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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Swarthmore ranks #2 in happiness -- that settles it!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/10/the-12-colleges-with-the-_n_1004430.html#s400924&title=12_University_of[/quote]

I knew this couldn't be right (because I graduated from Swarthmore in the '90s), and it's not. This is a measure of retention rates, i.e. how many sophomores come back after freshman year. These are committed, driven students who got into a great college, so of course they come back for their second year. I remember thinking the school wasn't right for me, but I was on a path and I was going to stay on that path because I was dedicated like that.

At the time I did not let my instincts steer me into transferring, but with the benefit of a few more decades of living, I can say that I spent those years feeling way too much pressure to study, write, and perform. I did all of those things well, but by the end I was completely burned out. Very little of it ended up mattering at all to my career success. My spouse went to a much more laid back state school and did very well and went on to a well known grad school, and has achieved far more. [/quote]

OK, but, Swarthmore ranked higher in retention rates than:  Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, U Penn, Cal Tech, U Chicago, and Williams. For your theory to be right, Swarthmore students would need to be more driven than kids at these other schools - is that what you're saying?

This is not to play down your negative experience at Swarthmore, and we really don't have a right to challenge your views on your own experiences. I just want to get beyond the talk of "happy" vs. "unhappy" which isn't really helpful because what makes one person happy is really different from what makes another person happy. I think the retention rate thing is a red herring. We need to dig down to the specific causes of happiness or unhappiness (competitiveness, too many frats, too few frats, or whatever) so that PP can make decisions based on identifiable characteristics.[/quote]

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