How You Know You're a True Sarah Lawrence Student

I am lucky enough to have attended Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York (that's Westchester, for those of you who don't know). Yes, the school doesn't care about SAT scores or majors, and where classes are capped at 15 students each and are all discussion based, and the mascot is a Gryphon. In short, this is not your typical college experience. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.

If you went to Sarah Lawrence — or are lucky enough to be there now — you know what I'm talking about. There are some things only we can truly understand.

You made the decision to come here after you toured campus and realized it looks like the Shire

Sarah Lawrence

The Shire

I rest my case.

You know that end-of-semester evaluations from professors are waaaay more important than grades

Yeah, none of that.

You look forward to weekend brunch at Bates all week long

You, after Sunday hungover brunch hoarding pastries from the dessert bar. Best meal of the week.

And know the ONLY meal to get at the Pub is chicken tenders with sweet potato fries

...Or just the sweet potatoes and a large Green Mountain coffee for the vegetarians among us.

Park Place Bagels in Bronxville > Bagelville in Bronxville

All the girls you go to school with look like this:

And the boys look like this:

Even if you don't smoke, you smell like you smoke

But not for long, because the administration plans to ban cigarettes on campus by 2015.

Your love life is either stressful or nonexistent

Because you already knew everyone by the second week of freshman year and (if you're a straight woman) the gender ratio is not skewed in your favor. (The campus is 70 percent female.)

Alternatively, your off-campus boyfriend gets hit on every time he comes to visit

You know which professors have a cult following

If you have not taken a lit class with Bill Shullenberger, you have not lived.

You know that discussion-based classes can sometimes turn into therapy sessions

You've witnessed at least one protest traveling across the North Lawn

...and that performance art can be part of daily life

You only visit the swing set when you're drunk ... or starring in a twee photoshoot

Majors? What are those? We have "concentrations" thankyouverymuch.

When your friends at other schools complain about ten-page papers, you're like "Please, try writing three 25-page papers a semester."

You haven't taken a multiple choice test since senior year of high school

This is you during conference week:

You know at least one person who lists Ulysses as their favorite book, and most of your friends have read it

You know that all the Slonim Woods parties resemble the Brooklyn loft parties from Girls

Which probably explains why all your friends will move to Bushwick immediately upon graduation.

All of your high school friends want to know what you do every weekend without a million keggers to choose from

To which you tell them that drunkenly reciting passages from Howl by Allen Ginsberg is far more satisfying than supporting the patriarchy by sleeping with frat boys.

If you never hear the questions "Is that an all girls school?" or "Isn't that the most expensive school in the country?" again, you will be forever grateful

You'd never be caught dead at a sporting event, but you secretly harbor tons of Gryphon pride

Yes, our mascot is a mythical creature and yes, we all know how incredibly awesome that is.

And most of all, you'll defend your education to the death, because you know there's just no other school like Sarah Lawrence

Except for perhaps Bennington and Hampshire and Oberlin and Barnard and Smith...

Still, gotta love this school.

Images: Sarah Lawrence College/Facebook