<p>Hey, I'll be visiting Swarthmore in a couple weeks, and I was wondering if there are any particular things I should see or pay attention to while I'm there. Also, does the campus tour include a visit to a typical dorm?</p>
<p>I don’t know where the tours take you, so it’s hard to recommend additional stops. What are you interested in?</p>
<p>The admissions office is in a dorm. I don’t know if the official tours go into a dorm room or not. That might be a little awkward taking your parents into a college dorm where people might be doing the things that college students do that you probably wouldn’t want your parents walking in on. Honestly, the only time parents belong in a college dorm is when they are carrying boxes up or down the stairs to the car.</p>
<p>If your tour doesn’t go to a dorm room, just chat up a student and get him or her to show you a dorm room. Or, better yet, go back for an overnight visit and spend the night in a dorm next fall.</p>
<p>My three favorite places on campus are:</p>
<p>a) the amphitheater (which is almost certainly on the tour)</p>
<p>b) the fragrance garden in the coutyard between the bell tower and the Tarble student center (where the snack bar and bookstore are located)</p>
<p>c) the teaching garden behind the Scott Arboreteum offices. </p>
<p>If your parents are going with you, send 'em to see some of the gardens.</p>
<p>To see students, you can eat in Sharples, paying cash for a meal. It’s open all day from like 7 am to 7 pm. Or the snack bar in Tarble. Or, the coffee bar in Kohlberg. Or (my favorite) the coffee bar in the Science Center. These are all places you could grab a coffee and people watch.</p>
<p>When we went on a tour, we did go into a dorm room. It looked like a very typical dorm room (small, crowded, with two beds). But it’s always interesting to check it out.</p>
<p>We went into a dorm room on our tour.</p>
<p>I recommend, in addition to tour and info sessions, seeing if you can meet with any one from the department you’re most interested in or sit in on a class.</p>
<p>If you are interested in the sciences, wander around the department and see if you can find a professor in their office. If they have some time, they are usually happy to talk to you and show you around their lab. This of course could be arranged ahead of time, but we’ve often found someone available by wandering around. Also, while you are wandering, check out the posters, flyers, etc. on the department’s walls. This will tell you a lot about what the students in the department are up to.</p>
<p>This advice is also valid for just about any college you visit. Without the lab tour, it also can work for a professor in any non-science department.</p>
<p>Our experience is that the tour at Swarthmore does include a dorm room. My sense is that the info session is pretty good, though much that you will hear at any LAC info session sounds like a session at all the other LACs.</p>
<p>If you are interested in athletics, definitely check out the field house and athletic facilities just south of the train tracks.</p>
<p>Tours include a look inside a dorm room.
I’ve seen many tours, and I’ve been on a few before. Typically they go to
- Parrish
- inside a dorm (usually theirs)
- you see Sharples but don’t go inside
- Kohlberg Coffee Bar
- McCabe
- Science Center (see Sci 101, biggest class)
- a seminar-sized classroom</p>
<p>In addition to other poster’s recommendations, I’d like to suggest that you visit the Ville (across the train station) if you have time.</p>
<p>Other people have mentioned most of the important things to see. 
One thing about Sharples and people watching - don’t go at off-peak hours, because there will be really no students for you to see (meaning if you really want to see students, go 11-1, if you’re an afternoon visitor, although you should know it can also be kind of crazy around those times). Go to a coffee bar instead if it’s people and not food you’re interested in.</p>
<p>Also, if you have particular things you want to see or have questions about, do tell your tour guide. As a guide, I can tell you that it’s very helpful to know if people have certain interests or issues they want me to talk about. A guide probably won’t change their route for you unless you’re the only family in the tour, but they can certainly point you in the right direction after the tour. And, as everyone has said, a tour should include a dorm room - typically the guide’s own room, unless they live off campus.</p>
<p>Ashencro,</p>
<p>When my D was looking at colleges, either she, or I (writing as a college prof colleague, not as a mom) e-mailed the chair of her department of interest indicating that we would be in the area and asked about an opportunity for her to sit in on a class. The chair at Swarthmore was the most accommodating and enthusiastic of all the colleges that we contacted. Through the application process he remained in touch with her and even gave her his home number. (Giving out the home number was unusual not typical and something I would not expect.) Her contact with him and another professor from another department ultimately moved Swarthmore to the top of her list.</p>
<p>Indifference to e-mails or in person contacts at other schools pushed those schools downward or eliminated them altogether. The reaction to questions or contact attempts is usually a pretty good indicator of how responsive the faculty or department will be to the needs of a student. </p>
