<p>is there a club that dominates the whole club scene?</p>
<p>I have a child at Swarthmore and see that there are problems. One is that there are not enough course offerings for some very common fields of study. </p>
<p>Another is that the food in Sharples is not very healthy, lots of fried food. The vegetarian food is very redundant, as it is generally tofu disguished in many different ways, none of which are very appetizing. The food service hours are ridiculously short, as it is fairly impossible to get healthy plentiful food in the evenings, after working out, or while studying, as part of the food service. There are no independent restaurants on campus like there are at other colleges.</p>
<p>I have found the financial aid office to be very unsympathetic to individual circumstances, in spite of their large endowment, if you don't exactly fit their formulas, forget it for money.</p>
<p>Lastly, the lack of name recognition is a huge problem, and I wish my child had gone somewhere that people were more familiar with, as it would be a help in getting jobs and tapping into a wider alum network.</p>
<p>It is a pretty and a generally safe campus. The deans are available, but not always in control of situations such as drinking and smoking on campus.</p>
<p>There are some very nice, sweet students there, and it is easy to join organizations, or start them.</p>
<p>But it is definitely a mixed bag, and has cons as well as pros.</p>
<p>I have a child at Swarthmore and see that there are problems. One is that there are not enough course offerings for some very common fields of study. </p>
<p>Another is that the food in Sharples is not very healthy, lots of fried food. The vegetarian food is very redundant, as it is generally tofu disguished in many different ways, none of which are very appetizing. The food service hours are ridiculously short, as it is fairly impossible to get healthy plentiful food in the evenings, after working out, or while studying, as part of the food service. There are no independent restaurants on campus like there are at other colleges.</p>
<p>I have found the financial aid office to be very unsympathetic to individual circumstances, in spite of their large endowment, if you don't exactly fit their formulas, forget it for money.</p>
<p>Lastly, the lack of name recognition is a huge problem, and I wish my child had gone somewhere that people were more familiar with, as it would be a help in getting jobs and tapping into a wider alum network.</p>
<p>It is a pretty and a generally safe campus. The deans are available, but not always in control of situations such as drinking and smoking on campus.</p>
<p>There are some very nice, sweet students there, and it is easy to join organizations, or start them.</p>
<p>But it is definitely a mixed bag, and has cons as well as pros.</p>
<p>Bad vegetarian food? Say more, say more!!</p>
<p>The lack of sympathy for individual financial circumstances worries me. My absent father married a wealthy businesswoman and does not work; when mom and I called Swarthmore to explain the situation and plead that they consider her relative disinterest in contributing despite supporting him almost entirely, they were not particularly receptive (and in fact attempted to dissuade me from applying early at all). We had heard good things about Swat's finaid, and hoped we merely spoke with a particularly disgruntled employee, but this is discouraging. Any other experiences?</p>
<p>my friend who is an alumni there told me that the greatest thing about it was the equality that they promote and tried to do. They did everything that they could to help her and not feel out of place. Im pretty sure the pushing of equality there is good.</p>
<p>The veg food can definitely be bad if you're used to eating vegetarian at home. But I know lots of students who stay vegetarian only at Swat, since it's possible there and a lot harder at home...it definitely could be better, but there are options. It's mostly vegan options that are terrible.</p>
<p>Actually, I think FinAid really depends tons on individuals. We talked to them a lot to get our finaid package to make more sense and it ended up working out, but you do have to spend a lot of time communicating with them and making your situation real to them. It IS hard to get the help you need sometimes if one or both parents refuse to contribute, a definite downside to Swat's finaid, but that would happen anywhere, since it's hard to convince them of that kind of situation, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Mmm thanks for the input. Fingers crossed, I suppose.</p>
<p>I don't think that getting financial aid should be so dependent upon whom you speak with, and what their mood is that day. I think they also put a premium on "getting" certain types of students, and I suspect there is great inequity in how the same financial figures are regarded as to who the family is. </p>
<p>There is way too much subjectivity in the financial aid. </p>
