Location & Setting

Madison is an affluent suburban town in Morris County, about 30 miles west of Manhattan. Step off campus and you're on a classic New Jersey main street — local restaurants, coffee shops, a movie theater, the kind of downtown where you can walk to dinner. It's pleasant but quiet; this isn't a college town that revolves around the university. The real location story is the train. The Madison station is a short walk from campus, and NJ Transit's Midtown Direct line runs straight to Penn Station. Students use it constantly — for internships, cultural outings, weekend plans, and Drew's signature NYC semester programs. The campus itself feels like its own world: old-growth trees, winding paths, a genuine arboretum feel. It's a surprising amount of green space for northern New Jersey.

Where Students Live & How They Get Around

Drew is a residential campus. Roughly 80% of students live on campus, and freshmen are required to. Housing ranges from traditional residence halls to themed houses and suites for upperclassmen. Some seniors move off campus into Madison apartments, but the default is staying on campus all four years — the housing stock is decent enough and the campus is compact enough that most people stick around. You don't need a car for daily life. Campus is entirely walkable, and the train handles the NYC connection. A car is helpful for grocery runs or exploring the broader area, but plenty of students go without. Winters are real — New Jersey gets cold and snowy from December through March — so campus life shifts indoors during the colder months, though the forested campus is genuinely beautiful in fall.

Campus Culture & Community

Drew's social scene is shaped by its size. With 1,510 undergrads, you will know a lot of people by name, and the community is tight-knit in a way that's hard to fake. Greek life exists — a handful of local fraternities and sororities — but it's not a dominant social force. Weekend social life is a mix of campus events, house parties, student organization gatherings, and groups heading into the city. Drew's theater community is notably active and draws crowds well beyond the theater majors. The campus skews progressive and socially conscious, with a genuine culture of inclusion. Students describe the community as welcoming and low-pressure socially — it's a place where being yourself isn't a radical act. School spirit in the traditional rah-rah sense is modest (this is D3, after all), but there's real affection for the place. The forest setting creates a kind of shared identity — students bond over the campus itself.

Mission & Values

Drew was founded by the Methodist Church in 1867 and maintains a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church through its theological school (one of the original 13 United Methodist seminaries). For undergrads, this history is largely in the background. There are no required religion courses, it's not a dry campus, and religious life is one option among many rather than a defining feature. The Methodist heritage shows up more as a general ethos — emphasis on social justice, community engagement, and developing thoughtful citizens — than as any doctrinal presence. Students who aren't religious won't feel out of place at all. Drew invests meaningfully in mentorship and individual attention; the 10:1 student-faculty ratio is real, and advisors tend to know their students as people. There's a strong civic engagement thread running through campus life, with community service woven into many students' experiences.

Student Body

Drew draws primarily from the mid-Atlantic, with heavy representation from New Jersey, New York, and the broader Northeast. There's some geographic diversity, including a meaningful international student population, but this is at heart a regional school. The student body leans progressive, intellectually curious, and a bit artsy. You'll find pre-med students alongside theater kids alongside political science majors who spend their afternoons at the UN. The vibe is more "earnest and engaged" than "preppy" or "pre-professional." Drew has made genuine strides in socioeconomic and racial diversity in recent years, and students generally describe the campus as welcoming across backgrounds — though like many small schools, the small numbers mean any individual's experience of diversity will vary.

Academics

Drew's academic calling card is experiential learning, especially the New York Semester programs. These aren't just "take classes in the city" — they're immersive, full-semester experiences in areas like theater, Wall Street, the United Nations, contemporary art, and social entrepreneurship, with internship placements and NYC-based coursework. They're a genuine differentiator and one of the best reasons to choose Drew. Beyond the NYC programs, Drew is strong in the humanities: English and literature, political science, history, and theater arts all have solid reputations. The sciences are respectable — the school has invested in updated lab facilities — with biology and environmental science drawing students, partly because the forested campus doubles as a living lab. The student-faculty ratio sits at roughly 10:1, and average class sizes hover around 15-17 students. Professors teach their own classes (no TAs running sections), and students consistently cite faculty accessibility as one of Drew's best qualities. The academic culture is collaborative, not cutthroat. Study abroad participation is strong for a school this size, with a range of faculty-led and exchange programs. Pre-health and pre-law advising exist and are serviceable, though this isn't a school where the pre-med track dominates campus culture the way it might at a larger university.

Athletics & Campus Sports Culture

Drew competes in the Landmark Conference at the D3 level, fielding about 20 varsity sports. Athletics are a meaningful part of campus life — athletes make up a significant percentage of the small student body — but this isn't a school where gameday defines the weekend. Student-athletes are well-integrated into the broader campus community; you're as likely to see a lacrosse player in a theater production as in the weight room. The Landmark Conference is competitive but keeps the emphasis on the student-athlete balance. For a field hockey recruit, the appeal is playing competitive college sports while having full access to academics, NYC opportunities, and campus life without athletics consuming everything.

What Else Should You Know

Drew's financial aid is worth investigating carefully — the sticker price is high (as with most private schools in the Northeast), but the school offers substantial merit and need-based aid, and most students pay well below the published tuition. Ask pointed questions about net price. The theological school and Caspersen School of Graduate Studies share the campus, which gives the university a slightly more grown-up feel than a pure undergraduate college. The forest campus is genuinely special — 186 acres of mature trees creates a sense of calm that students don't take for granted — but the flip side is that some buildings show their age, and facilities investment has been uneven. Drew has faced enrollment and financial pressures common to small private schools, leading to some program restructuring in recent years. It's worth asking current students how that's felt on the ground. One more thing: Madison is a safe, walkable town, but it's suburban New Jersey — if you want a true college-town feel where the university is the center of gravity, that's not quite what this is. What Drew offers instead is a small, close community with a direct pipeline to one of the world's great cities.