In addition to the institutions that have established formal “teach-out” agreements with SBC, a number of others have formally extended their transfer application dates (and in at least one case appear to also have extended their freshman application date for students who had deposited with SBC), which gives students even more options. The institutions on the secondary list do not guarantee admissions or that all coursework will transfer, but still are a very nice group for the SBC students to look at: http://transition.sbc.edu/current-students/transfer-colleges-for-sweet-briar-students/
@happymomof1 Yes! In an email to current Mount Holyoke students, the president said that MHC would be offering spots to qualified rising juniors and seniors. Smith is as well. (She also assured MHC students that there was no chance of a simiar situation there, complete with tables of comparative stats. Very reassuring!)
it is nice to see the sisterhood of women’s colleges being supportive 
Another somewhat related announcement on the same day as Sweet Briar’s -
Tennessee Temple in Chattanooga announced that it’s closing its campus and merging with another private Christian college 300 miles away. It looks like the situation was pretty dire there for a long time.
This could actually be a sweet deal for the student and transferring college. Student gets an upgrade to Scripts/smith/trinity/w&m. and accepting college gets a full pay student ( assuming abc does the correct thing and allows endowment to follow).
There is no indication I have seen that the endowment is following students, only speculation on threads out here that it seems like a good use for it.
I can’t imagine a better use.
Since MHC is on my daughter’s semi-short list, are those tables publicly available, @staceyneil? I don’t doubt MHC is in a good situation, but it’s always nice to have the measurements to refer to.
@momneeds2no, indeed, if you look at the common data set, most SBC students had test scores well below those of admitted applicants at W&M, U of R, Smith, etc. Certainly there are SBC students who are very capable of doing well at more selective schools, but the top 25% of SBC students have scores in the same range as the bottom 25% of Smithies, for example.
The teach-out schools that guaranteed admission to SBC students are similar to SBC in their level of selectivity.
@dfbdfb I just made sure that it is OK to share this info (since it was in an email to students, not the general public) and they said it was. So here it is: She notes that “the metrics of Sweet Briar and those of Mount Holyoke are quite different. Among the most significant challenges faced by Sweet Briar are their difficulty meeting their application targets, the associated difficulty meeting tuition revenue goals, and an endowment that limits how fiscal crises can be addressed.” She goes on to say that this year, MCH had the second-highest highest number of applicants in the college’s history, and of very high caliber. Here are the stats form the table she provided for comparison:
Years open
-Sweet Briar 114 -Mount Holyoke 178
Undergrad enrollment
- Sweet Briar 523 -Mount Holyoke 2,189
-------Enrollment met current target? - Sweet Briar No–target 800 -Mount Holyoke Yes
-------Endowment - Sweet Briar $84M -Mount Holyoke $714M
-------Discount rate - Sweet Briar 62% -Mount Holyoke 52%
-------Tuition, room, board - Sweet Briar ~$47,000 -Mount Holyoke $54,960
USNWR METRICS
-------Rank
- Sweet Briar 116 -Mount Holyoke 41
-------Peer assessment - Sweet Briar 2.6 -Mount Holyoke 4.0
-------HS Counselor scor - Sweet Briar 3.4 -Mount Holyoke 4.2
-------Average freshman retention - Sweet Briar 74% -Mount Holyoke 91%
-------Predicted graduation rate - Sweet Briar 68% -Mount Holyoke 83%
-------Actual graduation rate - Sweet Briar 57% -Mount Holyoke 82%
-------% classes <20 - Sweet Briar 88% -Mount Holyoke 66%
-------%Classes 50+ - Sweet Briar 0% --Mount Holyoke 4%
-------SAT 25th-75th percentile - Sweet Briar 938-1210 -Mount Holyoke 1220-1430
-------Freshman in top 10% of HS class - Sweet Briar 30% -Mount Holyoke 57%
-------Accept rate - Sweet Briar 84% -Mount Holyoke 47%
-------Alumnae giving rate - Sweet Briar 33% -Mount Holyoke 31%
There was a time when SBC was a very strong institution, many grads went on to fine and powerful careers. Not just marriages and motherhood. But it was a regional name and rep. Back in the day, the 70’s, when many schools were in the red, they were strongly in the black. Then, as someone pointed out, so many desirable male schools went coed. That drew away so many young women. Even southern women. You could see it in the way SAT scores were dropping, too.
