Sweet Briar College - closing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like Liberty University will have a new satellite campus

Oh God.

Yes, He is chairman of Liberty's board

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had always heard that it wasn't a "real" school, and am surprised to hear it was even accredited.

Actually, it was a finishing school. It was only accredited for 117 years.

And Harvard's mission was to train Congregationalist ministers. Schools evolve

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never even heard of it, and I'm one of those people who brought a horse to college (albeit to the University of CT). Clearly their marketing wasn't stellar.

Their former riding coach was the coach for the US Olympic Team. Dedicated riders knew Sweet Briar.

+1
I can't believe there would be any equestrians, especially on the east coast, who wouldn't have heard of Sweet Briar.

Yes, I too was surprised by the UCONN poster's ignorance. I'm from New England and have always known about Sweet Briar. Their success at vet school admissions is the only reason my daughter would have considered it. She would have brought her horse but, no, she is not a hunter/jumper princess.

We ride but are a Yale family. Sweetbriar means nothing to us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is disturbing is with an endowment that is way larger than most private colleges in America and little debt that the board could not find a way reposition the school and stay in business. They had a marketing problem that could have been solved. This is a total failure of leadership. Hollins College (all women) is thriving and Hampden-Sydney College (all male) just enrolled its largest class ever. These schools are not for everyone but they have incredible tradition, excellent academics, and very tight alumni networks. The students that attend these schools SBC included love these schools.

There's something to this. Apparently the alums were completely blindsided and feel they can engage in substantial fundraising. Why was the board so quick to close? I get a feeling there's a story there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like Liberty University will have a new satellite campus

Oh God.

Yes, He is chairman of Liberty's board

NO way. That is so awful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had always heard that it wasn't a "real" school, and am surprised to hear it was even accredited.

What on earth are you talking about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like Liberty University will have a new satellite campus

Oh God.

Yes, He is chairman of Liberty's board

NO way. That is so awful.

Why? I think it's a great solution. It's better than a developer mowing the place down. We don't want to sound bigoted about this now do we?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never even heard of it, and I'm one of those people who brought a horse to college (albeit to the University of CT). Clearly their marketing wasn't stellar.

Their former riding coach was the coach for the US Olympic Team. Dedicated riders knew Sweet Briar.

Always nice to see how someone here can take an innocuous post and be bitchy. Perhaps I wasn't a hunter/jumper rider? (I wasn't). Perhaps I'm significantly older?

Aaaah, that's it. A quick google brings up Mimi Wroten, who you're presumably referring to, is more than 10 yrs younger than I am.

Not the PP, but your post was a tad bitchy, don't you think? "Clearly their marketing wasn't stellar" is the reason you haven't heard of it? Anyone who rides on the east coast, regardless of age, has heard of it. I'm almost 50 and know of it.

No, not anyone who rides on the east coast has heard of it.

Just because you and others here have heard of it doesn't make it so. Clearly some of you are feeling that your toes were stepped on by PP who hadn't heard of your precious little school. Such a great bastion of equestrianism and higher learning that it's closed.

Good. Time for these types of places to go away.

Wow - no chip on your shoulder at all! What's your problem? I'm the PP and didn't go to Sweet Briar, so I have no dog in this fight, but I am a long-time resident of the east coast and had definitely heard of this school. It seems you are the one with your nose in the air for some reason. Why would it be "time for these types of places to go away"? Please, enlighten us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never even heard of it, and I'm one of those people who brought a horse to college (albeit to the University of CT). Clearly their marketing wasn't stellar.

Their former riding coach was the coach for the US Olympic Team. Dedicated riders knew Sweet Briar.

+1
I can't believe there would be any equestrians, especially on the east coast, who wouldn't have heard of Sweet Briar.

Yes, I too was surprised by the UCONN poster's ignorance. I'm from New England and have always known about Sweet Briar. Their success at vet school admissions is the only reason my daughter would have considered it. She would have brought her horse but, no, she is not a hunter/jumper princess.

I, on the other hand, am surprised that not knowing a mediocre no name finishing school for riders is a shock to anyone. (I'm the UConn poster). I'm not from the US, and I was a polo player so that should help explain why I never heard of them. It has nothing to do with being a "dedicated" rider, which is pretty condescending assumption.

I think it's good that these types of schools are closing.

Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never even heard of it, and I'm one of those people who brought a horse to college (albeit to the University of CT). Clearly their marketing wasn't stellar.

Their former riding coach was the coach for the US Olympic Team. Dedicated riders knew Sweet Briar.

+1
I can't believe there would be any equestrians, especially on the east coast, who wouldn't have heard of Sweet Briar.

Yes, I too was surprised by the UCONN poster's ignorance. I'm from New England and have always known about Sweet Briar. Their success at vet school admissions is the only reason my daughter would have considered it. She would have brought her horse but, no, she is not a hunter/jumper princess.

We ride but are a Yale family. Sweetbriar means nothing to us.

Wow, you sound like a total cliche, Buffy! This is hysterical. "A Yale family."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never even heard of it, and I'm one of those people who brought a horse to college (albeit to the University of CT). Clearly their marketing wasn't stellar.

Their former riding coach was the coach for the US Olympic Team. Dedicated riders knew Sweet Briar.

+1
I can't believe there would be any equestrians, especially on the east coast, who wouldn't have heard of Sweet Briar.

Yes, I too was surprised by the UCONN poster's ignorance. I'm from New England and have always known about Sweet Briar. Their success at vet school admissions is the only reason my daughter would have considered it. She would have brought her horse but, no, she is not a hunter/jumper princess.

We ride but are a Yale family. Sweetbriar means nothing to us.

Wow, you sound like a total cliche, Buffy! This is hysterical. "A Yale family."

Ha my thoughts exactly! This post cracked me up. Thanks for making my night, Riding-but-also-Yale-Family Poster.

[Anonymous]

This is awfully sad. Not the time to make fun of the place. Their endowment looked like $80+ M. But they owed $12M. And something like $55M was in restricted gifts that couldn't simply be spent-down on operational costs -- maybe they could have gone to court and sought cy pres orders to assume the restricted gifts as unrestricted, but that would have taken time and couldn't possibly have succeeded as to every dollar. So there they were with an endowment of $20M left, for 700 students on the books. Less than $30K per student. Very, very small for an relatively well-known private college.

[Anonymous]

I think this is the 3 college in VA to close in the past couple years.

They should have merged with Hollins - never could tell the difference between them anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is the 3 college in VA to close in the past couple years.

They should have merged with Hollins - never could tell the difference between them anyway.

Yeah, can't fathom why Hollins wasn't jumping to take on that $25 million in debt, $28 million in deferred maintenance and weaker admissions profile

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've never even heard of it, and I'm one of those people who brought a horse to college (albeit to the University of CT). Clearly their marketing wasn't stellar.

Their former riding coach was the coach for the US Olympic Team. Dedicated riders knew Sweet Briar.

+1
I can't believe there would be any equestrians, especially on the east coast, who wouldn't have heard of Sweet Briar.

Yes, I too was surprised by the UCONN poster's ignorance. I'm from New England and have always known about Sweet Briar. Their success at vet school admissions is the only reason my daughter would have considered it. She would have brought her horse but, no, she is not a hunter/jumper princess.

We ride but are a Yale family. Sweetbriar means nothing to us.

Wow, you sound like a total cliche, Buffy! This is hysterical. "A Yale family."

Ha my thoughts exactly! This post cracked me up. Thanks for making my night, Riding-but-also-Yale-Family Poster.

Oh, hi!