<p>I am currently a junior, and am thinking about these schools. How do they compare. I'm especially interested in the political science departments at these schools. Any comments would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Obviously, both are elite LACs. But they do differ in a couple of ways. For on thing, Bowdoin tends to be quite liberal whereas Swarthmore is not quite as much. Obviously, Bowdoin is quite rural whereas Swarthmore is suburban. Finally, I would say that Swarthmore is a little better known. </p>
<p>You also want to keep an eye on Amherst, Claremont McKenna, Wesleyan and Williams.</p>
<p>"Bowdoin tends to be quite liberal whereas Swarthmore is not quite as much."</p>
<p>I don't know. Swat seemed very liberal to me. Not that that's a problem or anything... :)</p>
<p>College_Hopeful, I agree. I never said that Swarthmore was conservastive. All I said was that it is not quite as liberal as Bowdoin.</p>
<p>I wouldn't call Bowdoin rural. It's located in a nice little town that's 30 minutes from the most diverse city in the state, and 45 minutes from the capital. There are a variety of restaurants, several icecream places, 2 movie theaters, and decent shopping opportunities nearby. That said, most Bowdoin kids find their entertainment on campus, which isn't a bad thing. They've got good parties, plenty of extracurriculars, a very active outing club, and a fiery rivalry with Colby during the hockey season. </p>
<p>Good luck with your choice.</p>
<p>Peas in a pod. Far, far more similarities than differences. Academically it is a wash - professors are trained at the same institutions, students come from the same places; both excellent poli. sci departments. Bowdoin is a little larger, as I remember. There will be more sports, music, and applied arts on campus at Bowdoin, and more to be accessed in the city at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>Maine is colder than eastern Pennsylvania, and, if it matters, Swarthmore has more access to all of the eastern seaboard cities. Visit during the school year and you'll know which you favor.</p>
<p>Bowdoin is quite isolated, up there in Maine, whereas Swarthmore is close to Philadelphia and the whole eastern megapolis area.</p>
<p>Both excellent schools. Bowdoin tends to be a bit more athletic and a bit more preppy with a somewhat more prevalent drinking culture. Swathmore more "intellectual", less athletic, and below average heavy drinking. </p>
<p>Bowdoin is very isolated on the seacoast north of Portland (a very small city) about 2.5 hours north of Boston. Very harsh winters.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is in an old close-in neighborhood of Phila. -- 25 minutes to downtown on the communter train from a station in the middle of campus.</p>
<p>Bowdoin is actually more similar to Williams than it is to Swarthmore.</p>
<p>Alright, I've been overruled. But from the perspective of a Mainer, Bowdoin's not really THAT isolated.</p>
<p>Homer, you sound almost identical to me a year ago. I was interested in both of those schools and poli sci.</p>
<p>In terms of poli sci, Bowdoin has a very strong gov department. The London School of Econ ranked it as the best undergrad-only school for gov in the world. And it shows. It seemed like everyone I talked to at the open house was either majoring, double-majoring, or minoring in gov. and everyone gushed about the gov department. The downside, especially for gov majors, is that gov classes fill insanely quickly (or so I've been told) and soemtimes students are closed out of a clas they need. Swat also has a great poli sci department. Interesteddad posted a ranking on Poli Sci Ph D's per capita for undergrad schools, and Swat was at the top by a good margin IIRC. If a Ph D is something that you are interested in, then Swat would be the best option.</p>
<p>In terms of location, Bowdoin is not as isolated as people make it out to be. Brunswick is a good sized town, and Freeport and Portland are nearby, but Swat is close enough to Philly without being in Philly, so its good if you want to be near a major urban center while still retaining that "small-town" feel, Swat has it beat. I also personally prefer Swat's campus. It feels more open and parts of the arboretum are down right amazing (like the outdoor ampitheater). Bowdoin's campus is nice, but its kinda cramped and revolves around a single large quad, which is really the only open space on campus.</p>
<p>Both schools are liberal, but Swat is decidedly more so. Bowdoin is more outdoorsy and more preppy, but it felt more like the former than the latter as compared to other similar schools (Middlebury, Colby, Williams). It definitely has a more prevalent atheletic program. Swat is more intellectual and more diverse. Its a place where nearly everyone loves their classes and gets into heady discussions at the dinner table.</p>
<p>In terms of feel, Bowdoin epitomizes the old New England sense of modesty and simplicity. It really doesn't have any show-offy buildings, and it doesnt push itself as much as other schools. Swat reminded me of a monastery (which is a good thing), and it wasn't only the buildings. It really felt like some pure, unadultered place of learning. The weather's nice, the people are cool and motivated, and theres plenty to do outside of the Swat "bubble" to keep you busy.</p>
<p>homer, alexandre is basically wrong on both counts, for all the assuredness that he seems to exude. bowdoin is far from rural (of the maine LACs, colby's the most remote) - it's in the largest town in maine (which is not huge, but is very nice and has everything you'd need). bowdoin is also, though far from conservative, less liberal than swarthmore. it seems like most of the other posters on this thread have a pretty good idea of how things are, though.</p>
<p>if you have any questions specific to bowdoin, i'd be glad to answer them - i don't go to swat (though i have several close friends who do), though, so i don't want to spread any misinformation about the school.</p>
<p>To put the locations in perspective:</p>
<p>Bowdoin is in Brunswick, Maine - population: 21,000. It is 25 miles from Portland, Maine - population: 64,000. The metro Portland area has a population of 230,000.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is 11 miles from downtown Philadelphia, in an "inside-the-beltway" neighborhood. Population of metro-Philly: 5 million.</p>
