For the past couple of weeks I've focused on great public universities in the south. Today I'm heading back north to look at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. Sarah Lawrence is a private college with a price tag to match its Westchester address (tuition alone was $38,090 this past year), but they do pretty well with financial aid for students who demonstrate need. The average aid package was $28,720, and the majority of that was institutional grant money.
Money aside, Sarah Lawrence College is worth a look for a few reasons. The campus is charming -- its brick and stone architecture has the feel of a European village. But more important, the attention students receive is outstanding. The college has a 6 to 1 student / faculty ratio, and unlike the few elite schools with a similar ratio, teaching gets priority over research for Sarah Lawrence faculty members. Read the Sarah Lawrence mission and philosophy and you'll get the idea. Finally, I have to admire Sarah Lawrence College for saying "no" to the whole College Board and U.S. News and World Report rankings game. The college does not consider standardized test scores for admissions and refuses to submit the type of data that would allow the college to be ranked. For some strange reason, they want to treat their students like people, not numbers.
Danilo (our About.com Guide to Culinary Arts) drew attention to Sarah Lawrence in the College Admission Forum. I invite you to visit the forum to recommend a future college spotlight or to share your thoughts about Sarah Lawrence College.
photo by Mr.Scholastic / Flickr
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