The Gothic Balch Hall opened in the 1920s as a residence for women and remains so today.

Women first entered the Ivy League through Cornell's doors. In June 1873, Emma Sheffield Eastman became the first alumna of the new university. One month earlier, the cornerstone of Sage College had been placed. The building, then at the far southern reaches of the campus, was intended by its benefactor to provide women "the liberty to learn what they can and to do what they have the power to do."

University alumnae include Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg '54, former U.S. attorney general Janet Reno '60, authors Pearl Buck and Toni Morrison, and the first American women to earn Army rank, three WWI doctors who were made lieutenants in the French military.