<p>I'm a senior, but I've looked at Swarthmore very recently, and I barely know anything about it. Any info about the school, campus, academics, whatever would be greatly appreciated (I'm trying to decide between Swat and Davidson). I'm interested in biology (not pre-med) and classics. Also, how hard is it to take classes at Penn, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, etc.?</p>
<p>See the topic below for some info on Bio. It's a particular strength at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>As for taking classes. It's pretty hassle-free at Bryn Mawr and Haverford as the three schools are in a consortium. The shuttle bus is 20 minutes door to door. Having said that, not a lot of people do it. In practice, you work out your schedule and you may or may not be able to fit the off-campus class in, depending on when it meets. I believe that more Bryn Mawr students probably take classes at Swat. It's probably most common in some of the smaller majors. Like, majoring in Russian, it's nice to get more variety and the three schools share some faculty positions in languages and a new program in Middle Eastern studies.</p>
<p>The three schools do share library resources. They also operate a three-college orientation program for minority students. And, there is quite a bit of interchange among some religious groups. For example, there is a Jewish accapella group that has members from all three schools. Parties and activities at all three are open to any Tri-college student, although Bryn Mawr is not a big party school and Swatties don't generally head to Haverford (there's a bit of rivalry -- at athletic contests, the 'Fords yell "Swat Sux" and the Swatties yell "Safety School". They both yell, "Kill, Quakers, Kill").</p>
<p>Swatties can and do take the occasional class at Penn. There's a little more red-tape, as you would expect when dealing with a huge university. But, it is doable. It's about 20 minutes by train (both schools have their own stations on the same commuter rail line). I think that Swarthmore even pays for the train fare. Again, it's mostly done either for the novelty or when there is an interest in a particular subject.</p>
<p>Sadly, the consortium doesn't live up to its reputation. Every Swat student is automatically on the last tier possible for getting into classes at the other school, which means it can be nearly impossible to get into the most popular classes, even if the Swat student is a second semester senior. And also, due to major increases of traffic in the area recently, the shuttles have been running consistently late.</p>
<p>However, a lot of Bryn Mawr students, in particular, do take classes here. I've met one girl who actually took a 'semester abroad' to live in Mary Lyon, and take 4 classes at Swat.</p>
<p>The library transferring stuff is incredibly easy - you can order a book online, and it will be at the library by the next morning.</p>
<p>I went to Swarthmore (graduated '03) and I would advise you not to believe interesteddad about the consortium. The library loan program is excellent - if you place your order in the morning, the book might be there the same day - but taking classes at Haverford or Bryn Mawr is a tremendous pain. The shuttle doesn't run all that often (I checked the current schedule, and it's 1:15 - 2 hours between shuttles depending on the time of day) and you can be looking at as much as 3 hours of round-trip "commuting time". Before class, you have to wait for the shuttle (you have to be early, because if you miss it you'll miss your class), take the 30-minute van ride, and wait as much as an hour for class to start. After class you have to do the same thing in reverse, since it could be an hour and a half until the next shuttle.</p>
<p>Taking classes at Penn is even more obnoxious, because you have all the problems associated with the tri-co shuttle plus you have to deal with the fact that Penn's academic schedule isn't the same as Swarthmore's. Looking forward to going home during October Break? Too bad.</p>
<p>That said, it's wonderful to have all those opportunities available to you if you want/need to take advantage of them, and it's not so difficult that you can't do it if you don't want to. I had one friend who became very interested in mathematical logic, and Swarthmore doesn't offer many classes in that area, so between Bryn Mawr and Penn he took about 5 classes.</p>
<p>Another thing I'd add is that one of the best things about Swarthmore academics is the seminars. They can be a lot of work, but they're a wonderful learning experience, and as I understand it even the other small liberal arts colleges don't offer anything comparable. They're often referred to as "Honors seminars", a relic of the days when you had to be in the Honors program to participate in the seminars, but you don't have to be in Honors to take the seminars, and you should do it anyway.</p>
<p>Honors students do get priority for the seminars, and in popular departments like English enough Honors students will generally want to take a given seminar that there isn't room for non-Honors students. If you don't want to sign up for a bunch of extra tests you should declare that you're doing Honors anyway, take the seminars you want to take, and drop the Honors program later.</p>
<p>Several other colleges do offers seminars (Carleton, Wesleyan, etc.), but they tend not to be as numerous or as intense as Swarthmore's seminars.</p>
<p>The analagous courses at Wesleyan would be anything offered in the The College Program, basically, two regulated sets of seminars and tutorials leading toward degrees, one in "Letters" and the other in "Social Studies"; each one is interdisciplinary (The College of Letters=Literature, Language and Classics; The College of Social Studies= Government, Economics and History.) Both entail mad amounts of reading and writing, including an oral defense of an Honors thesis at the end of your senior year.</p>