<p>I am especially interested in econ, physics and math (compsci) ?</p>
<p>In the econ threads that I have seen for top (LAC) pgms I am not sure I saw HC.</p>
<p>Math at Haverford is phenomenal! I am a Bryn Mawr student who has interacted with the math departments at Haverford and Penn, and I am continually impressed by (1) the rigor of the math curriculum at Haverford, (2) the breadth of the courses offered, and (3) the friendly atmosphere in the department. Let me elaborate.</p>
<p>(1) There’s a national trends among liberal arts colleges to make math more “accessible.” In practice that means taking hard material out of the curriculum or stretching it out over more courses. Haverford doesn’t do that. You’d get exactly what you would get at Penn or Swarthmore or Williams, not at Bryn Mawr or Lafayette. </p>
<p>(2) Haverford’s math curriculum is pretty unique among liberal arts colleges in that it offers courses in both pure and applied math. Faculty interests span all areas of pure math as well as statistics, numerical analysis + scientific computing, and cryptoplogy + optimization. Math is one of the few subjects in which students rarely take classes off campus, because it’s all right there at Haverford and the professors are amazing!</p>
<p>(3) Students and faculty are on a first-name basis, and they interact more than at any other school I have seen. Professors make themselves incredibly accessible (some set up to 10 hours each week aside for office hours), they socialize with students in the math lounge, engage students in their research projects, and even invite them home for a BBQ! </p>
<p>I know several computer science majors at Bryn Mawr who have taken a lot of their classes at Haverford and are raving about the professors. The one caveat worth mentioning is that the department is very small: there’s a total of 3 faculty, all of whom specialize in the “core areas” of the field. They teach all of the standard “serious” courses but none of the fun electives (like web design, computer graphics, network security, robotics, …) that you might find in a bigger department. That doesn’t matter if you are only taking a few lower-level courses to acquire programming skills, but students with a deeper interest often feel a bit limited. </p>
<p>I haven’t taken any economics at Haverford, but again, I have only heard rave reviews. What I appreciate about econ at Haverford, in contrast to Bryn Mawr, is that the department offers a few businessy courses in addition to the pure econ classes. Econ majors are also allowed to take classes at the prestigious Wharton School of Business at Penn. That’s a door to a whole other world, if you are interested in a career in business at all.</p>
<p>Thanks for sharing your experience B@r!um. It’s always nice to read your posts and to know the bi-co relationship working to its fullest potential with you.</p>
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<p>Roderick, I think you have to remember that HC is consistently noted among the top LACs and, as such, a bread and butter department such as economics (or political science, philosophy, English) will be outstanding. I think will be distracting for you to compare such departments between the (generically) top 10-15 LACs as all of them are wonderful and likely exceed the needed resources to teach undergraduate studies.</p>
<p>IMO, I think HC stands out among LACs in the natural sciences (particularly, molecular biology/ bio-med, chemistry, physics, astronomy and the integrative disciplines of bio-chem, bio-physics and physical chemistry) and religion. I am not aware of any LAC better than HC in these fields and only 1-2 perhaps who may be as good (excluding HMC which is a unique science school). I’ve written too much about the sciences already in past posts, but, for example, regarding physics, it should be noted that in the last 3 years, the only LAC representative to the Cambridge University Churchill Scholarship (for sciences) for 2 of those 3 years were 2 HC physics majors.</p>
<p>[Winston</a> Churchill Foundation](<a href=“http://winstonchurchillfoundation.org/index.php?hide=1§ion=Scholars&type=php]Winston”>http://winstonchurchillfoundation.org/index.php?hide=1§ion=Scholars&type=php)</p>
<p>Religion at HC has always been/ and will be one of HC’s strongest departments. In the last 30 years, the head of Religion went from HC to lead Harvard’s Divinity School in the 1980s and, in the 1990s, Michael Sells left HC to go back to his alma mater U Chicago to head their department. Other than Prof Anne McGuire, who I can personally vouch for, I am not familiar with the new faculty but am confident from what I’ve read about their scholarship, HC’s tradition with its religion department will continue.</p>
