Swarthmore/Wes VS Williams/Bowdoin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What’s Pomona’s culture like? Most like Wes, Williams, Swarthmore, or…?

Not really like any of them. Maybe Swarthmore if you had to pick one, but still quite different. Students there are noticeably more laid-back and unassuming, yet deeply motivated and inquisitive behind the surface. There's kind of a pretense there where students appear to be in a summer camp resort setting, but the academics are rigorous and there is a prominent intellectual undercurrent. It's a school where the students gradually learn of how impressive their peers really are, whereas you notice that more outright at East Coast SLACs and Ivies.

One unique feature of Pomona is that the consortium it is in are schools one next to the other. They interact quite heavily and also influence the overall atmosphere at Pomona. Those have widely different student bodies and academic emphases, so it's a diverse setting that opens all the students up to a variety of perspectives.

Funny story about Pomona and swat —

When my sister was there (and later others in our extended family), swat had a semester exchange program with Pomona, middlebury (maybe Williams but I forget…it was a few slacs tho), the way it worked was it had to be a 1 for 1 exchange.

But the # of kids who wanted to do a semester in Pomona wildly outstripped the number of kids who wanted to come from Pomona to do a semester at swat.

My sister tried a couple of times but it didn’t work out but even swat kids were super into trying to go to Pomona while no Pomona kids wanted to ever come to swat



That said, swat is still cool. Pomona is awesome tho. I’m sure their yield is like double swat’s

Your story isn't funny or even surprising. As for the yield comparison, yes, Pomona's is higher -- but Pomona isn't within driving distance of a dozen other top 20 liberal arts colleges or every Ivy League school either. Lots more competition.

That's a recent phenomenon. Pomona had a 40% yield for most years prior to 2015, similar to Swarthmore and Amherst. Williams generally had the highest yield of the top 20 LAC group at 46-49%. Now, Bowdoin has the highest yield at 58%, followed by Pomona at 54% and Claremont McKenna at 52%. All the schools have similarly increased reliance in ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Swarthmore still has a consortium with Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Penn.

It does, but the geography and logistics mean that it's little used. There is a shuttle (and train into Philly) and the occasional student from Swat takes the occasional course at the other schools. But Bryn Mawr and Haveford have a much closer relationship than the other members of the consortium.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: My son was accepted at Bowdoin, Weslyan and Williams. It was a tie between Williams and Bowdoin and he chose Bowdoin. His younger sister went to Williams and I have to say, in retrospect he should have gone to Williams. For some reason, although Bowdoin tries to be less homogenous-it. just is not. My son felt he was back in his wealthy, all-white, insulated prep school. My daughter blossomed and met all kinds of diverse students- both politically, socio-economically and racially. Would never do Bowdoin if had the chance again. Brunswick is a cute town but no way.
imho.

Why did you send him to such a school in the first place???

Because Bowdoin promoted itself as having a diverse student body and it does not have that. Williams is much better on the diversity front than Bowdoin. Just sharing in hopes of helping other families to make the distinctions between the schools- as the poster requested. Just my family's experience.

My kid is an underrepresented minority and Bowdoin alum. The school is 59% white which is close to the U.S. population while Williams is 49%. It is constantly working to increase diversity which is a bit of a hard sell in Maine, the state with the highest non-Hispanic white population in the U.S.

As far as economic diversity, both schools say that 51% of their student body received financial aid.

As far as politically diverse, there is wide range of politics on campus.

Yes, there are schools that are more diverse than Bowdoin but it is hardly lily-white.

[Anonymous]

One thing worth noting is Williams and Wesleyan have an athlete-non athlete divide. Bowdoin and especially Swarthmore less so.

[Anonymous]

Bowdoin’s new AD is a 1st gen URM alum. Expect that they will be working hard to further diversify enrollment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing worth noting is Williams and Wesleyan have an athlete-non athlete divide. Bowdoin and especially Swarthmore less so.

Wesleyan is much larger so the percentage who are athletes is smaller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Swarthmore still has a consortium with Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Penn.

