Sarah Lawrence College Top Questions

Children of... Master mentors. Militant non-conformity. Intolerance of intolerance. Identity smashing. Fluid realism. Perpetual revolving. Fruit mixing. Devil advocating. Sheltered coddling. Such vast gayness that you are gay even if you really, really aren't. Unlimited creation. Tribal individualism. Superlative seeking. "I am unique" chanting. Discipline bending. Freaking. Stranging out. Wave-riding along "life is just one long glorious nervous breakdown." Cohesive division. Magical deliciousness. February hating. Paranoia. Thought racing. Medication popping. Over-thinking to such a fault that new, tiny, philosophical break-throughs are just daily life, and sometimes they are actually real and important to our internal harmony. Glorious mentoring. Constant rewriting. Peer assisting. Deep beauty. Frequent hermitting. Lawn reading. Reading. Reading. Reading. Debating. Debating. Reading. Writing. Writing. Writing. Defending. Rewriting. Rewriting, etc. Over-reacting. Frantic confusion. Wild, anxious, insecurity. Recently smiling. Isolation. And sometimes hysterical crying.

All of the men are either gay or taken. Women rule the campus. It's not a "real" school because there aren't any majors or exams. The school is filled with hippies.

I’m finding that people who have a preexisting familiarity with Sarah Lawrence have a powerful confidence in its academic reputation and its ability to prepare students for life as vigorous, independent contributors to society. I have definitely gotten at least one job (and a good one, at that) strictly because I’m an SLC graduate. Those people who do not know SLC will generally develop a positive understanding of it very quickly, as most Sadie Lou grads are clever, motivated, extremely capable people. The school’s lefty bent definitely echoes far and wide, and a Sarah Lawrence diploma is a surefire way to find a cozy spot on the Terror Watch-list, but screw those people, we have novels to write. As I recall, about half the campus was arrested during the ‘04 Republican National Convention, and there’s no shortage of political activity on campus. At the end of the day, SLC's expansive list of successful alumni speaks loudly of its ability to penetrate certain industries (the creative and performing arts in particular), and graduates will find that this reputation will prove useful after graduation. On the downside, you'll have to develop a ten-minute microlecture on how Sarah Lawrence is not, in fact, a girl's school, and that no, you are not necessarily a homosexual, although if it's a problem if you are, we can do this thing right here, right now, so put ’em up.

Tom talks about SLC stereotypes.

Mike talks about some SLC stereotypes.

Max talks about stereotypes at SLC.

The school is full of: Gays, artsy-fartsies, liberals, intellectuals, thinkers, creaters, and most of all, WRITERS!

Senior citizens tend to presume the school is still filled with pearl-wearing girls attending an intellectual finishing school. The assumption commonly made by students today is that Sarah Lawrence is made up of only queers, dykes, etc. Neither is true.

The stereotypes that I heard before arriving at SLC were, "weird kids," "tree-huggers," "clove and pot smokers," very smart, very inquisitive, very rich.

Stereotypes about Sarah Lawrence students: rich, irresponsible, spaced-out and drugged up. SLC students are pretty out of touch with the world outside of their campus and live in a self-important insulating environment in which they are too cool.

All Sarah Lawrence students are considered to be drug-addled, vegan, liberal, unwashed lesbian girls from wealthy families until proven otherwise.

The Sarah Lawrence stereotype essentially features the "hipster" stereotype, as well as can be one/all/none of the following: socially awkward, very smart, writers, artistic (ranging from pretentious to legitimate), very liberal, independent. To describe the "hipster": one who is very concerned with the appearance/impression of cool, ironic, indie or underground, vintage, authentic, 'different' (although all subscribing to the hipster code eventually all look the same as each other). The hipster is either very conscious of being so, or may be ironic about being a hipster, or else tragically unaware that the "hipster" doesn't really exist.

Sarah Lawrence students are often stereotyped as wealthy, pretentious, insular, and leaning toward the wild side. People who know about the Sarah Lawrence curriculum identify students as "not really going to college" kids, young wild people who spend the most money in the country on a non-education. Queer in a year or your money back. Big time.

Stereotypes are that a lot of SLC students are gay or lesbian, that everyone at the school is super weird, that they are hipsters, and that people go there just so that they can avoid doing math and taking tests. A lot of people also wrongly think that it is still an all girls school, which I think is because it has a woman's name.

they are all gay, pretentious and hypocritical assholes

That Sarah Lawrence students are all the kids from highschool who didn't fit in. They are independent, passionate, creative, and weird. They are majority INFPs by the Meyers-Briggs type indicator.

