<p>I received the following questions in a private message from from a potential applicant and thought that it would probably be of wider interest, so I'm answering here.</p>
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I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about the social culture. I've also heard that professors often assign a lot of reading knowing that students can't finish it - first, is that kind of practice an actuality? And second, do you thinkit contributes to student stress?
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<p>On social cuture:</p>
<p>I think you have to start with the kids who attend. It's a little hard to generalize because there are many kinds of kids at Swarthmore, but... They are all pretty smart and have done well in high school. They tend to be kids who hung out with other "smart" kids, not so much the party crowd in high school. They range from pretty "normal" kids to some hard-core nerds. Not much in the way of "loud" statements -- piercings, tatoos, goth, etc.</p>
<p>There are kids from expensive prep schools, but for the most part tend to not be textbook "preppies". The wealthy kids tend to not flaunt it and there is little or no class distinction. The percentage from public schools is pretty high for a college with extremely high median SATs. About, 22% play varsity athletics, but with few exceptions, athletics comes second to academics. The students are very diverse, but mostly tend to be kids who had some interest in social action of one type or another -- community service, teaching, public policy law, international business with a third world bent, etc.</p>
<p>Typical social scene involves a lot of impromtu gatherings in dorms -- a sushi party where they make sushi and drink saki, watch a Kill Bill marathon, etc. There are typically two or three parties every Friday and Saturday nights, all of which are open to the entire campus. Any group, even just an informal group of friends, can easily get funding to sponsor a party as long as it is open to the campus. These are held in one of several locations and on any given night, one party might be sponsored by the women's tennis team and another by the Southeast Asian group. Doesn't really matter, a party is a party. My daugther's group of freshmen friends got funding for a party and had about 200 people. She said it was a lot of work!</p>
<p>Typical Friday night would be to do something (a movie, a concert, an acapella peformance, a Swarthmore Idol competion with the deans as Simon Cowell judges, a poker tournament, or dinner in Philly, and then head to one of the campus parties from midnight to 2:00 am). Most parties have alcohol, but non-drinkers go and dance to the DJ along with the drinkers. Another typical "party" is an indie rock band in the basement at the Olde Club -- an ex-frat lodge on campus. </p>
<p>About once a month is a major traditional campus-wide event where just about everybody on campus attends. Examples include the Mary Lyon Halloween Party. Or, the "Screw Your Roomate" dance (you set your roomate up with a blind date and they have to find each other based on funny costumes, acting out a skit in front of the whole school). Or, the huge, and reputedly wild, Sagar party sponsored by the gay student group.</p>
<p>The hard-core Animal House drinking scene is relatively limited by college standards, both in terms of percentage of students and disruption of the rest of campus. Non-drinkers and moderate drinkers make up dominant majority.</p>
<p>On assigning more work than can be done. The answer to that is, "of course!". I don't know a college kid in the history of the universe who hasn't, from time to time, had more to read than can be done by the next class. Part of college is prioritizing the work. If you have a paper due and a seminar on the same day, you might read the first assignment for the seminar, knowing that the majority of the discussion will be on that one.</p>
<p>Other than the natural stress of every college kid during exam week, I don't think Swarthmore is as stressful as it is portrayed... or at least doesn't have to be. The kids who feel the most stress are those who, for whatever reason, feel that they absolutely must have a 4.0 GPA while doing an Honors double-major, playing on the tennis team, and performing in the orchestra. If you want to overwhelm yourself with work, the school is happy to oblige, but that is a personal choice. </p>
<p>Very few of my daughter's friends sound like they are inordinately stressed by the work. To the contrary, they find the courses to be pretty fun for the most part. Grades are simply not discussed. Friends study together, proof-read each others' papers, and often sign up for a class together because they all think it sounds interesting or because somebody else took the class and recommended it. On average, they work reasonably hard. But, that's part of why they went there.</p>
<p>The faculty (in fact, the whole school) seems to be realistic about the odds of a college student getting everything done on time and tends to be accomodating. My daughter says the professors are too accomodating.</p>