<p>As a HC student, you are able to major at BMC and they are strong in several departments and are particularly noteworthy among even top LACs in the fields of art history, classics, geology and archeology. In addition, departments that are excellent between BMC and HC are made outstanding by the combined resources of both schools… back in the 90s, BMC had a lot of econ classes that focused on policy and global econ (while HC’s had/and it appears according to b@r1um has more business-type classes) so much so that my brother, at Swarthmore econ/math double major, took a semester at BMC to take some of these policy/ global econ classes and Japanese at HC because they were no offered at Swat at the time. For psychology, HC’s is behavioral based and BMC’s psych department focuses on developmental. </p>
<p>At LACs, because of their size and limited faculty #, the education you get also depends on the resources that the LAC is able to attract to come onto campus or allow students to get off campus to enhance their classroom learning. Given HC’s ideal location close to an major city and within the northeast corridor, HC/bi-co brings a huge # of impressive academics/scientists, policy makers, authors, artists, activists, current event makers onto campus. It’s much harder to attract such talent if your campus is not so ideally located. For something like the sciences, bringing in current major researchers onto campus and allowing students to talk to them is really a big deal in terms of a student’s development.</p>
<p>Finally, I’m sure you recognize this as well, but a college confidential “hot list” should not be a go-to guide regarding what schools have strong departments. Seriously, some of the stuff written on this site makes the milk in my AM coffee curdle :)</p>
<p>thanks for the copious replies. Quick question: did I read that a HC student can take classes at BMC? What if that student is a male? Did I read that a HC student can also take classes at SC and Penn? What are the rules for doing such cross registration?</p>
<p>Male Haverford students are just as welcome at BMC as female students (sometimes even more so ;)). Haverford students enjoy the same registration privileges as Bryn Mawr students. For example, you may participate in lotteries for limited-enrollment classes at BMC. Cross-registration with Swarthmore and Penn happens on a space-available basis. Penn classes carry additional restrictions: with few exceptions, you are limited to undergraduate classes in the College of Arts and Sciences. In particular, Wharton and the College of Engineering are usually off-limits, as are graduate courses.</p>
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<p>What are the chances of getting into a math class at Penn (or even history and philosophy for that matter)?</p>
<p>@ roderick: Not only can students at one college take classes at the other college, they can reside there. At least that’s what the admission officer said during the info session. In one of the classes my son visited at Haverford, at least half the students were from Bryn Mawr. A lot of colleges played up the cross-enrollment thing…and even the 3-2 degrees (where you’d spend what would be your senior year with your buddies starting out as a newcomer at a new college? I don’t get it.) The only truly viable cross-enrollment I saw at the places my son was considering was the Haverford/Bryn Mawr set-up. I’m sure that people actually make them work at other colleges…but not to the level where you’d give it any weight as a reason to matriculate there. I think it’s definitely part of the mix with Haverford…where students can – and do – take advantages of particularly strong specialties offered on the nearby campus.</p>
<p>I assume that a course taken at another college (in this case, a class taken at bmc, sc, or penn), credit cd be used to satisfy grad requirements - true?</p>
<p>One of the negatives of the small school that I have found with another daughter at an LAC are the deadends, conflicts, and otehr difficulties in getting the classes needed for graduation or for your major. Charting a grad path has at times made DDay invasion look like sesame st (to be fair to our LAC, my d is virtually triple majoring in psych, english, and secondary ed) . Having another option might be beneficial <em>IF</em> if they allow non HC classes to satisfy grad reqs.</p>