Rich, white, intelligent, self-absorbed, nonconformist, iconoclastic, artsy, hippies

We're all artsy pot-smoking hippies. Oh, and it's a girl's school.

Sarah Lawrence used to be THE heroin school, but that has completely changed. The modern stereotype of an SLC student would be the American Apparel wearing hipster who has an opinion about everything.

The stereotype for a sarah lawrence student is the artsy-anti social emo hipster kid at your high school who plays strummed acoustic guitar (in the dark).

We are all vegetarian, hippie lesbians who hate men.

That we're weird. For a while, we had a problem with people from the local towns, Bronxville and Yonkers, throwing beer bottles at us and yelling things like "faggot!" It's a very conservative town, and we're a very liberal, out-there school. People who go to SLC also tend to complain that there's no party scene, and that everyone is cold and aloof and keeps to themselves--because we're a campus of "individuals," we don't mingle as much as other campuses.

Well, it's pretty frequently assumed that SLC is still an all women's college when it hasn't been for decades, and that if you go there, you're gay.

Pot smoking, vintage clothes wearing, crunchy granola eating lesbians. And big gay guys with pink hair

A popular T-shirt logo is, "Even the squirrels wear black." My roommate last year transferred in from Wellesley, and she complained endlessly about how standoffish and reserved the students here are compared to the cozy "old girls" atmosphere of her previous school.

Sarah Lawrence students are lazy, hedonistic, self-centered, have fragile self-esteem, drink and smoke (various substances) in excess.

Sarah Lawrence students are artsy and oftentimes full of themselves. They are known for outspoken political beliefs, ridiculous fashion, and empty statements, and can be classified as hipsters, hippies, treehuggers, and annoying hyper-liberal misanthropic misfits.

that they all wear black and are weird

1) That everyone is gay 2) That everyone is pretentious and weird

hippies, don't shower, lesbian, rich snoody east coasters, coke-heads, hipsters, introverts

Vegan girls and gay boys and drugs

That they are snooty, occasionally fashionable, sustainablity-loving, too-smart-for-their-own-good hippies who can't seem to follow their own rules of P.C. conversation. Are both wildly liberal and open to new things, but feel threatened when their liberal tradition is violated by unacceptable liberalness (or god forbid, sensibility).

Some think that we're a bunch of liberal artsy kids, others think we're stuck up prep school kids.

aggressive lesbians, far left politics, displaced rowdy boys, limited dating, pseudo intellectuals who take themselves too seriously, pierced and tattooed.

Liberal, artsy, gay, middle class.

Everyone is self-obsessed. Everyone is gay. Everyone is a hipster or a hippie.

-lesbians -everyone's not nice -permiscuous -girls are really desperate

People seem to believe that we are all arogent, pretensious hipsters with sticks up our butts. or we're all gay. or rich. or mean.

That we are all rich and do a lot of drugs.

All the students are individuals and often selfish-minded. This is not something I understand as I get to know others, even at a simple level.

Sarah Lawrence College students are brooding hipsters with a lot of money who do lots of coke and smoke lots of weed.

Rich, white, overly concerned about not looking concerned with their external image, overly accessorized and medicated. Lots of excess.

Too many to name here. My favorites are that they're all shamelessly self-involved and that they don't like it here.

Smart, eccentric, and artsy.

Weird hipsters who use a lot of drugs and although they may have their own cause are generally apathetic towards other causes.

We wear black and are anti social....

To begin with, everyone thinks that Sarah Lawrence is an all girls school. If the don't think that, they are aware of the 7:3 girl to boy ratio, and assumes that at least half of those are gay. People also say everyone dresses really weird, and were the losers that didn't fit in in high school. Apparently, there's supposed to be a big drug problem on campus, as well. People also thing SLC students are total leftists who protest everything.

they are all girlz.

The stereotypes about SLC are that there's no structure, the teachers let their students do whatever they want and the students can get away with not doing work. Another one is that there is no social life, no men on campus, and that it is isolated from New York City, and even Bronxville (the college's town). The students are stereotyped as being freaks that smoke pot all day and are all gay (whether boys or girls). Another one about the students is that they're haughty and judgmental.

The student body at Sarah Lawrence is rumored to be sort of pretentious and self-involved or self-important, and that it is comprised mostly of hipsters. It is also stereotyped as a school with a large homosexual population and overwhelmingly leftist political views. The students are known for being very intellectually talented and motivated, well-read, well-informed, and cultured. Many of them are well-traveled as well. It is the only school with a study abroad program in Cuba, and many of the faculty members have very impressive credentials. I can speak for the writing program, which is amazing. There are tons of visiting writers and lecturers, and the writing faculty includes some very famous writers, like Amy Hempel.