<p>I like coastal Maine a lot (except on summer weekends, when tourist gridlock makes it impossible to drive), but it is definitely small town/rural/remote.</p>
<p>"The London School of Econ ranked it (Bowdoin) as the best undergrad-only school for gov in the world."</p>
<p>I'd be very interested in a cite for this.</p>
<p>interesteddad, have you actually been to bowdoin during the school year? it is very much a part of suburbia.</p>
<p>Allison, I have visited Bowdoin many a time. It has a gorgeous campus...but it is remote and rural. A town of 25,000 cannot be considered urban. And since there is no major city near it, it cannot be classified as suburban. </p>
<p>I am obviously wrong about how liberal Bowdoin is. I actually have limited exposure to both Bowdoin and Swarthmore. The dozen or so alumns from Swarthmore I have met were not quite as liberal as the half dozen or so Bowdoin alumns I have met. But in that regard, I am sure you know much more than I do.</p>
<p>By the way, given the choice between those two, I would go to Bowdoin. I do not like rural settings, but of all the LACs I have visited, Bowdoin and Grinnell have been my favorite.</p>
<p>alexandre, it is very much a suburban college. you seem to have a very narrow definition of "suburban," and, while it is very faithful to the original idea of "the suburb," i'm not sure that it works for identifying college environments - or perhaps another category needs to be introduced (developed large town/suburb-like areas that are not actually directly next to cities).</p>
<p>basically, regardless of whether or not you consider portland a "major" city, it is very nearby, and occupants of brunswick commute to work there (and vice versa). the entire brunswick/bath/freeport area is very much developed (with far too many chain stores and restaurants...) and you are a stone's throw from your next-door neighbors. it is <em>more</em> suburb-like than the "bonafide" suburb that i grew up in.</p>
<p>i honestly do not understand how you can have visited the college so many times and still call it "remote and rural" - do you come from an extremely large city? the only people i know at bowdoin who consider it "rural" are the kids from places like NYC and LA.</p>
<p>and since you say you prefer grinnell and bowdoin: would you put them both in the same category (rural and remote)? if so, do you think that they are situated in similar environments? just curious. this is getting a little off-topic, but what small LACs would you classify as "suburban?" (incidentally, i prefer kenyon to grinnell, myself. talk about remote, though...)</p>
<p>I've not specifically been to Bowdoin, but I live about 90 minutes south of Bowdoin and am pretty familiar with NE Mass, NH, and Southern Maine seacoast regions.</p>
<p>Alexandre: </p>
<p>Don't feel bad. This whole "liberal" versus "conservative" issue is so tiresome and so irrelevant to college selection. It's no big secret that virtually all elite colleges, especially in the northeast are "liberal" compared to the general population. But, it is just amazing to me that people actually take superficial political soundbyte labels seriously when it come to choosing a college. I guess it's a natural consequence of the "demonization" that serves as the currency of popular political discussion these days.</p>
<p>As for an issue that does have some relevance to selecting a college, Bowdoin is probably a bit less "intellectual" and more pre-professional oriented than Swarthmore (on a percentage basis). Or, to put that more accurately, both schools produce a lot of doctors and lawyers, Swarthmore produces more PhDs.</p>
<p>The very close comparison is Bowdoin, Williams, and Dartmouth. All three schools cater to a similar overall clientele (outdoorsy, rural, athletic, pre-pro, work hard/drink hard).</p>
<p>I think Swarthmore probably overlaps more closely with Harvard (the non good-old-boy segment), Chicago, and Brown, and maybe even MIT) with a more diverse, more "nerdy", less athletic clientele that produces a lot of research/public-policy types in both government and academia.</p>
<p>Allison, I actually hate NYC! LOL But I love Paris and Chicago...as well as Ann Arbor and Madison. So I am not necessarily and urbanite! I grew up in Abu Dhabi, a city with less than half a million people. But I went to Cornell for graduate school, and I consider Cornell to be rural...and let me tell you the Ithaca/Syracuse combo is significantly larger than the Brunswick/Portland combo!
I actually did not find Bowdoin and Grinnell similar in most respects. But they had a few things in common. I am not sure how I can describe them...it is almost intangible. I just really felt at home when I visited those two campuses. I also liked Amherst and Middlebury by the way. I did not have the same feeling when I visited Carleton, Haverford, Oberlin, Swarthmore, Vassar etc.... But like I said, I am not sure why I liked some LACs as opposed to others. With larger universities, I usually had a more tangible reason. Weird huh?! LOL</p>
<p>reidm-there's your cite. People brought it up a lot at the open house.</p>
<p>Not to beat a dead horse, but I think that Bowdoin's falls more under "small-town" than rural. When I think rural, I think of places like Middlebury, where the college is surrounded by farmland.</p>
<p>interesteddad - I totally disagree that the liberal/conservative character of the institution has no relevance in selection of a place to live and learn for 4 years. A strong character in one direction or the other could be uncomfortable or divisive for a student of another background or POV, or could be excessively influential for a student with limited self-confidence. The character of the institution could also exert influence on educational choices, on post-graduate placements or jobs, internships, friends, etc. I think students could find themselves socially uncomfortable or misaligned in some polarized school settings. It seems more of a concern at a conservative school, frankly, since the concept of liberalism would be inclusive and tolerant, theoretically (smile).</p>