<p>hey evrybody im new here</p>
<p>rising senior, applying to college soon, just wondering which is more prestigious, cornell or swarthmore? u know, like, whats better for jobs and stuff, im an econ major</p>
<p>thanx</p>
<p>No difference, both will be feeders into good jobs. They are such differnet schools, so go to the type of school you want.</p>
<p>Hey, cool! Those two schools are tied for my second choice. lol, and I thought I was the only person in the world who liked them both :p</p>
<p>i'd say cornell</p>
<p>Swarthmore. Better city - at least to me, smaller classes, no TAs, and impeccable grad placement</p>
<p>"Prestige" would be a poor reason to make a choice between two schools that are so radically different -- in terms of size, student body, location, academic style, campus culture, etc.</p>
<p>The small city of Ithaca has its charms. The Cornell campus is beautiful. If you are into sports, Cornell might have a slight edge in that area. I usually recommend Cornell for most subjects but Swarthmore is awesome and, since you are talking about econ, I might favor Swarthmore over Cornell. However, if you think you might ever want to switch majors or dual-major, such as with Engineering, Industrial Relations, and so on, Cornell would give you more flexibility. Swarthmore does have Engineering, too. I sometimes wonder why the graduation rate at Swarthmore is low relative to the quality of its students. You should be aware of the relatively low grad rate. Aside from these points, I would say the choice boils down to the advantages/disadvantages of university versus LAC. Other things being equal, I would go with Swarthmore for economics.</p>
<p>well--i must add my common sense, in the realm of all the big time companies, do you think swarthmore still will get all of those big companies for recruiting purposes. I am sure some of them, but not as many as Cornell will attract. The reason is simple. These companies only have so many resources and time and personel available to recruit the best and brightest. At a school like Cornell where there are over 3,000 undergrads PER class, it makes much more sense for a big time company to recruit at Cornell and perhaps skip over a school like swarthmore that all together does not have even 2,000 students.</p>
<p>So, assuming all other things equal, Cornell should have the best internship capabilities/recruiting in the nation, no? A school like Duke with an entering class of around 1600 has no chance of competing, right? What about Stanford, with almost half the number of people in a class...Cornell's got it beat as well? Logically, I would think that with more people in an entering class, the competition would be MORE fierce to get these top internship opportunities/jobs after graduation. That's probably an absurd notion considering as how I doubt Cornellians have problems when searching for work. You not at a loss for attending Swarthmore simply because the classes are not as copious as Cornell's. Both are great schools, but Swaty's location would be hard to turn down IMO. Ithaca is quite charming though.</p>
<p>Don't choose on prestige or opportunities, they are both excellent. Choose on lifestyle. Its like choosing between a BMW and Mercedes. Choose on luxury or sport, not prestige as they are equals.</p>
<p>Here is my opinion. If you are pretty sure that you want to study Economics, don't even think about it: Cornell is way way better than Swarthmore on the academic side...as far as Economics is concerned.</p>
<p>Before I give you my reasons as to why I think that, it may help you to know what my recommendation is based on. In general, I am a big fan of liberal arts colleges having attended one myself. In fact, I did study Economics at Ohio Wesleyan not too long ago and am currently a PhD student in Economics at Cornell.</p>
<p>So, what are my reasons? </p>
<p>1) Course offerings. This is a big one. I just looked at the Swat's website in the econ dept and they offer 12 courses per semester. This is really not a lot of choice after you are done with the intro econ requirements which probably will happen during your first year. I was a bit surprised because at Ohio Wesleyan we had about 20 courses per semester both in the Economics and Economics/Managament departments, so I was expecting about the same number at Swarthmore given that it is about the same size. Guess not. </p>
<p>How about Cornell? At Cornell, there are 4 economics-related departments: Economics A&S, PAM (mostly Health Economics), ILR (mostly Labor Economics), AEM (mostly Business Economics). There are very (and perhaps none) few big schools that have that kind of set-up and and separation of expertise across various departments dependent on economics specialization of faculty and interests of students. And each one of these 4 units is bigger than the Swartmore Economics Department. You should take a look at the course offerings on Cornell's website and you'll see what I am talking about.</p>
<p>2) Rigor of Economics. I looked at the Intermediate Micro text that Swarthmore uses for its undergrads. It is fairly Calc-free, which is a very different approach than the Economics A&S courses at Cornell. In fact, for the Intermediate Micro text, Cornell profs use a fairly advanced version of Varian's "Microeconomic Analysis". This kind of mathematical rigor will serve you well if you are interested in doing graduate work in Econ. If Math is of no interest to you, you can still take Microeconomics courses at ILR, PAM, AEM departments of Cornell, whose economics courses are more similar to what Swarthmore offers. </p>
<p>3) Jobs and Alumni. Again, Cornell's alumni network is far more extensive than the alumni network of a small liberal arts colleges. This will be especially true if you do want to work in Finance or Business with your Econ degree. As far as placement...both are pretty solid academically, so it will be a function on how well you perform wherever you decide to go. </p>
