Swarthmore, Williams or Pomona

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do Middlebury or Claremont McKenna instead. CMC gives merit aid for interdisciplinary science majors (full tuition)

Pomona, Williams, Swat don't really fit a fratty/work hard play hard personality.

Financial need an essential factor, not just merit.

[Anonymous]

My DD is an athlete at Swat (would not have gotten in without it). Swarthmore has a lot of athletes and banned greek life. Very studious and serious types.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is an athlete at Swat (would not have gotten in without it). Swarthmore has a lot of athletes and banned greek life. Very studious and serious types.

How does your DD like it?

[Anonymous]

I have a son who is senior at Swarthmore, and a second son who was just accepted there early decision.
Based on my older son’s experience, descriptions of Swat as a miserable, bleak place where people do nothing but study seems very inaccurate. My son and his friends have ridiculous amounts of fun and, while he says the people he knows are extremely smart, the ones he knows aren’t interested in competing with each other. He said that he’s never really had a conversation about grades. He would have no idea about how any of them are doing in their classes.
Both of my sons are straight, it seems, and neither is a recruited athlete. The one who is there already joined a club sports team, and that’s been the focus of his social life. He does work hard — they all do, but nobody seems to mind.
My second son has completely different academic interests and is very different personality-wise from his brother. I don’t have any worries that he will find his own place at Swarthmore.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the Swarthmore perspectives.

How social are kids at Swarthmore?

By social, I don't mean drinking and partying necessarily. I mean kids hanging out and doing things together that don't involve studying.

[Anonymous]

Pomona (like Stanford): Southern California and part of the Claremont consortium. Extremely diverse and focused on first generation and low income admits. Very well rounded and a lot of progressive social collaboration in the classroom. Laid back atmosphere. Not far from LA & beach.

Pomona is not at all close to the beach or LA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the Swarthmore perspectives.

How social are kids at Swarthmore?

By social, I don't mean drinking and partying necessarily. I mean kids hanging out and doing things together that don't involve studying.

DC is also there. Non athlete. Says there are plenty of clubs to join.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Pomona (like Stanford): Southern California and part of the Claremont consortium. Extremely diverse and focused on first generation and low income admits. Very well rounded and a lot of progressive social collaboration in the classroom. Laid back atmosphere. Not far from LA & beach.

Pomona is not at all close to the beach or LA.

It’s 2 hours by train or 45+ minutes by car depending on where in LA and on traffic. My kid has several friends from LA and is there once a month for a day or a weekend. Definitely not a “go to dinner in LA” distance.

Also very close to Angeles National Forest if your kid likes hiking/nature and has a car. Also a couple hours to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree. My kid has been there once each year so far. Lots of closer mountain and desert hikes. Ontario and the Inland Empire are industrial and ugly but there’s good ethnic food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Pomona (like Stanford): Southern California and part of the Claremont consortium. Extremely diverse and focused on first generation and low income admits. Very well rounded and a lot of progressive social collaboration in the classroom. Laid back atmosphere. Not far from LA & beach.

Pomona is not at all close to the beach or LA.

It’s 2 hours by train or 45+ minutes by car depending on where in LA and on traffic. My kid has several friends from LA and is there once a month for a day or a weekend. Definitely not a “go to dinner in LA” distance.

Also very close to Angeles National Forest if your kid likes hiking/nature and has a car. Also a couple hours to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree. My kid has been there once each year so far. Lots of closer mountain and desert hikes. Ontario and the Inland Empire are industrial and ugly but there’s good ethnic food.

It’s 1 hour by train to Union Station, with a train station about 2 blocks from campus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Pomona (like Stanford): Southern California and part of the Claremont consortium. Extremely diverse and focused on first generation and low income admits. Very well rounded and a lot of progressive social collaboration in the classroom. Laid back atmosphere. Not far from LA & beach.

Pomona is not at all close to the beach or LA.

Agree. It's ~55 miles and over two hours in rush hour traffic right now.

Took DD to look at Occidental and Pomona/consortium a few summers ago. Liked both campuses, but didn't think Pomona was at all close to LA or the beach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for the Swarthmore perspectives.

How social are kids at Swarthmore?

By social, I don't mean drinking and partying necessarily. I mean kids hanging out and doing things together that don't involve studying.

My son (senior at Swarthmore) always seems to be with people — studying, eating or hanging out. His roommate from freshman year is his closest friend, but they have a pretty wide circle. Not many of them, including my son, drink very much. They might go to parties sometimes but aren’t really partiers, if that distinction makes sense. They always have an elaborate group costume that they work on for weeks at Swarthmore’s big Halloween party, though!
He is friends with people from around the country and the world and from all economic backgrounds . One of the best parts of living within a few hours of his school is being able to host his friends for holidays. I had underestimated the enormous benefit of the sort of international community a school like Swarthmore can provide. For this reason alone, attending Swarthmore has been the opportunity of a lifetime for him.

[Anonymous]

“Not many of them, including my son, drink very much.”

It’s cute that you think you’d know if they did. I didn’t tell my mom about any of my drinking in undergrad or grad school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Pomona (like Stanford): Southern California and part of the Claremont consortium. Extremely diverse and focused on first generation and low income admits. Very well rounded and a lot of progressive social collaboration in the classroom. Laid back atmosphere. Not far from LA & beach.

Pomona is not at all close to the beach or LA.

It’s 2 hours by train or 45+ minutes by car depending on where in LA and on traffic. My kid has several friends from LA and is there once a month for a day or a weekend. Definitely not a “go to dinner in LA” distance.

Also very close to Angeles National Forest if your kid likes hiking/nature and has a car. Also a couple hours to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree. My kid has been there once each year so far. Lots of closer mountain and desert hikes. Ontario and the Inland Empire are industrial and ugly but there’s good ethnic food.

It’s 1 hour by train to Union Station, with a train station about 2 blocks from campus

When people talk about going to LA, they aren't talking downtown LA/Union Station. I grew up in LA, and Pomona is far...

[Anonymous]

I had a son looking at lots of LACs last year. I would echo the suggestion to look at Midd and suggest Bowdoin too. My DS really liked both

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the Williams poster-I am curious to know if most of the non-athletic males at Williams are gay. It does seem to be the case at most SLAC’s. Seems like it would create a strange divide in the campus.

I’m a Williams grad and this is not at all the case. This is also an odd assumption as a lot of my gay friends were top athletes and had been recruited for sports.
For the OP, I think it depends on what your dc is interested in post graduation. I knew I wanted to do finance in ny and picked William’s bc there is a strong alumni network in that industry and I wanted to be able to use the winter study my final two years to make sure that’s what I wanted to do. I had similar interests to your dc and liked that I could major in economics and still take high level, very interesting environmental studies classes without double majoring in it.
I grew up in dc so was worried about the contrast and feeling isolated. In reality, I was so busy that the small town ended up being a perfect fit. It had everything a college student would need right there but fewer distractions than being in a city. Each year I’d visit friends in Boston or ny when I felt like I needed a dose of big city but was always happy to get back to the little bubble of Williamstown.