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The College

Deeply committed to the education of women since its founding in 1901, Sweet Briar College is consistently ranked as one of the top national liberal arts and sciences colleges in the country. Its excellent academic reputation, beautiful campus, and attention to the individual attract ambitious, intellectually self-confident women who want to excel. Students can expect their Sweet Briar experience to allow them to fulfill their promise as scholars and leaders, while enjoying the close-knit friendships and camaraderie that come with a personal, residential community.

A Sweet Briar education sets in motion the conviction that any goal is achievable. Small classes (averaging 12 students per class) and a student-faculty ratio of 9:1 ensure personal attention and academic interaction. Students work one-on-one with faculty members who are committed to each students academic success. The College has a wide geographic, ethnic, and socioeconomic representation. About 675 women from more than forty states and nineteen countries are enrolled at Sweet Briars Virginia campus; another 130 students are enrolled in Sweet Briars coed Junior Year in France and Junior Year in Spain programs. Any student may have a car.

Students who derive the most from the Sweet Briar experience are those who participate in and contribute to community life, striking a good balance between academic work and the rest of life. They recognize that one of the advantages of the College is the unlimited opportunities for women to participate and assume leadership roles in many types of organizations and activities. More than fifty campus organizations are available, including honor societies, a literary journal, community service groups, a multicultural club, political groups, a student newspaper, drama and dance clubs, a radio station, and singing groups. Students plan and participate in an extensive array of concerts, films, and dance and theater productions as well as workshops and master classes by visiting scholars and performers. Recent speakers on campus include the author Salman Rushdie, environmental attorney RobertF. Kennedy Jr., Olympic swimmer Maddy Crippen, USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan, and civil rights pioneer Elaine Jones.

Twenty-one campus buildings, the work of renowned American architect Ralph Adams Cram, are on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2006, Sweet Briar opened a beautiful new studio arts facility. Sweet Briar is the only college in the United States with a residential artists colony on its campus. Known as the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the colony is a working retreat for international writers, visual artists, and composers. The on-campus equestrian center, one of the largest and best college facilities in the country, attracts both competitive and recreational riders. Sweet Briars equestrian program, both competitive and instructional, has consistently garnered national recognition. The 100-acre Rogers Riding Center has a 120-foot by 300-foot indoor arena with Perma-Flex footing, well-appointed stables for approximately ninety horses, several outdoor rings, numerous paddocks, and miles of hacking trailsall within walking distance of the main campus.

A fiber-optic backbone allows high-speed Ethernet communication among all academic and administrative buildings as well as in residence hall rooms, with more than 1,000 terminal and network connections campuswide. Many of the academic buildings and student common spaces are equipped for wireless connection to the campus network.

In 2004, Sweet Briar launched two graduate degree programs: the Master of Arts in Teaching and the Master of Education. These programs are rooted in the teaching philosophy of differentiated curriculum and instruction. Sweet Briar also established a new degree program in engineering, only the second such undergraduate program at a womens college.

Varsity athletes compete in NCAA Division III field hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, and volleyball. Club sports include cross-country, fencing, and riding.

Location

Sweet Briars 3,250-acre campus in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains includes hiking, biking, and riding trails and two lakes that provide spectacular venues for outdoor recreational activities. The College is centrally located on the outskirts of Lynchburg, Virginia, southwest of Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville. Students also enjoy activities in nearby Roanoke and Richmond.

Majors and Degrees

Sweet Briar awards the Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees. The College offers thirty-seven majors: anthropology, archaeology, art history, biochemistry and molecular biology, biology, business management, chemistry, classics, computer science, dance, economics, education, engineering and management, engineering science, English, English and creative writing, environmental science, environmental studies, French, German, German studies, government, history, international affairs, Italian studies, mathematics, mathematics-physics, modern languages and literatures, music, philosophy, physics, psychology, religion, sociology, Spanish, studio art, and theater.

