<p>My daughter is the second person in her high school to go to Swarthmore in two years, and I think one other kid in her class applied this year. Because of things I've read on CC and told her about, she is going to suggest to her GC that alumnae of the high school go back to talk to the juniors about their colleges, and she's going to volunteer.</p>
<p>Yes, my son mentioned something about this too when he was home for break. This is the "ambassadors" program, right? He wants to do it as well.</p>
<p>When he was applying either students didn't know about Swarthmore or gave him the line that students worked all the time and had no fun. But I wonder if Swat is really more difficult than Amherst or Williams, where kids from our HS go every year. LACs are actually quite popular with our students, though most go to Dickinson/Franklin+Marshall/ Trinity type places rather than AW. The very best students always target Ivies/MIT/Stanford rather than an LAC.</p>
<p>I don't think Swat is more difficult. But certainly, the look and feel of the school is different from Amherst or Williams. I've visited Williams, not Amherst, so I can't speak for Amherst. But the emphasis is different with Swat being more academic in feel and the makeup of the student body is different. It is ok to be a nerd at Swat, that's what I see as the main difference. Williams is made up of brilliant students too, but the emphasis is probably more on athletics....that's my guess. I could be wrong.</p>
<p>I think the difference is culture of the school, that intangible that is cultivated over many years and is part of the school as much as the ivy growing on the buildings. And look-and-feel of the student body. All 3 are wonderful schools and I don't see why more top students don't apply to them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But I wonder if Swat is really more difficult than Amherst or Williams, where kids from our HS go every year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Fundamentally, Williams and Swat offer comparably excellent academics and the academic intensity will be the same for many kids. </p>
<p>The difference is the percentage of the student body that is very actively engaged in their academics versus going through the motions. That percentage is higher at Swarthmore and lower at Williams (due to the much more prevalent drinking culture, the highest percentage of varsity athletes of any college in the United States, and other factors). It is these percentages that make Swarthmore feel more "academic" and allow the professors to push a little harder and give Williams the feel of a party/jock school despite the fact that a given student could make the academic workload at Williams just as intense as at Swarthmore. Likewise, it is certainly possible to put together an "easier" course load at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>From a marketing standpoint, high school students have no frame of reference, so when they hear that Swarthmore students "study all the time", they don't really understand that this is relatively subtle shade gray distinction -- that many students at Williams "study all the time" and that there are plenty of opportunities to "party" (i.e. drink) at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>As a Williams alum and a Swat parent, my sense is that Swarthmore today is probably quite similar to the way Williams was in the 1970s (except much more diverse and with a strong sense of community) and Williams has changed a bit, into a larger, somewhat less academically focused school. Williams, Dartmouth, and Duke largely cater to the same crowd these days -- smart, mostly wealthy kids, aiming for high-paying professional (corporate law, Wall Street), and enjoying a school with a dominating alcohol scene. To some degree, the serious students or quirky kids are marginalized more at those schools than at Swarthmore by the campus culture.</p>
<p>interesteddad:</p>
<p>As the father of a senior who has heard early and affirmatively from Amherst and Williams, and is still waiting to hear from Swarthmore, I'd be interested in knowing if you - or anyone else, for that matter - have any thoughts as to how Amherst fits into this mix. We have visited Swarthmore and will, I anticipate, be visiting both Williams and Amherst (and maybe Swarthmore again) in April. Thanks in advance . . . .</p>
<p>I'm not much help on Amherst because my daughter never considered it. Too close to home. Being from Mass, Amherst's location adjacent to ZooMass (and half of her high-school class) was a big negative. Plus, she loved Swat (a solid "fit" due to some community service ECs) and was a double-legacy at Williams, so Amherst would have been her worst shot at admission of the three. I simply don't have a handle on Amherst.</p>
<p>At the time I did my college tour back in the 1970s, Amherst was clearly more "preppie" than Williams. For example, I saw guys in coats and ties, when the standard Williams attire was hiking boots, blue jeans, and flannel shirts. I don't know whether that is the case today as the emphasis on athletics at Williams has changed the student body over the last 20 years. Back in the day, Williams and Swarthmore were neck and neck academically, with Williams being a bit more laid back/apolitical/preppie and Swat being a little more edgy/hippie/political. Swat has probably moved a bit the center -- "social responsibilty" is still a cornerstone of its stated mission, but these aren't real radical times and the campus is not overtly "radical" with all sorts of visible trappings or "causes". That quality today shows up mostly as an acceptance/embrace of all kinds of kids. Plus, a slightly higher percentage of grads doing things like Peace Corps, Teach for America, Charter Schools, Academics, and a slightly lower percentage headed to law/med/biz school (at least immediately after college).</p>
<p>I do know that, like Swarthmore, Amherst has been very aggressive in seeking diversity and is considered to be a friendly place for minority students. I don't know if it is as welcoming for quirky kids, or nerdy kids, or gay kids. Williams deserves credit, too -- but it has been the least aggressive of the three.</p>
<p>I do know that Amherst shares the prominant drinking culture with Williams. It is more athletically focused than Swat, but not to the same degree as Williams (which has the highest percentage of varsity athletes of ANY college or university in the United States).</p>
<p>I would say that Amherst's most unique feature is its location in the same town as a huge, decidedly mediocre state university. That has its pluses and minuses.</p>
<p>I don't think there's much to choose from academically. They are all excellent, with the only difference being that Swat has an unusually high percentage of students who really enjoy (or at least appreciate the value of) being pushed hard. Of course, Williams and Amherst have those students as well, but it is not quite the same defining part of the campus culture.</p>
<p>So, other than students who may find specific academic strengths at one school or another (Art History at Williams, Linguistics at Swat, etc.), the choice really boils down to campus culture and location.</p>