<p>Honestly, we are very sorry that our child attends Swarthmore. The tuition is killing us, and they seem to care very little about retaining our stellar student as we cannot afford full tuition and they insist we can. Very unfeeling group of people there.</p>
<p>The appeal process, by the way, is to speak with one very stuck-up woman who has been operating the Financial Aid office there for years as her own personal politically-correct charity.</p>
<p>From Post 48.......“Honestly, we are very sorry that our child attends Swarthmore. The tuition is killing us, and they seem to care very little about retaining our stellar student as we cannot afford full tuition and they insist we can. Very unfeeling group of people there.</p>
<p>The appeal process, by the way, is to speak with one very stuck-up woman who has been operating the Financial Aid office there for years as her own personal politically-correct charity.....”</p>
<p>I am also a Swarthmore parent and my experiences with the school could not be more different. The financial is fair and generous, and every person I have met or dealt with from a grounds keeper to the president of the college has been pleasant and helpful. Phone calls are returned quickly and the person from the college on the other end of the phone line has always had a how can I make this work for you attitude. </p>
<p>My whole family is very happy with Swarthmore College and appreciative of the way they treat all of us.</p>
<p>I can't talk specifically about fin.aid, but from our (somewhat limited) experience in interaction with administration, they are extremely nice, informal, helpful and personal. (The same level of interaction with Stanford's administration was major pain...)</p>
<p>Gee, swatparent, I am sorry to hear about problems you are having with the college. I am the parent of a recent ('07) Swat grad. Our four year experience in dealing with college officials was quite positive. As for the name recognition factor, surely you and your student knew going in that Swarthmore was not a name on the tongue of a typical person. However, within academia and large companies, our experience is that Swarthmore has a superb reputation. If you are "sorry" that your child attends Swarthmore for so many reasons, have transfer opportunities been explored? There are so many opportunities for stellar students to attend colleges which will not "break the bank."</p>
<p>I am not saying that the administration in general has not been friendly, etc. Our particular experience with the financial aid office and student accounts has been horrendous. </p>
<p>As to transferring, my child wants to finish there, although with great misgivings because of limited course offerings. </p>
<p>Having been in a fairly sheltered school environment prior to this college experience, we did not realize how little known Swarthmore is, as we were used to an academic community.</p>
<p>Look, I am not saying that there are not wonderful things about Swarthmore. We have just had a very bad experience with the financial aid people and the student accounts office. Maybe we are the only ones in the entire history of the school that have felt that they are a disastrous group of people. I know many families with children in colleges, and we are having a bad time with the financial aid people in a way that I have not heard from others. Their offices have just have been surprisingly mean-spirited with us, in a way that I have never had to deal with before, because I am a fair person who has spent many years dealing with tuition payments at various schools. </p>
<p>It is good to hear all of the defenses of Swat and its administration. I am not trying to extrapolate this into a generalized experience. I just want to express my opinion, which obviously is not as positive as the others.</p>
<p>By the way, I would say that the other colleges that my children have attended have been stellar, and I would highly recommend those in ALL aspects.</p>
<p>hi swatparent,
Has your child cross-registered and taken any courses at Haverford or Bryn Mawr? It is a schlep to take courses at Penn, but some students do it.</p>
<p>I believe that whenever money is involved, hard feelings are bound to arise. I would NOT want to be a financial aid officer.</p>
<p>Honestly, for its size Swarthmore has an impressive course list. It has a similar number of courses to Williams and Amherst, as I understand it, and they both have around 1,000 more students. And that doesn't even count the TriCo and UPenn.</p>
<p>That said, because Swarthmore likes its diverse classes—Russian, Classics, etc.—the variety of courses really seems to suffer in the biggest majors (compared to the number of students.) The student-professor ratio in Political Science or Biology or Economics is significantly lower than in many more esoteric subjects. but what else should Swarthmore do? Do people seriously want it to get rid of the smaller departments?</p>
<p>As for notoriety: Any liberal arts college is not well known, basically. Swarthmore has fewer than 20,000 living alums. But I feel that it is well known where it counts—graduate schools, government, etc.</p>
<p>"Another is that the food in Sharples is not very healthy, lots of fried food."</p>
