Thanks to financial aid, Sadie Dripps ’26 has pursued her love of dance—and discovered new passions at Williston
From a very young age, Sarah (Sadie) Dripps ’26 demonstrated an unusual level of focus and drive. Before she even entered elementary school, she was pursuing a passion for classical ballet, eventually attending a renowned dance academy about an hour from her home in Greenville, South Carolina. “I thought that I was going to go to a conservatory,” she recalls. “That’s what I had my heart set on.” Her childhood days soon fell into a routine of school and ballet, coupled by the long car ride between the two.
Just before ninth grade, Sadie’s family moved to South Hadley, Massachusetts, after her father, Weston, was hired as Director of Sustainability at Amherst College, his alma mater. Her parents began looking for a secondary school in the area that would be able to channel their daughter’s considerable energy in the right way. For her mother, Hannah Langmuir, that meant a school that valued well-roundedness and intellectual curiosity in its students, and emphasized collaboration over competition. Sadie, her mother explained, “is determined to be at the top of her game in everything. She does not need external pressure. She drives herself.”
Williston proved to be a perfect fit. Sadie has continued with dance, serving as a four-year member and captain of the dance team. But she has driven herself in an impressive number of other directions as well. To list just a few of her activities and achievements: editor-in-chief of The Willistonian newspaper; co-president of the Model U.N. club; parts in two winter musicals; two Williston Scholars independent study projects (one of which was “an exploration through movement of the toxic ballet environment”); founder of the school chapter of DECA (a business-competition club); member of the Community Service Club; tutor with the Writing Center, and Arete; admissions intern; day student ambassador; and summer mentor. Most recently, she was one of 11 students inducted into Williston’s Cum Laude Society, the highest academic award that the Williston Northampton School faculty can bestow.
“I didn’t realize you could combine so many things you liked at the same time,” says Sadie, who plans to continue with dance at Middlebury College next year, but also pursue a newfound interest in museum studies. “It’s helped me discover who I am, and what I value, and what I really want to do with my life, which is not something I thought I would be remotely close to in high school.”
Sadie’s success at Williston would not have been possible without the school’s financial aid program, Hannah points out. Coming from the South, where independent schools are often church-based and less expensive, she says she was unprepared for the cost of a New England independent school, and was initially worried that it would be beyond their means. “Then the financial aid package came through and we realized, yes, we could do it. It was an enormous relief.”
Also welcome was how Sadie was received by the Williston community, where she has been taken in like family. A natural organizer who enjoys bringing people together, Sadie has made strong connections with her classmates as well as adult mentors on campus, even babysitting for her advisor’s children, notes her mother. “If you have all this support and family around you, people who always have their eye out for you, it’s comforting as a parent to know that,” she says. “It’s really nice to have your teenager launch from being a kid to being an adult in that atmosphere.”
In her own work with the Fund for Education Abroad, which provides scholarships to students who would not otherwise be able to afford travel programs, Hannah has seen for herself how financial aid can open doors for young people. “It’s unbelievable the difference it makes to take on something—whether it’s going to Williston or going abroad—that can open up your mind about the world,” she says. “There’s no downside to that.” In her daughter’s case, the opportunity to attend Williston has indeed been transformative. “I can see in her this real belief in herself,” she says. “She’s relaxing into the idea that she is an intelligent and intellectually curious person who can do incredible things.”
Sadie agrees. Williston, she says, has helped her transition from her ballet-focused childhood to her life today, with a huge range of new passions. Her parents have enjoyed seeing that change. “They knew how hard moving would be for me,” she says. “And I think they felt comfort knowing that I was going to a place where I could grow and become a better version of myself.”