<p>From an historical perspective, I think the thing that has most shaped the three schools is that one of them admitted women from day one (and required an equal split of men/women on the Board) and the other two were institutions created by men for men to the exclusion of women. By the time Williams and Amherst accepted women, their institutional characters were firmly established and those don't change very quickly. This isn't so much something that overtly impacts day to day life and I'm not suggesting that women are second class citizens at the former-male schools, but it definitely contributes to how the colleges have evolved over time. For example, Amherst could NEVER consider dropping varsity football (even though they face the same problems trying to allocate too many precious admissions slots to recruting that Swat faced) because ALL of the alumni would go berserk. Swarthmore could consider it because only half the alumni (actually far less than that) would go on the warpath. </p>
<p>One of the key definining moments in Swat's history came shortly after WWI when a new President (the head of the Rhodes Scholar program at the time) wanted to reduce the emphasis on "Joe College fraternity life" and bring a very unique Honors program to the campus, emphasizing academic excellence. This was fiercely debated and the female voters on the Board were key to funding for the Honors program and the associated faculty costs. That program is probably the biggest single reason Swarthmore came to be so highly regarded in academic circles.</p>
<p>Sorry for getting all historic, but I think that the key to understanding similar schools is to look at how they evolved. That history is what makes these colleges different.</p>
<p>Interesteddad--Very interesting perspective. Maybe you should start a new thread about what's distinctive about Swat vs. A+W--your comments may get lost here.</p>
<p>I think you're dead right about Wms and Dartmouth being a breeding ground for I-banking, corporate law. Certainly the case for the kids I know who attended. Although my D's boarding school roommate, very bright African-American girl, is headed for Dartmouth next year.</p>
<p>Swarthmore churns out its share of I-bankers, too. That beautiful new classroom building behind Parrish is named after Jerome Kohlberg '46 of Kohlberg, Kravitz.... one of the granddaddies of the Wall Street I-banking firms.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the notion in the school's mission statement that intellectual elites have a social responsibility and that teaching that responsibility should be part of an elite education clearly resonates in the campus culture, career paths, etc.</p>
<p>A comment on Swatties:
The parents on the board are for the most part right in their depiction of the student body. But a few things need clarification.
Swarthmore has not moved to the center, as InterestedDad puts it. Hot button issues causes are present on campus. Students Against the Occupation, and so forth have ties to larger groups. There are also some radical and- dare I say it?- silly issues that do not take into account the realities of the school, like the Kick Coke campaign or even Living Wage, which has lost most of its momentum after the Board's reasonable decision. Lots of political discussions have convinced me that a lot of Swatties, particularly those involved in every Liberal cause known to man, are"bourgeois liberals", upper middle class children who look down upon the rest of the country as vulgar morons in desperate need of re-education and their help. There is no healthy skepticism of activism here.
I am not a conservative venting about the school's monolithic liberalism. There are active, healthy political discussions here. I am not very familiar with Williams or Amherst, but one can probably assume that neither campus is as far to the left as Swarthmore is.</p>
<p>itsrainingpants, from my last discussion with you, it does seem like you have moved from the center to the right of many issues, particularly monetary ones. It doesn't surprise me, therefore, when you say that Swarthmore is far to the left. If there are more kids like you, Swarthmore cannot be that far to the left as you say they are.</p>
<p>
[quote]
There is no healthy skepticism of activism here.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know. It sounds like you have a healthy skepticism of activism. And, I know at least one other student who certainly does. I suspect you are not the only two! Heck, my daughter even has a registered Republican on her floor.</p>
<p>When I say "moved to the center", I am not talking about a shift in voting registration or party affiliation, but rather a much mellower degree of politicization relative to the not-so-distant past. For example, the "living wage" issue appears to be the big "activist cause" of the last year or so and it played out as a few banners, a table in Sharples, some newspaper editorials, and a Kohlberg coffee house chat with Al Bloom. </p>
<p>That is a very different Swarthmore than in 1969 when a student group occupied Parrish for the better part of a week. Or, the Swarthmore that produced Cathy Wilkerson of the Weather Underground (I don't think there are too many future terrorist bomb-makers strolling up and down McGill Walk these days). Or, perhaps even the Swarthmore that sent undergrads Carl Levin and Mike Dukakis down to Washington to deliver an anti-McCarthy petition to Congress. It's just the nature of the times: Dean Gross said it in the parents orientation when he talked of how today's students are much more interested in working within the system.</p>
<p>The "causes" at Swarthmore these days are pretty standard campus causes. "Living wage" has been a cause du jour at Harvard and many other colleges of late.</p>
<p>I was also trying to point out a difference compared to some of the more "radical" campuses today (such that they are). Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are not a lot of visible trappings of radicalism or disenfranchisement at Swarthmore. For example: hard-core goth kids or the overtly militant gay/lesbian activists that are visible at some schools. </p>
<p>Having said that, Swarthmore students are probably more "liberal" politically than the students at some of the more "preppie" schools like Williams, Duke, Dartmouth, etc. Presumably that's, in part, why they chose a college that has "social responsibility" as a major component of its mission statement. </p>
<p>Faculty? I don't know. I saw a recent blog entry regarding someone who had gone through the voter registration lists in Berkshire County and come up with a whopping total of four registered Republicans or Libertarians on the Williams faculty. As Mini likes to point out, the profs at all of these colleges are the same people from the same grad schools, and could be swapped en masse and nobody would know the difference.</p>
<p>Another sign that Swarthmore is not far to the left of issues there: according to itsrainingpants (from whom I get most of my news), Thomas Friedman is a hero there in the Poli Sci department. Now Thomas Friedman is no bleeding heart lefty....if I may say so.</p>