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True (subject to approval of your major advisor - not usually an issue). However, not all courses are offered at every college. For example, the philosophy major at Bryn Mawr (but not at Haverford) requires a two-semester survey course about the history of the field; this course simply doesn’t exist at Haverford and so students are “stuck” with it at Bryn Mawr. I am sure that the same holds in reserve. </p>
<p>A few exceptions aside, we can and do use the other campuses, mostly the Bi-Co, to avoid scheduling conflicts for major and gen ed requirements.</p>
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Reverse, not reserve.</p>
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<p>what’s the bi-co?</p>
<p>that two semester survey course sounds very interesting and important for a phil. major. ‘stuck with it’ is in the sense that one will be able to get it only at one college in the context of this conversation. But, anytime you could take SOMEthing else somewhere else , it helps this house of cards to be built - getting thru college major and dist. reqs.</p>
<p>bi-co = bi-college consortium = haverford and bryn mawr
tri-co (academic and social) = tri-college consortium = haverford, swarthmore and bryn mawr
quaker consortium (academic only) = haverford, swarthmore, bryn mawr and penn</p>
<p>I saw Haverford ina book on colleges, and it struck me as a solid liberal arts with emphasis on history and similar areas. Is this accurate? History is what I want to study, as well as classics. I am a sophomore, so i wont be applying soon, but for research purposes, i shistory popular/excellent?</p>
<p>Let me chime in, as a BMC alum from years back – one of the marvelous things about Haverford/Bryn Mawr is the flexibility to study and live on both campuses, which are only 1 mile apart. The campuses are a nice walk in the fall and spring, though there is a Blue Bus which runs back and forth between campuses so you can get there for class on the other campus. </p>
<p>As a Bryn Mawr student, I appreciated my school’s commitment to women’s education. At the same time, my college experience, at my choice, was almost entirely coed. My freshman dorm at BMC was coed, with Haverford sophmores, juniors and seniors on my floor. Bryn Mawr does have single sex dorms as well. The only single sex class I had was the mandatory Freshman English at Bryn Mawr – at least then, that was the only class restricted to Bryn Mawr students. All other classes at Bryn Mawr were open enrollment on both campuses. I majored in Poli Sci at Haverford because I liked the flexibillity of the program there; I took courses to meet the Haverford major reqirements at both schools. </p>
<p>The cooperation between the schools creates a much larger, more diverse experience than either school alone could provide. Students can take classes at Swarthmore and Penn, though that takes more planning as they are each about 30 minutes away and again, back then, few students had cars on campus. </p>
<p>A wonderful LAC experience and a very special place.</p>
<p>My daughter loved Haverford when she visited. One of her interests is Arabic language instruction. My understanding is that she can take Swarthmore’s Arabic classes, and if necessary (she is likely to graduate high school with an already pretty high level of proficiency), even take advanced Arabic at Penn. This sounds wonderful, but how practical is it? Is there precedent for something like this? Thanks.</p>
<p>Yes, there are precedents of students taking advanced language classes outside of the Bi-Co. But I’ll be honest with you: transportation to Swarthmore and Penn is rather inconvenient and usually causes scheduling conflicts. If Arabic is your daughter’s #1 priority, it is possible to schedule all of her Bi-Co classes around the off-campus class. However, if there are other classes that she’s locked in to take at Haverford, it may not be possible to work around the scheduling conflicts. </p>
<p>Here’s a concrete example. Third-year Arabic at Penn meets four days a week next fall, MW 11-12 and TR 10:30-12. This single Penn class would prevent your daughter from taking any classes at Haverford before 1:30pm. (1pm might be possible, but she would want a bit of a time cushion for SEPTA running late and/or talking to the professor or students after class.) To make this schedule work, I would take a second class at Penn in the morning before Arabic, and two Haverford classes in the afternoon after 1:30pm (e.g. once-a-week classes meeting 1:30-4:00, or twice-a-week classes from 2:30-4:00). There’s also a few night classes, but I personally can’t focus on a lecture at 8pm at night. </p>
<p>This schedule is entirely feasible, but her course options would be severely limited and she would lose 8 hours a week for the commute back and forth to Penn.</p>