I have no connection to either Swarthmore or NCS, but I have to wonder whether some of the posters claiming that NCS kids don't like "nerdy" actually have kids at NCS. It may be true that Swarthmore is unpopular with NCS girls, but given Swarthmore's high national ranking that others have pointed out (and I agree with) -- I guess I'd want to hear from an actual NCS parent that Swarthmore is considered below the rest.

Harvard, Yale + MIT are heads above Swarthmore...so don't lump them into the same category.

This is a super-strange comment. They are all considered "nerdy"; that is the point I was making (along with Caltech, Chicago, etc.). They are, of course, vastly different schools. One is a small liberal arts college; the others are much larger universities. Many students actively prefer the smaller liberal arts college over the larger university. Heck, I got into two Ivies -- including one in the hallowed HYP group -- and got rejected by a small LAC. I would definitely put Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, and Pomona, for example, in the same category as the Ivies in terms of the intellectual abilities of the students.

you don't get it

Forgot to add U. of Chicago. VERY nerdy. Please cross off NCS' list.

Um pp...Harvard, Yale + MIT are heads above Swarthmore...so don't lump them into the same category.

Not a Swarthmore grad here, but it's ranked number 3 behind Amherst and Williams in the national liberal arts colleges list put out by US News. The only reason it might possibly be easier to get into than some of the lesser Ivies is the hordes of students (particularly international) who have an Ivy League fetish. I certainly hope that NCS wouldn't dissuade a student from going to a "nerdy" school like Swarthmore, MIT, Harvard or Yale.

Thank you pp. I am not a troll. In fact, I have 4 very nice girls who live in my neighborhood who graduated from Swarthmore 2 years ago. They're great. But, I know NCS does hope to get its folks into top Ivies, then schools such as Williams, Duke, Stanford, U of Chicago, Wash U, Amherst...and a few others before even considering Swarthmore. It really is a school for introspective, smart, but sort of nerdy introverted students.

Anonymous wrote:11:01 here. Wow, what a variety of responses. I'm going to agree with 12:35, I fell for a troll.

Why would a troll say NCS students aim higher than Swarthmore? Seems like a compliment to me. At best, it agitates the anti-NCS crowd, but they don't really need much agitation to post. I guess it could agitate the Swarthmore grads on DCUM, but that can't be a very large contingent. If it's a troll comment, it just doesn't seem a very effective one.

11:01 here. Wow, what a variety of responses. I'm going to agree with 12:35, I fell for a troll.

I've not seen Swarthmore on any of NCS' matriculation lists over the last several years.

Here's a list of colleges that I'd rank "higher" or "lower" (whatever that means) than Swarthmore, in no particular order. No need to debate this endlessly, but let me know if I'm fairly close to the correct assessment ...

Aiming "higher" than Swarthmore: Stanford, Penn, UVa, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Yale, Georgetown, Brown, Chicago, Harvard, Oxford

About the same as Swarthmore: Wesleyan, Colby, Northwestern, Trinity, Vanderbilt, Amherst, Carnegie Mellon, Michigan, NYU, Washington Univ (St. Louis), Edinburgh, Middlebury, Oberlin, Pomona, USC

Aiming "lower" than Swarthmore: Colgate, Tufts, BC, Bowdoin, Dickinson, Haverford, Kenyon, UNC, Tulane, Vermont, W&M, Indiana, Maryland

Anonymous wrote:They aim higher than Swarthmore at NCS.

I don't believe this is actually an NCS parent. I say troll.

Swarthmore is fine..but it's tiny and aims for a sort of quirky nerdy kid. A lot of NCS girls are cooler than that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They aim higher than Swarthmore at NCS.

Serious question: Really? Swarthmore takes 15% of applicants. Cornell takes 18-20%, I forget which. So if Cornell is presumably acceptable, then is it really all about the Ivies? Because not everyone in the clasd can go Ivy and I would think Swarthmore is a pretty darn good option.

Or maybe I just took a troll's bait. Feel free to tell me that.

agree with your post totally..troll or no troll...is was a point worth making......some of these QUeen Bees are just nuts!

Anonymous wrote:They aim higher than Swarthmore at NCS.

Serious question: Really? Swarthmore takes 15% of applicants. Cornell takes 18-20%, I forget which. So if Cornell is presumably acceptable, then is it really all about the Ivies? Because not everyone in the clasd can go Ivy and I would think Swarthmore is a pretty darn good option.

Or maybe I just took a troll's bait. Feel free to tell me that.