It does, but the geography and logistics mean that it's little used. There is a shuttle (and train into Philly) and the occasional student from Swat takes the occasional course at the other schools. But Bryn Mawr and Haveford have a much closer relationship than the other members of the consortium.

We toured Haverford this fall and the tour guide talked a lot about the consortium. Even mentioned that they go to Bryn Mawr just to eat dinner sometimes. Seems like those two schools have a close relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Swarthmore still has a consortium with Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Penn.

It does, but the geography and logistics mean that it's little used. There is a shuttle (and train into Philly) and the occasional student from Swat takes the occasional course at the other schools. But Bryn Mawr and Haveford have a much closer relationship than the other members of the consortium.

We toured Haverford this fall and the tour guide talked a lot about the consortium. Even mentioned that they go to Bryn Mawr just to eat dinner sometimes. Seems like those two schools have a close relationship.

We also toured Haverford this past fall, and our tour guide did not mention the consortium except in passing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing worth noting is Williams and Wesleyan have an athlete-non athlete divide. Bowdoin and especially Swarthmore less so.

Our non-athlete tour guide at Wesleyan made a point of how integrated the student-body is, noting that one if their closest friends was also a top-ranked athlete who played in a band and was very much part of the broader school culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One thing worth noting is Williams and Wesleyan have an athlete-non athlete divide. Bowdoin and especially Swarthmore less so.

Nonsense……not at all the case at Wes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Swarthmore still has a consortium with Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Penn.

It does, but the geography and logistics mean that it's little used. There is a shuttle (and train into Philly) and the occasional student from Swat takes the occasional course at the other schools. But Bryn Mawr and Haveford have a much closer relationship than the other members of the consortium.

We toured Haverford this fall and the tour guide talked a lot about the consortium. Even mentioned that they go to Bryn Mawr just to eat dinner sometimes. Seems like those two schools have a close relationship.

I have a student at Haverford and she enjoys taking classes at Bryn Mawr. She now has friends at both schools. The food is better at Bryn Mawr so she likes getting lunch there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Swarthmore still has a consortium with Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Penn.

It does, but the geography and logistics mean that it's little used. There is a shuttle (and train into Philly) and the occasional student from Swat takes the occasional course at the other schools. But Bryn Mawr and Haveford have a much closer relationship than the other members of the consortium.

We toured Haverford this fall and the tour guide talked a lot about the consortium. Even mentioned that they go to Bryn Mawr just to eat dinner sometimes. Seems like those two schools have a close relationship.

I have a student at Haverford and she enjoys taking classes at Bryn Mawr. She now has friends at both schools. The food is better at Bryn Mawr so she likes getting lunch there.

Haverford is a school that doesn't seem to get the attention of its peers and it seems like a good fit for the OP. Could you say a bit about whether your daughter likes it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We toured Haverford this fall and the tour guide talked a lot about the consortium. Even mentioned that they go to Bryn Mawr just to eat dinner sometimes. Seems like those two schools have a close relationship.

Haverford and Bryn Mawr are only 1.5 miles from each other, and they are historically brother-sister schools, though Haverford is now coed.

Swarthmore is 9 miles away, which doesn't seem significant, but it's enough to making hopping between campuses hard to work into a daily schedule, plus bear in mind that these are not campuses where many students have cars, and traffic has gotten a lot worse in the area over the years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haverford is a school that doesn't seem to get the attention of its peers and it seems like a good fit for the OP. Could you say a bit about whether your daughter likes it?

Vibe-wise, I suspect you're right! But it still doesn't have the kind of outdoor/nature activities access that it sounds like OP's child is looking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Haverford is a school that doesn't seem to get the attention of its peers and it seems like a good fit for the OP. Could you say a bit about whether your daughter likes it?

Vibe-wise, I suspect you're right! But it still doesn't have the kind of outdoor/nature activities access that it sounds like OP's child is looking for.

Haverford is tiny even by LAC standards.