<p>If you are not inclined to write ahead of time, pop in at the office of departments that interest you and make contact with the staff. Introduce yourself and ask if you can sit in on a class. Register with the office of admissions. Walk around. Talk to students. Pick up a student newspaper. Sit somewhere where you can see student traffic, go to the library. Try to eat a meal. These are things that you should be doing at every school that you visit. </p>
<p>People watching and listening to conversations are some of the best indicators of a school’s climate. However, make sure that at small schools like Swarthmore, that you are people watching while students are going from one class to the next, otherwise the campus will feel desserted. At Swarthmore in particular, everyone eats lunch at the same time, so that is a good time to people watch.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Ask them to take you inside the LPAC, if they don’t. </p>
<p>And (as with dadx3’s advice, this applies to just about any given college) try not to judge all students by your tour guide. You might get one whose interests are completely different from yours; you might get one who’s normally charming but is having a bad day, or hasn’t had coffee yet, or whatever. You could of course get a completely simpatico, knowledgeable, animated, terrifically magnetic tour guide (perhaps one of the posters here), but if you don’t, there’s no valuable conclusion to be drawn from that. </p>
<p>For various reasons, I’ve caught all or most of several (probably five?) tours at Swat in the last four years. They were pretty uneven - as were the close to two dozen overall at several other schools.</p>
<p>I’d just like to thank all of you for giving me your advice. I had some questions to ask, unfortunately its 3AM here, so my memory is fogged with techniques of integration. Contrary to the last sentence, I’m interested in English and perhaps Economics and Sociology/Anthropology. I’ll be back tomorrow with more questions. Thanks again!</p>
<p>We toured Swarthmore last summer. They did let us into Sharples. There wasn’t much to see.</p>
<p>Ok, so I have a question regarding the visitation of classes. For current students, alumni, and other people who have sat in a class, do visitors usually participate in any way in the class? Do the professors notice at all? Are classroom visitors common?</p>
<p>Do not participate in the class.</p>
<p>Plainsman: It depends on what time you go. There won’t be anyone there at 3 pm, but around 6-6:30 there’ll be plenty of people. I think it would be good for students and parents to try the food (see how greasy it is) and get a feel for what Sharples is like.</p>
<p>ashencro: No, don’t participate. Classroom visitors aren’t often and come around the time when a lot of tours happen (around the spring). I’d recommend that just prospective students sit in on a relatively small class and that the parents sit outside or walk elsewhere. I think for large classes like Bio it’s OK for both parents and students. Either way, set up an appointment beforehand.</p>
<p>ashencro-we visited Swarthmore last week. The Admissions Office has a course schedule hanging up on a bulletin board. We had checked out the course schedule beforehand, though. My S just went and stood outside the classroom a few minutes early and when the professor arrived, my S introduced himself and asked if he could sit in on the class. The professor was very gracious and S sat in. It was a class fo 16 students. I wandered about for those 50 minutes.</p>
<p>They did take us to see a dorm room. My opinion is that it was on the “low end” of dorm rooms at Swat (ugly building), so I guess that’s good in a sense so you see the worst possible situation. (I am familiar with many of the dorms since S#1 is a recent graduate.) They also took us into the performing arts center, the amphitheater where graduation is held (along with a number of other things), the library, etc.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine a parent sitting in on a class with a prospective student. That would be so awkward. There are plenty of nice spots on campus for parents to go kill an hour or two.</p>
<p>The only other thing I would add would be to stay over-night in a dorm if you could. S2 did that and it made all the difference. He got a taste of life at Swarthmore and liked it far better than all his other college visits where he also stayed over-night. I stayed at a local B&B and was out walking the campus early in the morning. At least ten different students all asked if I needed help finding something. I found the student body to be incredibly nice.</p>
<p>interesteddad: Definitely, for the smallish classes. But for a big class like Bio, as long as the parent and prospective student sit in the back, it’s fine.</p>
<p>Ok, sounds good guys, great information. One more question about sitting in on a class: should visiting students arrive when the class starts and sit through the entire class, or can we come and stay for the last half our of a class? Thanks!</p>
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<p>It’s not fine for the poor 'spec who has to sit there like a dweeb, mortified with his mother sitting next to him. I promise every parent of a future Swattie. It won’t kill you go read a book in the Fragrance Garden or the Teaching Garden the amphitheater for an hour while little Bifffy or Buffy checks out a class. They’ll be OK.</p>
<p>Parents should make themselves scarce on college visits. Don’t stand up and ask how many Nobel Prize winner are on the faculty at the info sessions.</p>