a few questions...

<p>1) how is the surrounding town?
2) i'm interested in doing pre-med. are there many opportunities at nearby hospitals?
3) i've heard of the intense workload. how hard is it to maintain a good gpa and will it hurt when applying for med school?
4) does early decision help enormously?
5) how are the facilities? (gyms, music rooms, dorm quality, library)</p>

<p>i really like swarthmore, mostly because of all the positive things i've heard about its enthusiastic students and intellectual atmosphere. i will be applying this fall... </p>

<p>thanks very much for answering!</p>

<p>hey, i'm an 09er, rd, pre-med</p>

<p>1) how is the surrounding town?
honestly, from what ive seen, it's pretty dull. nothing too exciting going on, except the usual few hangout places. ive heard theres always stuff going on on campus, and philly isnt too far either.</p>

<p>2) i'm interested in doing pre-med. are there many opportunities at nearby hospitals?
i mapquested it, and the closest hospital is like a mile away, so im sure there will be opportunities to volunteer there. also theres research and stuff like that.</p>

<p>3) i've heard of the intense workload. how hard is it to maintain a good gpa and will it hurt when applying for med school?
pretty hard, ive heard, but most med schools realize that its much harder to have a 4.0 coming from swarthmore than it is coming from a place like, say, penn state ( no disrespect) and they take that into account</p>

<p>4) does early decision help enormously?
not ENORMOUSLY, like if you're an easy admit you're in and if you're not up to caliber you're out, but if you're kinda near the borderline ed will definitely give you a boost that might put you over the top</p>

<p>5) how are the facilities? (gyms, music rooms, dorm quality, library)
great. the music rooms and library espectially were awesome, and the gyms and dorms were pretty average (i felt) make sure you go visit them!!!! hope this helps :)</p>

<ol>
<li>the sorrounding town (which we call the ville) is as stated before, not that exciting. A couple pizza places, chinese food, a supermarket, like four hair salons (none of which are open), a music store, couple banks and a nice breakfast place. That's pretty much it. We do however have a mall that is a ten to fifteen minute walk from the campus. The college is pretty self-sufficient and there's always something to do.
2.I'm not pre-med but i know a lot of pre-meds who are working in hospitals around the country during their summer and research opportunities on campus. sorry, not much to say here.
2.It depends on the individual. The thing with swarthmore is that once you get here, you'll want to get involved with a lot of different things and the hardest part is finding that balance. Medical schools, however, will no doubt recognize Swarthmore so don't worry about it (at least not yet). unless you do absolutely terribly, it won't hurt your chances for med school.</li>
<li>If you are absolutely sure of swarthmore (and can convey that to the admissions office) and if you are a strong applicant then early decision would be a good option. However, if you don't get in early, u run the risk of being downright rejected (as opposed to deferred).</li>
<li>I love the gym at swat. there's an indoor and outdoor track, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, music rooms seem good, the dorms are better than a lot of the dorms at other schools (as in bigger and nicer). The library is nice because whatever you can't find there you can find at either Bryn Mawr, Haverford or Upenn. </li>
</ol>

<p>hope this helps.</p>

<p>thank you both SO MUCH !! :)</p>

<p>the answers really helped, i love you all dearly (haha spur of the moment feeling once i saw i actually got responses)</p>

<p>On the Swarthmore forum, you will always get very civilized responses.....lots of people around, including parents of kids attending Swat.</p>

<p>There are also opportunities to volunteer at the Philly Children's Hospital during the year. This is one of the activities you can sign up for during orientation at the beginning of freshman year.</p>

<p>The "neighborhood" is a little hard to describe unless you've visited Swarthmore and particularly hard to describe to people from sunbelt cities.</p>

<p>When you talk about the village of Swarthmore, you are talking about a small retail "village" that grew up around the college and the train station back in the early 1900's Keep in mind that Swarthmore itself is totally dominated by the college and by pretty nice old residential areas surrounding it.</p>

<p>However, if you walk half a mile, you emerge out of the wooded residential neighborhood to a major boulevard (Balitmore Pike) where it intersects with Phila's perimeter highway (I-476). This stretch of the Balitmore Pike is a pretty nice high-density commerical district with a sizeable mall and other strip-mall centers with Target, Best Buy, etc. Restaurant options include Northern Italian, Thai, Bertucci's Pizza, John Harvards pub, Starbucks, and all the typical stuff you find near a mall commercial center. This commercial district is within easy walking distance from campus. It is also on a direct city bus route (5 minutes) from the center of campus running up and down the Baltimore Pike. The college also runs a "shopping" shuttle van on Saturdays.</p>

<p>Finally, Swarthmore's "neighborhood" definitely includes downtown Phila -- with direct commuter rail service from a train station right in the middle of campus or by college shuttle vans on weekends. Phila is a destination for all kinds of things. For example, I know my D went to the Phila Museum of Art twice last semester -- once for fun and once for a paper on a particular painting. It is also the destination of choice for a night out on the town -- often a group dinner outing to celebrate somebody's birthday.</p>

<p>that's great - i was afraid of the 'middle of nowhere' location but thanks for clearing up. nearby mall - woohoo!</p>

<p>Here's the Google Maps link to the satellite view of campus.</p>

<p><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=500+college+ave,+swarthmore,+pa&ll=39.906444,-75.351405&spn=0.019265,0.035388&t=h&hl=en%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://maps.google.com/maps?q=500+college+ave,+swarthmore,+pa&ll=39.906444,-75.351405&spn=0.019265,0.035388&t=h&hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Close the little caption bubble. The mall is just above the words "Baltimore Pike" on the left. Go to the right from the mall a block or two to next shopping center. That one has Bertuccis Pizza with Starbucks directly across the street.</p>

<p>Go a block or two more to the right and you'll see the shopping center with the Target store, along with a Italian cafe. There's a Barnes and Noble somewhere along that strip, but I don't know which shopping center it's in.</p>

<p>I-476 (the Blue Route) is the western beltway road around Phila. Zoom out and you can see downtown Phila and the airport. Downtown is about 11 miles from campus (25 minutes on the train).</p>