Sarah Lawrence College | Student Reviews | Best College

Student Profile

Andrew

Class: Freshman
Major: Art/Art History
Gender: M

High School: Roosevelt HS, Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences
Transfer Student: N

Big Picture

SLC has nearly no ties between its neighboring town, Bronxville, or nearby Concordia or Iona Colleges. SLC is so much in its own little bubble that in fact, it is known that some people driving along Kimball Ave (the main road running through campus between Bronxville and Yonkers) will roll down their windows and throw stuff at Sarah Lawrence students walking next to the road. The school now makes sure this kind of stuff doesn't happen. They do this because they think we're "different". This hasn't happened to me, but it has to some of my friends. They just don't understand us. Not! They're actually just ***s. SLC is in the perfect location. Nearby is all the amenities one would need, like movie theaters, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. but you still have your own peaceful, secluded community. The best part about this is you're a short train ride away from Grand Central Station, so it is still convenient to get into NYC. You get the best of both worlds.

Academic Life

The academics are amazing. The atmosphere is highly personal because of the very low 6:1 student-to-professor ratio. The professors are always around and usually respond to you quickly. In fact, students are REQUIRED to meet with each of their professors every week or two weeks to discuss work and conference projects. How many others schools will do that. Conference projects are usually large papers that are due at the end of each semester for each class. Often these papers are a hassle. They're very stressful to complete and many students save writing it until the last two weeks of the semester, which is when campus turns into a madhouse of angry and disgruntled students scrambling to finish their papers. In a perfect situation, this is not supposed to happen. A student is supposed to choose a topic for research that throughly interests and that they're excited to research throughout the semester. Ideally, it is supposed to tie in with something learned in class, but it can really be about anything the student wants. A lot of students get caught up in the desire to write lofty and complex papers about a topic they are not completely interested in but that make the student seem academically impressive. The key is to pick a topic that throughly interests you, no matter how ridiculous it may sound. However, whatever you do will need to be approved by your professor, so not too ridiculous hopefully. When you graduate SLC, your degree won't seem as impressive as if it were an ivy-league degree from Harvard or Yale, but in the business world, people know of Sarah Lawrence students as being self-motivated and thinkers outside the box, which is what some jobs go for. But if you're in the theatre at SLC, chances are that you'll either be homeless, jobless, or struggling.

Student Body

Diverse for the most part, even though many colleges assume Sarah Lawrence is full of lesbian neo-feminists or hipsters. That is only true to a degree. The school tries to find as much diversity as possible, but given the tuition fees, this can be very hard sometimes. But considering that, I think the school does a pretty good job of that. About the money thing, it's a sad reality here but it's true. Many students are able to go here because they have the money to. That means that some spoiled kids who go here don't value their education and also think that it is an easy ride to a degree because the school doesn't require tests. It's expensive because the school has almost no endowment: The school's relatively new and hasn't built a strong alumni support system yet. Therefore the largest portion of funds come straight from tuition fees. Also, it is very expensive to maintain the highly personal ratio of student-to-teacher seminar system. However, the administration is working very hard to build a larger endowment so that more students who deserve it can be given the chance of getting such an amazing education.