<p>4) Prestige? I don't know how much you should be basing your decision on that alone, but despite the fact that Swarthmore is a great school it is not an Ivy and is not as big, so its reputation is certainly not as big as Cornell's. </p>
<p>Forget about class size differences. This is only a problem for Econ101, Econ102 and perhaps about 5-6 of the other courses, which are fairly big (maybe 400 students) at Cornell. The rest of the Econ courses at Cornell are about 20-30 students and while that number may still be higher than Swarthmore's avg class size in Economics, the difference is negligable to be of much significance. </p>
<p>Then, of course, there are all sorts of benefits of going to a small liberal arts college like Swarthmore that you won't get by going to Cornell. If any of these benefits are of strong interest to you, then you should rethink what it is that you value more, academic aspects of being an Economics major at either school or other aspects of attending a liberal arts college like Swarthmore. </p>
<p>But if it is mostly the academic aspects of being an Economics major that matter to you, then I would say don't think too much about it. Cornell is the obvious choice. </p>
<p>Best of luck in deciding.</p>
<p>I'm going to give you my honest opinion about Swarthmore...</p>
<p>If you're looking at Swarthmore for "better jobs and stuff," you may not be admitted with that mindset. I've been researching that school to death (talking to alumnus, reading their material, watching their DVD, getting lost in their web site, etc), and the feel I get from it is that you go there to LEARN. Getting out of it with a college degree and a chance for a better job is just "collateral damage" (crude language for this). The Swarthmore curriculum is tough, with lots of readings, intense discussions, and small classes...so you can't be invisible when you didn't complete the required reading. It seems like everyone there is there because they want to change the world (or are changing the world at the moment). I may be making way too many assumptions about you (if I am, I apologize), but looking at Swarthmore for just prestige probably won't get you in, so maybe you're better off at Cornell.</p>
<p>Cornell is by far much more prestigious and will definitely be better for you in the job market. Forget the class size and the competition in Cornell. The fact is, more employers will be recruiting at Cornell.</p>
<p>Most people haven't even heard of Swarthmore, let alone know it's a good school. When a school has miniscule name recognition, people often think it's easy to get into, although that's clearly not the case. Sure an employer or two might be impressed by Swarthmore, but for overall prestige and status when it comes down to telling people you went to Swarthmore, rather than Cornell, the difference is immense.</p>
<p>well--i know a girl who chose to go to Swarthmore over Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, Penn, Cornell, Duke, Chicago, and a bunch of others, just for the love of learning and it wasn't even about money. She had a perfect 1600, very artsy as well.</p>
<p>ummm who cares? i really hate when people give individual examples. there are always exceptions. why do you even bring them up? they dont help anybody and they are pointless. seriously</p>
<p>LMAO. burned.</p>
<p>Swarthmore doesn't offer as many different courses as Cornell per semester but will be offering over 30 different undergrad econ courses over a two-year period. That seems like a pretty good selection. I would think there would be an educational advantage to greater student-faculty contact and mentoring in the economics major at Swarthmore. At Cornell, the undergrad econ department is very large (over 200 econ graduates each year). I absolutely love Cornell, but it can be difficult to develop close relationships with faculty in large departments. My opinion might be different if we were talking about a science, engineering, or math field. I wonder if the stat and econometrics courses at Swarthmore are calc based. I'd be surprised if they are not. Cornell is a great place to study just about any field but I think student-faculty contact is especially important in the social sciences and humanities.</p>
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I sometimes wonder why the graduation rate at Swarthmore is low relative to the quality of its students. You should be aware of the relatively low grad rate.
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<p>That's a misread of a bogus statistic. Swarthmore averages over 92% six year graduation rate. By any measure, that is among the highest in the country.</p>
<p>The fact that USNEWS comes up with some bogus "projected graduation rate" (whatever that is) doesn't change a very high graduation rate. It is especially unfair to use some ficticious "projected graduation rate" to infer that Swarthmore's 92% graduation rate is somehow "low", especially when you consider that it is viewed as being one of the most demanding schools in the country.</p>
<p>You should not go to a school just because of prestige. I'm going to an ivy and find myself reluctant to tell others where I go to school because I don't want people to prejudge me. I've told a couple people I met where I work and I noticed instantly that they treated me differently.</p>
<p>I don't know anything about economics at Cornell so I won't even attempt a comparison. However, the post above suggesting that Econ at Swarthmore takes a backseat to ANY undergrad Econ program in the country is dead wrong, especially when it comes to preparation for grad school.</p>
<p>Swarthmore has the highest percentage of its graduates getting PhDs in Economics of any college or university in country and second-place is not even close (less than half of Swarthmore's rate).</p>
<p>There are many places that offer more courses in Economics (obviously), but I doubt you will find many Econ programs that are more demanding. Of course, if you want extra-spicy demanding, try Swarthmore's Honors Program.</p>