Coburn was second-generation attendee of Colby College. Her father, the lawyer and politician Stephen Coburn, had graduated from Colby in 1839. The Coburns, prominent and wealthy, were invaluable to Colby's growth as benefactors of the college. Despite this, 18-year-old Louise was heavily scrutinized for admission to Colby. A professor tested her one day from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon on her skills in Latin and Greek to see if she could measure up to Colby's standards. A scholar, writer, and poet, she excelled in an academic environment and became the second woman to graduate from Colby (the first was Mary Low) and the second Sigma Kappa to attain Phi Beta Kappa status (also after Low). Sigma Kappa was important to her, as it showed that in a college with only men's fraternities, a women's sorority group could hold its own and survive on an equal basis. She entered college and developed a strong belief that Sigma Kappa was destined to live and grow.