Additional area studies, minors, and certificate programs include arts management, equine studies, engineering (3-2 dual degree), film studies, Italian, Latin American studies, law and society, musical theater, prelaw, premed, preveterinary science, and women and gender studies. Students may design an interdisciplinary major focused on a topic of special interest or may construct personalized majors.

Academic Programs

Sweet Briars mission is to prepare women to be active, responsible members of a world community. Underscoring every one of the thirty-seven major fields of study is the idea that the best way to learn about the world is to experience it. The curriculum emphasizes hands-on learning, comprehensive understanding, analysis, reflection, creativity, and communication across disciplines. The academic programs are nationally celebrated. To add to this, the College recently launched the Sweet Briar Promise, a distinctive program that provides six guarantees to ensure every student has the opportunity for an academic experience that prepares her for a lifetime of success. Every qualified student is guaranteed an internship, study-abroad experience, and leadership and research opportunities. The Sweet Briar Promise also allows students who have an interest in an area not covered by one of the thirty-seven majors or who would like to focus on more than one area the opportunity to create, with the help of a faculty mentor, a personalized program of study. The final component of the Sweet Briar Promise goes a step further than most and makes a team of advisers, including alumnae, staff members, and professors, available to assist every student with academic and career planning.

The general education program has four componentsEnglish104, skills requirements, experiences requirements, and knowledge areas requirementsthat work together to ensure the development of strong communication and quantitative reasoning skills. Independent studies and seminars are included in most majors, with a culminating senior course or exercise required in most majors. Sweet Briar has a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and was the first womens college to establish a chapter of the prelaw honorary society Phi Alpha Delta. It also has a four-year honors program that is nationally recognized for its innovative partnering of interdisciplinary academic and cocurricular programs. Honors students may take special tutorials and seminars as well as complete a yearlong research project culminating in an honors thesis on an original topic.

Sweet Briars two-semester calendar allows students to participate in intensive courses, independent research projects, or internships on campus or throughout the world.

Off-Campus Programs

By the time they graduate, more than a third of Sweet Briar students have studied abroad. The Sweet Briar Junior Year in France, the first program in Paris for American students, is considered the most academically rigorous program available today. Students from 258 colleges and universities have participated in the coed program. The successful Junior Year in Spain is recognized as the premier program in Seville. The College has special relationships with the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Heidelberg University in Germany, Doshisha Womens College in Japan, and the University of Urbino in Italy. In recent years, Sweet Briar students have also chosen the following destinations for study abroad: Australia, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Jamaica, Korea, Mongolia, Morocco, New Zealand, and Thailand. Off-campus study may also include an Environmental Junior Year, the Washington Semester at American University, and summer programs at St. Annes College in Oxford, England. In addition, summer programs are offered in Australia; Central America, including Costa Rica; Mnster, Germany; Rome and Urbino, Italy; Nepal; and Spain.

Sweet Briar participates in the Tri-College Consortium, which also includes Randolph College and Lynchburg College. In addition to taking courses at the other colleges, students can participate in combined social and cultural activities on those campuses.

Academic Facilities

Sweet Briar has the largest private undergraduate library collection in the state of Virginia, with resources of more than 240,000 volumes, 1,000 journal subscriptions, 430,000 microforms, 6,800 audiovisual materials, and special libraries in art, music, and the sciences. Some of the notable special holdings include Virginia Woolf, T.E. Lawrence, George Meredith, W.H. Auden, and a rare collection of twentieth-century Chinese works. Three computer labs with Macintosh and Windows/Intel Pentium computers are open free of charge 24 hours a day. The student-computer ratio is 6:1. A lab for Sweet Briars new engineering department includes a 5-Kip-capacity Universal Test Machine; a United Tru-Blue Rockwell hardness tester; a set of gauged beams and test fixtures for mechanics experiments; eight new computers, each with NI ELVIS and Labview with Protoboards; and a well-equipped machine shop. Students studying science use state-of-the-art equipment that enhances faculty-student collaborative research. Biology equipment includes a scanning electron microscope with digital imaging system, equipment for plant and animal tissue culture, and DNA sequencing equipment. Chemistry students have access to two nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers (NMR; 400 MHz and 60 MHz), an atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS), a diode array UV/Vis spectrometer, a Fourier-transform infrared spectrometer (FT-IR), a modular LASER laboratory, a gas chromatograph/mass spectrograph (GC/MS), a high-pressure liquid chromatograph (HPLC), and a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). Physics equipment includes a scanning tunneling microscope, an X-ray crystallography system, a 10-inch-diameter reflecting telescope, and holographic instrumentation.

