Swarthmore

[Anonymous]

As you may already know, Swarthmore is part of the "Tri-Co" – Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore. You can be enrolled at one campus and take classes at the other two. I was at Bryn Mawr, I ended up marrying someone from Haverford, and one of my roommates majored at Swarthmore. I also dated my fair share of Swat guys.

That all being said, yeah, hugely liberal school, but it was interesting seeing the fine differences between the three campuses even though they are all highly competitive liberal arts colleges. I will just say that young people at Swarthmore have laser beam intensity when it comes to their work – but when they are off, they party hard too. It all came back to me when we had some neighbors who moved in across the street: a married couple who had both gone there. They were still just as super-intense. She was a psychologist working with everyone from war veterans to autistic kids. He was a pediatric ER physician. When he was on duty, he was on – I mean, he wouldn't answer a call from God himself if He paged him. But when he was off-call, he either was up on espresso shots or down with several beers.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I can't begin to tell posters how grateful I am for your candor and in depth opinions. I have shared your responses with DC who is looking forward to a visit. Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

OP, the respected Fiske Guide to Colleges has an impressive writeup of Swarthmore. The semester exchange program includes Harvey Mudd, Middlebury, Pomona, and Tufts. My DC would love a full language immersion at Middlebury.

[Anonymous]

It's heaven for intellectual types. No shame in working too hard. Very liberal politically. Intense. Most of my friends and acquaintances are now professors or have PhDs and are working in think tanks or for NGOs. A good number of lawyers and physicians, and a handful of MBAs. The University of Chicago was easy after Swat.

Initially, I felt very intimidated by my classmates because they seemed to be so well spoken and well read. But, the expectation there among your classmates and the faculty is that you will rise to the occasion. And, eventually, you do. The faculty is very distinguished and dedicated to undergraduate teaching, which is a combination that is hard to find at universities.

Gorgeous campus and an extraordinarily large endowment, esp on a per capita basis. Excellent financial aid. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of the kids I have met from there tried to get into the Ivies but failed.It is a tier down from the Ivies. It's good for quirky, smart, introverted kids.

Really? All the kids I know who went to Swarthmore (or Amherst or Williams) were looking almost exclusively at SLACs. If they were looking at Ivies, it was a Princeton or Yale, both of which have stronger undergraduate programs relative to Harvard. Or they were looking at a Pomona or Carleton. When students apply to the most competitive SLACs, it's a pretty self-selecting group of high-achieving students. This is not the case with Harvard, which by virtue of its name recognition has a very wide range of applicants.

[Anonymous]

I agree everyone I know here didn't make the Ivy cut. It still is a terrific school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the kids I have met from there tried to get into the Ivies but failed.It is a tier down from the Ivies. It's good for quirky, smart, introverted kids.

Really? All the kids I know who went to Swarthmore (or Amherst or Williams) were looking almost exclusively at SLACs. If they were looking at Ivies, it was a Princeton or Yale, both of which have stronger undergraduate programs relative to Harvard. Or they were looking at a Pomona or Carleton. When students apply to the most competitive SLACs, it's a pretty self-selecting group of high-achieving students. This is not the case with Harvard, which by virtue of its name recognition has a very wide range of applicants.

99% of the very wide range of applicants don't get into Harvard. There are just so many seats. Having strong SLACs to fall back on is a fortunate option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the kids I have met from there tried to get into the Ivies but failed.It is a tier down from the Ivies. It's good for quirky, smart, introverted kids.

Really? All the kids I know who went to Swarthmore (or Amherst or Williams) were looking almost exclusively at SLACs. If they were looking at Ivies, it was a Princeton or Yale, both of which have stronger undergraduate programs relative to Harvard. Or they were looking at a Pomona or Carleton. When students apply to the most competitive SLACs, it's a pretty self-selecting group of high-achieving students. This is not the case with Harvard, which by virtue of its name recognition has a very wide range of applicants.

99% of the very wide range of applicants don't get into Harvard. There are just so many seats. Having strong SLACs to fall back on is a fortunate option.

Nor get into Yale or Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of the kids I have met from there tried to get into the Ivies but failed.It is a tier down from the Ivies. It's good for quirky, smart, introverted kids.