<p>Interesteddad -- I bet your "D" has some thoughts on this! ;-)</p>
<p>Dear Swatparent,</p>
<p>I am very sorry you have had trouble with the financial aid office. I had the opposite experience, and had a number of encounters with them while my daughter attended. In fact, I actually stayed with the director of financial aid, who had generously donated a room of her house one parent's weekend to help raise money for a local charity. She was graciousness itself, and clearly took her responsibility incredibly seriously. My sense of fin aid at Swat was that it was as fair as they could possibly make it within the parameters set by the school. When comparing the offer Swat made my son a couple of years ago with a number of schools, only Pomona made a better offer.</p>
<p>I can think of a few cons as well… but I know of many, many more pros.</p>
<p>Some statements on this thread need to be addressed and here are 3.</p>
<p>1) Small alumni base: Unlike the unreality of CC, where pointing out miniscule differences between colleges is a sport for the un-athletic, most top LAC graduates view each other with a sense of connection (ie going to a small school that few have heard of but the education is great) and, in general, play well together. Combined, given the # of grads from top LACs and, often times, the powerful positions where they sit, a small alumni base becomes less of an issue. I’m sure a Wellesley grad interviewing a Swat (or HC, BMC, Carleton, Williams, ect…) grad will respect such a diploma as well as her own as a Swat grad, with life experience and perspective, will view other LACs similarly as well.</p>
<p>2) “It has a similar number of courses to Williams and Amherst, as I understand it, and they both have around 1,000 more students.” I’m pretty sure this statement is false. All the top schools have a student: faculty ratio of 8:1 and if W/A are that much bigger than Swat, there is no way Swat can deliver the same breadth and depth of coursework when it has far fewer faculty… unless it works its professors harder (ie make them teach 4-5 classes instead of the usual 2 or 3) which is bad. </p>
<p>3) Haverford is smaller than Swat but HC is in a true consortium while Swat is not. To me, this is Swat’s biggest “con” and this needs to be weighed by applicants. Per capita student spending and endowment figures are often used to assume that one school is better than another academically and in terms of educational experience but this is misleading. If colleges were discrete entities (all stuck in the middle of nowhere), then this may be true. However, consortiums matter. This is why, for example, an Africana/black studies major in the bi-co can learn Swahili, a fine arts major can learn bronze casting and English/art history/comparative literature/classics majors can learn Italian, … ect… which are not available at Swat unless kids make the ½ hour hike to the Bi-Co (2600 students / 8:1 ratio = 325 faculty --> many more classes and topics for selection). This is how a HC archeology/classics major (at BMC) became the current president of the American Archeology Institute and how a HC Russian major (at BMC) became a Russian history expert and current Dean of Faculty at Williams. </p>
<p>Out of the top 20 LACs, Swat is <strong>functionally</strong> the “smallest” because of its size and lack of a true consortium relationship. Excellent school across the board and wonderfully endowed but this fact needs to be understood.</p>
<p>I did an overnight and when I woke up all excited for breakfast, coffee and conversation, there were only like 4 kids at Sharples!</p>
<p>Haha, it depends when you go - 7:30-8:30's Sharples is pretty dead (when my roommate likes to go), 9 it starts to pick up as people get food before their 9:30s, and then it's pretty dead again from 9:30-10:30, with some stragglers getting food before their 10:30s. Most Swatties aren't morning people...except my roommate, haha. :] Most meal rushes or dead hours just depend on the class schedules for that day! Saturday morning breakfast is probably the most dead time. You also have to remember that we do have Essie Mae's, and a ton of people (myself included) get breakfast there instead of at Sharples because it's easier to-go and closer to the academic buildings. But yes, mornings are not particularly chatty anywhere!</p>
<p>On my overnight, I didn't actually use my breakfast pass. I woke up at 9:00 to rush to a class with my host and one of his friends (Linear Algebra... that class was so cool, but I sat there going "Um.... okay, uh....right, a vector, I know what that is... what's W? Why do you keep writing W? What's going on!?"). After I went to another class with his friend, my host and I met up for lunch... he used his card for me. He had to go, though, so I basically ate lunch alone. I was really nervous, even though I absolutely loved the school, and didn't really talk to anyone.</p>
<p>Long story short... I still have a breakfast pass. It expires May 1st. If I get in and visit in April... I can get two breakfasts!!! Life is sweet.</p>