The environmental studies program occupies two sites. A renovated train station provides classroom and laboratory space equipped with a Rigaku Miniflex powder X-ray diffraction system for mineralogical analysis, a Rocklabs bench-top ring mill for grinding rock and soil samples, a drying oven and a high-temperature muffle furnace, and much more. An adjacent caboose car provides office space for faculty members. A water treatment plant was also converted to an environmental education/nature center and environmental lab; equipment includes water, soil, wastewater, and sediment sampling instrumentation, including N-Con composite samplers, macroinvertebrate samplers, and specialized water-collection devices.

The Babcock Fine Arts Center includes individual practice rooms, an electronic piano lab, dance studios, theaters, and Murchison Lane Auditorium for lectures and performing arts. Two former dairy barns were recently renovated for classroom and office space to house studio arts, including a ceramics and sculpture studio; four large studios for painting, drawing, and printmaking; and a photo studio and darkroom.

The Academic Resource Center (ARC) provides free of charge to all students academic support services that include assistance with papers and study strategies, a personalized time management system, stress management advice, tutoring information, and one-on-one peer mentoring. The ARC also provides support and learning strategies for students with diagnosed learning differences.

Costs

For 200708, tuition and fees were $25,015 and room and board totaled $10,040. Books and supplies are estimated to be $1500. Personal expenses average $1000.

Financial Aid

A familys financial circumstance does not limit a students choices at Sweet Briar because of the Colleges generous financial aid program. More than 90percent of enrolling students receive financial assistance from the College, including merit scholarships, need-based grants, loans, and work-study awards. Scholarships for international students are also available on a competitive basis.

Faculty

Sweet Briars faculty members have been commended by numerous regional and national educational groups for their excellence in teaching. Faculty members are actively engaged in teaching, research, publication, and other forms of creative activity. More than 95percent of full-time faculty members have a doctorate or the highest professional degree in their field. All classes are taught by a faculty member. About half of the faculty members are women.

Student Government

The Student Government Association (SGA) is founded upon a highly developed concept of honor and student ownership and involvement. The Honor System applies to all phases of academic and social life. Each entering student becomes a full member of the Student Government Association upon taking the Honor Pledge, which states that Sweet Briar women do not lie, cheat, steal, or violate the rights of others. Students participate in the governance of the College through the many offices and committee positions of the Student Government Association. SGA and its committees are largely responsible for the self-governance of the student body.

Admission Requirements

Sweet Briar seeks talented women who are adventurous, are enthusiastic about learning, and want to take an active part in their education. The Admissions Committee looks for qualities such as independent thinking, ethical principles, assertiveness, and an appreciation of diversity. Sweet Briar welcomes students of all economic, ethnic, geographic, religious, and social backgrounds.

Requirements normally include a minimum of 4 units in English, 3 in mathematics, 3 in social studies, 2 sequential years in a foreign language, and 3 units in science, as well as additional units in these subjects to total 16. Most candidates have 20 such academic units. Special attention is given to the difficulty of the applicants curriculum and her academic achievement in the classroom; scores on the SAT or ACT are required. An interview at the College is strongly encouraged but not required. Candidates who are unable to visit the campus are invited to meet with staff members or to talk with alumnae in their hometowns.

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