Really? All the kids I know who went to Swarthmore (or Amherst or Williams) were looking almost exclusively at SLACs. If they were looking at Ivies, it was a Princeton or Yale, both of which have stronger undergraduate programs relative to Harvard. Or they were looking at a Pomona or Carleton. [/b]When students apply to the most competitive SLACs, it's a pretty self-selecting group of high-achieving students.[b] This is not the case with Harvard, which by virtue of its name recognition has a very wide range of applicants.

Spot on. Very different applicant pools.

[Anonymous]

What are their athletic programs like? Do athletes fit in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, the respected Fiske Guide to Colleges has an impressive writeup of Swarthmore. The semester exchange program includes Harvey Mudd, Middlebury, Pomona, and Tufts. My DC would love a full language immersion at Middlebury.

they suspended the pomona exchange for a year when my sis was there (a couple of yeras ago) becuase to many swatties wanted to go to pomona on exchange but not enough pomona kids wanted to come to swat.

and who can blame them?!?!?!?! pomona is amazing. swat is nice but it is no pomona

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are their athletic programs like? Do athletes fit in?

yes, more than even 5 years ago. swat is getting more nescac as each year passes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It kicked my ass and I loved it. I went from being. A big fish in a small pond to a perfectly adequate fish in a nerdy, quirky pond. People there do homework and readings because they don't want to let their classmates down in discussions. The profs don't have any grad students so they treat their undergrads as such, which is wonderful and also really, really difficult. It's not uncommon to find math majors with music minors, bio majors with peace studies minors, and all manor of intriguing intellectual combinations. We used to complain that there wasn't enough time for all of the clubs and classes we wanted to do.

What else do you want to know?

I would agree with that. I did Swarthmore engineering and had lots of friends that went to MIT and Harvard. I had visited my friends a bunch of times and laughed at how easy their 3rd year homework was. (This was stuff I was doing freshman year; I kept that to myself of course.)

My Harvard friends spent lots of times networking and socializing, not studying.

Swarthmore students spend a lot of time studying. As I said, I studied engineering. As an engineer taking a full class load I was in class every morning during the week. Afternoons were spent in lab or office hours. Evenings were spent doing homework, as were weekend days. I made time to run and do sports, but there was definitely not a lot of free time.

I remember from my class that a ridiculous number got Rhodes-type scholarships, more than any Ivy that year, which is all the more impressive given that Swarthmore has less 2000 people.

I disagree that Swarthmore students are not well rounded. I think we're just as well rounded as Harvard types, just not in popular ways. To give you an example - when I was there at least 2/3 of the student body participated in some type of sport. But that includes sports like badminton, ultimate frisbee, or rugby. Frisbee and rugby were particularly popular. Or people might be interested in yoga, or activism (not me), accapella, vegan cooking.

Interesting. I wouldn't think of Swarthmore (or Harvard) for engineering. Was it more of a theoretical program? What specialities are strong there? Did you go on to Masters or PhD?

Every single engineering course had a lab component, so I wouldn't call it purely theoretical. Also, everyone has to do a senior design project.

Yes, I have a Master's. Practically everyone goes on to get a Master's; many get PHDs. In my class there were 6 females who graduated. All of us got at least a Master's. I wanna say at least 3 went on to get a PHD. I'm only talking about the females because I had kept in touch with them for awhile.

In my class only about 25 people graduated with an engineering degree; I believe 75-80 people started out freshman year though. The college prizes the honors program so you could pretty much specialize in whatever you wanted. In my class, there were several people who focused on environmental engineering, 2-3 who studied chemical/biomedical, around 10 who did electrical engineering, and then everyone else studied mechanical or civil. Someone was interested in naval design so I think he did some sort of individual study. I remember someone else was big into E&M. Someone focused on acoustics. A girl was really into semiconductors and she went on to get a PHD and works for intel in the R&D department now. And so on and so forth..

I seem to remember there was some sort of special relationship with Upenn. I think a few people took classes there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are their athletic programs like? Do athletes fit in?

Yes athletes fit in. There were no dumb athletes. Even our athletes were very serious about academics!

[Anonymous]

DS was an athlete. I know of 2 kids on his team (different years) that went on to be Fulbright Scholars--that place is crazy smart and focused.