<p>Thank you for reading and/or responding (first of all).</p>
<p>Advice: Cornell or Swarthmore. And why.</p>
<p>Just fyi - I'm a theater person. Mainly plays, not musicals (but I have an interest in developing singing and dance skills). I was originally a psy double major, but I'm thinking of changing to economics. Which school would provide a more flexible curriculum for this change amongst upperclassmen?</p>
<p>I'm also interested in work/internship opportunities. </p>
<p>Thank you again!!! Any info (first hand or second hand) will be very helpful!</p>
<p>Most Cornell students are not in fraternities and sororities, and in fact their influence is most felt by freshmen who are wooed at rush parties and have not yet developed their social paths. Upperclasssmen such as transfer students can most easily and blissfully have nothing whatsoever to do with frats if they so choose. My D2 is one such person, a transfer there herself who has nothing to do with frats and is having a great time there.</p>
<p>The generic university vs. LAC tradeoffs will be manifest, Cornell will offer many more courses,and sections of courses to potentially reduce scheduling conflicts in some cases, Swarthmore will have much smaller classes and a much more intimate environment.</p>
<p>As far as switching paths, between theater and economics there is certainly no problem at cornell, they are both in Arts & sciences. However you would have to specifically check major requirements at both schools and figure out how much lattitude you will have, at this point, beyond taking courses in your major. Suggest don’t take people’s word for it, look yourself. A greater proportion of Swarthmore students elect to do senior Honors theses, which cuts into yet more of your limited remaining time. But I believe this is optional, at both schools.</p>
<p>FWIW, while there is undoubtedly more diversity in types of students and their goals at Cornell, there is no shortage of intellectual students there. Many of my own circle from there went on to get PhDs. It is a big diverse place, hence hard to accurately stereotype the way one might for an LAC.</p>
<p>Although I think Swarthmore is an incredible school, I think I would choose Cornell in this case. There just have to be more opportunities to be in front of an audience!</p>
<p>Don’t trouble yourself with a faceless bureaucracy and don’t become faceless yourself.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is 10 miles away from Philadelphia, a major metropolitan area, and you will be competing with far fewer classmates for valuable positions.</p>
<p>hmm this is an interesting one. both are obviously great schools, so i would really pick based on how you feel at each. i would really suggest visiting. cornell’s pretty big, but we do have a lot of music lessons and you can definitely be involved in theater-y performances and you will definitely make friends (everyone is nice :)). i really would visit though.</p>
<p>thankfully, I actually got into both this year.
Cornell has better name-tag huge research opportunities etc
Swat has better academic environment (student teacher ratio, small school, and everyone is elite, academically qualified students)
My impression is that Cornell is not as academically intense as Swarthmore. I really thought that swat students are very academic. Cornell is also an academic school but I thought there were much more people who actually put much more emphasis on non-academic stuff. (swat also has people who put lots of emphasis on non-academic stuff. I mean everyone is invovled with clubs/organizations and stuff)
I’m sure that they both are known for resisting grade inflation, so you will need to work your ass off wherever you go anywyas</p>
<p>See? they are both good schools and it really depends on how you fit to those schools. </p>
<p>personally, I had to choose between swarthmore/columbia
my asian korean parents really pushed me to go to columbia just because of its “ivy-ness”
but I didn’t like big undergraduate college experience and I really wanted to take all the advantages taht small liberal arts colleges give to their students. And I chose swarthmore.
But that’s just me. I’m not into theater stuff and I was never involved with that field.
But if you are a theater person, Swarthmore actually does provide lots of opporunities to those students too (I don’t have to talk about Cornell. It obviosuly does provide lots of opportunities as well, Cornell is HUGEEE)</p>
<p>My point is,
just ignore about theater and doing double major when you try to choose which colleges to apply.
As long as they provide lots of opportunities for theaters and offer double majors that you want to do, comparing them in this area become pointless in my opinion.</p>
<p>It all comes down to what kind of experience you want to have at your undergraduate institution.</p>
<p>small liberal arts college experience vs huge university experience
what do you like more?</p>
<p>Yes, but you haven’t even arrived there yet. Wait till you are a senior and you can’t take a course you want because it is only given every other year, or the one professor who taught that subject just left. My D2 had these type of experiences, at a much larger LAC than Swarthmore. Limitations in course selection can matter, in the upperclass years, particularly if you get interested in a particular sub-area of your field. Swarthmore is theoretically advantaged vs. some other LACs in this regard via its consortium arangements, however use of same is limited by travel time constraints, etc. </p>
<p>It’s true Swarthmore students stats are higher, the avg mid-range SATs of 1435 for its liberal arts & engineering students combined, vs. 1419 for Cornell’s CAS and engineering students combined, 1405 for CAS alone. OP can decide where he/she best fits and is more likely to thrive academically, in the classroom vs. the other students that will be there. Moreover half of Cornell is attending one of its other five colleges. These other colleges may provide some valuable options, particularly for an econ major, in terms of additional relevant courses, and levels of the courses. Where there are more courses available you have more choices. For example, D2 was taking intro statistics and IIRC there were 3-5 different courses she could choose from, with varying prerequisites, focuses and intensity levels. You don’t necessarily want to be forced into maxed out. pre-PhD level work in every single course area you might want to casually explore. Some flexibilty in choices/levels can be preferable, IMO.</p>
<p>I also agree that at Cornell not everyone will be marching to the same drummer, there will be great diversity in student interests. Not everyone there will be planning to pursue a Phd, though plenty of people will.</p>
<p>By the way, IIRC CC poster Hanna may have taken some theater courses, or been in a production, at Swarthmore, maybe she’ll weigh in. Or maybe I recall wrong.</p>