[7] Goucher is a member of the Landmark Conference and competes in the NCAA's Division III in lacrosse, tennis, soccer, volleyball, basketball, and horseback riding.

[12][13] Loren Pope profiled Goucher among forty institutions of higher learning in his 1996 book Colleges That Change Lives.

[14] Goucher counts notable alumni in law, business, journalism, academia, and government, including conservative journalist Jonah Goldberg, former First Lady of Puerto Rico Lucé Vela, Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander of the District Court for the District of Maryland, 27th Vice Commandant of the United States Coast Guard Sally Brice-O'Hara, former president of First Republic Bank Katherine August-DeWilde, and the third president of California State University, San Marcos, Karen S. Haynes.

Early in its history, Goucher played an important role nationally in providing women access to higher education.

Many ground-breaking women doctors, researchers, and scientists graduated from Goucher in the early 20th century, including Hattie Alexander, Florence B. Seibert, and Margaret Irving Handy.

Judge Sarah T. Hughes of Texas, who was famously photographed administering the presidential oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One, graduated from Goucher in 1917.

We want such a school, so ample in its provisions, of such dignity in its buildings, so fully provided with the best apparatus, that it shall draw to itself the eyes of the community and that young people shall feel it an honor to be enrolled among its students.

Van Meter asserted "that the Conference [should] make the foundation and endowment of a female college the single object of its organized effort.

"[15] Van Meter was joined by fellow minister John Franklin Goucher (1845–1922) and together they eventually persuaded the conference to found a college, instead.

Goucher and his wife Mary Cecilia Fisher made significant financial contributions to the college, including the bequest of a portion of his estate.

In 1913, the college inaugurated its fourth president, William W. Guth, who oversaw the construction of several new residence halls and a successful million-dollar fundraising campaign.

[15] Around this time, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, whose daughter Jessie was a Goucher alumna, expressed support for the college's fundraising efforts in correspondence with the administration, writing in March 1913, "It would, indeed, be ... evidence that our great educational public does not fully understand its own interests if an institution which has served with such faithfulness ... in the cause of woman's education should be allowed to break up for the lack of money.

[23] Goucher turned coeducational in 1986 when the board of trustees voted to admit men, citing declining enrollment and reduced national interest by women in single-sex colleges.

Surrounding the central campus infrastructure is a dense forest, owned by the school, which features low hills and hiking and jogging trails, some of which are also used by the college's equestrian riders.

[37] A scene at the fictional Hammond University from the fourth season of the Netflix series House of Cards was filmed on Goucher's campus, with most shots taking place at the Athenaeum and the Rhoda M. Dorsey College Center.

[48] The campus's outdoor sports facilities include a 107,000 square foot turf stadium field named Gopher Stadium, three grass practice fields, an outdoor track, twelve tennis courts that opened in 2019 as part of the Evelyn Dyke Schroedl '62 Tennis Center, as well as separate courts for racquetball and squash, and an equestrian center.

5 in "Most Popular Study Abroad Program.”[73] Goucher was recognized as a top producer of Fulbright scholars by The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2018.

[94][95] The school said that advanced courses in these subjects will remain part of the overall curriculum and that the class of 2022 and students that were studying in those majors will be unaffected by the change.

[98][99] Since 1993, Goucher has offered a full-time post-baccalaureate pre-medical program with 96% of students over the course of its history gaining acceptance to medical school and 99.7% over the past decade.

[110] Similar to other private liberal arts schools in the northeast, Goucher no longer recognizes any fraternities or sororities on campus.

[122] Goucher has hosted the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth summer program for gifted students.

[124] Goucher also hosts English as a second language and computer literacy classes under a program called the Futuro Latino Learning Center, run by students and college instructors.

The Goucher College Poll is conducted by phone and asks Maryland residents statewide their opinions on politics, the economy, and cultural issues.

Students and faculty are working to digitize records and develop initiatives to acknowledge the history of slavery on the campus’ land through the curriculum and other means.

[131][132] Well-known Goucher faculty and professors emeritus include Jean H. Baker and Julie Roy Jeffrey of the history department, Nancy Hubbard from the business and accounting department, president emeritus Sanford J. Ungar, and authors Madison Smartt Bell and Elizabeth Spires, who oversee the college's Kratz Center for Creative Writing.

[133][134] Goucher has over 21,000 living alumni, and many of its graduates have gone on to make contributions in the arts and literature, sciences, journalism, business, academia, government, and other fields.

[135] Historical alumni include women scientists like Helen Dodson Prince, Ruth Bleier, and Florence Seibert, and doctors like Bessie L. Moses (graduated 1915), who was founder of Baltimore's Bureau for Contraceptive Advice, and Georgeanna Seegar Jones.

Other historical graduates include Mary Cromwell Jarrett, who made scientific breakthroughs within post-traumatic stress disorder studies, Judge Sarah T. Hughes, who swore in Lyndon B. Johnson to the presidency, former First Daughter Jessie Woodrow Wilson, and the Academy-Award nominated actress Mildred Dunnock.

Living alumni include authors Sarah Pinsker, Darcey Steinke, and Jesse J. Holland; photographers Ruddy Roye and Rosalind Fox Solomon, federal judges Ellen Lipton Hollander for the United States District Court for the District of Maryland and Phyllis A. Kravitch for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit,[136] and two-time Olympic gold medalist in figure skating Nathan Chen.

[137] Other prominent alumni include molecular and cellular biologist Lydia Villa-Komaroff, former First Lady of Puerto Rico Lucé Vela, 27th Vice Commandant of the United States Coast Guard Sally Brice-O'Hara, former president of First Republic Bank Katherine August-DeWilde, the third president of California State University, San Marcos, Karen S. Haynes, the first woman to ever serve as the chief financial officer of a large corporation, Judy C. Lewent, political commentator, author, and founding editor-in-chief of The Dispatch Jonah Goldberg, 14th Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski,[138] 26th Chief of Chaplains for the United States Navy Margaret G. Kibben, former president of Public Citizen Joan Claybrook, and former chairwoman of the United States International Trade Commission Paula Stern.