as the virtuoso artists who also make up these programs. Specifically the dance program has incredible, and in some cases, well known teachers who treat all equally and emphasize healthy fun dancing and work to eliminate the stress of competition. The only thing I would change would be the endowment, the school is held back by its lack of income and this is at the base of all the problems I have encountered, a very high tuition, too few admin workers making the administration inefficient. When people hear I go to Sarah Lawrence I tend to get one of four responses; I've never heard of it, St. Lawrence? That's a wonderful school, or most often Is that a girl's school? No we are not St. Lawrence, yes we are a wonderful school if a little unconventional, no we are not a women's college, we have been co-ed since 1968 (but we do still have approximately a 30/70 male female ratio and a large homosexual community). Most of my time on campus is spent in my room or in class, or rehearsal, but I do tend to be a homebody, and I have more class time then most because I am in a performing art "third". Bronxville and Yonkers are not college towns, and while relations aren't great I would say that if anything they are indifferent as opposed to negative. There is not a ton of school pride here in that there isn't a large sense of campus wide community, which is to be expected when you have a school made up of highly independent people. Is there anything unusual about Sarah Lawrence? You might want to ask what is usual about this school. Most of our classes are small and are in a seminar format where in theory the students discuss the readings and what they are learning under the guidance of the teacher as opposed to being lectured (except for the one year long class worth of required lectures). Are physical education requirements are really quite minimal, and credit options vary from playground games, sports teams, recorded individual work outs at the gym, movement classes as part of performing arts classes, and quitting smoking through health services. Some of the most frequent complaints are the quality of food and housing, the inefficiency of the admin, the lack of party life, the class registration system which makes getting ones prefered classes a game of chance, and the price of tuition. There is no one experience here I will always remember, all of it has been memorable, all four years as a dance third, my year abroad in Paris, the performances I was a part of, Michael Moore's visit, Samantha Power's visit, the yearly flower circle in the spring, improv classes outside in the spring, the campus after a big snow, the changing leaves, hours spent in a corner of the library working, all of these will be with me for a long time.

Jessica Senior

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