Manhattanville College is a small, private institution in north westerly New York.

In 1841, a Catholic boarding school was established in a three-storey house, becoming a college for undergraduates and postgraduates in 1917. Founded in Manhattan, New York City, it has been in Purchase, a village in nearby Westchester County, since 1952, turning coeducational in 1971.

Purchase, which also houses the State University of New York at Purchase, has a high proportion of student residents, and is around 25 miles – and 30 minutes – from Manhattan, with each of New York City’s five boroughs easy to access by road or public transport. The college runs a free shuttle bus into NYC. The wealthy town of Harrison is also nearby, as is the border with Connecticut, just three miles west of the college.

Its 100 acres of grounds are among the most picturesque in the entire state, and Manhattanville has a range of eye-catching buildings, including a Norman-inspired castle.

There are more than 40 undergraduate courses, with business administration, social sciences and sociology the most popular, but even more at postgraduate level. These include dozens of teaching and educational leadership programmes. Manhattanville is committed to giving its students a grounding in liberal arts.

Much of the Kennedy family attended Manhattanville: John’s mother Rose, her daughter Jean, Robert’s widow Ethel, Edward’s widow Joan, and Maria Shriver, a journalist and former first lady of California. Other Manhattanville alumni include Broadway actors Meg Bussert and Karen Akers.