SB did warn that, in looking at tough options, all were on the table. Just a month or so ago. The wife of the interim president is a grad and surely had some personal reactions. But there have been frank admissions of financial questions for quite some while. The older and biggest long time donors have been dying off for some time.
If they had gone coed, they could have changed the name. There was always speculation.
I hope the campus doesn’t go to Liberty. I haven’t been able to follow this whole thing since I’m on vacation.
@staceyneil, thanks!
Not that it matters greatly for the comprehensive comparison of the two schools, but a couple of numbers are different from the 2014-2015 released numbers. The USNews data is always lagging.
MHC accepted 1751 of 3201 applicants for a rate of 55% The ED rate was similar at 56% with 154 admissions from 274 applications. Only 4 students were enrolled from the WL.
On the other hand, the SAT (albeit based on a low participation number) is higher at 1220/1450.
Source: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/sites/default/files/iresearch/docs/cds_2014_2015.pdf
I agree with everything you’ve summarized, @lookingforward, but Sweet Briar appears in the 2015 Fiske Guide to Colleges, so it was still a well-regarded school if not elite.
It made me sad to read that Sweet Briar was closing. I also went to a women’s college (Spelman) that suffered some financial difficulties in 2008-2009. We had just received a $10 million gift from Lehman Brothers to establish an international business and finance program, with the intent of diversifying Wall Street.
The donation to the historically black, all-female Atlanta college — which also is the single-largest corporate donation Spelman has received — will create the Lehman Bros. Center for Global Finance and Economic Development at the school. In addition to the development of an interdisciplinary program that will ultimately become a major, Lehman’s gift will be used to hire new faculty, establish scholarships and create a Chinese-language instruction program, said Beverly Daniel Tatum, Spelman’s president.” -Atlanta Journal and Constitution article
From the news reports the program would’ve been amazing and would’ve attracted a lot of students. News story was from mid-October 2007. Ouch!
Anyway, I agree that a lot of small liberal arts colleges - especially women’s colleges and rural colleges - will close in the next 15-25 years…more students are turning to their own public colleges and universities, or to colleges that can offer more financial aid, or to online education. Generally more students are attracted to pre-professional programs these days and lots of liberal arts colleges can’t or won’t offer that (which is why the loss of the global finance program at Spelman stung so much - both then and now, 8 years later).
On the one hand I agree with the MHC president that liberal arts education is still meaningful - I’m biased, of course - but on the other hand, I don’t agree with her that this is an exception and not a portent. It’s a strong portent, and a message, I think. LACs really need to reassess how to make themselves useful and salient in the current atmosphere…I think some women’s colleges will thrive, but like someone said earlier, it’s the ones who have shed the image of being a finishing school where distinguished women could meet wealthy men and who have transformed their image into being schools where women can find a strong sisterhood and personal attention. And even still…unless our culture changes/reverses course, I think that we’re going to be headed strongly into people wanting more professional offerings and more career services. And cheaper, of course, as the student loan bubble bursts.
That is an interesting question - If a student was receiving a large merit or need-based award from Sweet Briar, will the college offer to continue to pay the same amount to attend a different college (assuming it was a college that was equally or more expensive)?? Would they offer for one year or up to 3 more years for a current freshman??
Many colleges do not offer much merit aid to transfers.
In addition to application deadelines, there also are financial aid deadlines at some schools where a student might want to transfer.
If they had arranged a longer transitional time or a merger with another college, many of these questions would have been easily answered.
According to the transition information at the SBC website, scholarship money from SBC will not follow students to their new college/university.
SBC might have been hard to leave out of a book of 860 pages. Guides have obvious shortcomings in terms of accuracy and timeliness.
Administration and deans at SBC report assurances from the “teach out” schools that aid packages will be “similar”, though not identical, as there are differences in tuitions, procedures, etc. Understandably, many effected parents/students are concerned, as you don’t know what you have until you have it.
At least two of the schools offering automatic admission to SBC students are also offering merit scholarships of $22K for them. Not sure how many awards or what the criteria will be.
Who is storing the transcript/graduation data after they close?