Intramural sports instead?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
21

<p>My daughter would have been happy there. It's a great school. She would have done exactly what your son has done...found a circle of friends and probably not hung out doing beer funnels with the ice hockey goons.</p>

<p>I think her good friend in high school was happy there after she escaped the "insane drinking" of her freshman entry (this girl was not a drinker). </p>

<p>She stopped talking to my daughter after freshman year when she found my daughter and her friends went to parties with alcohol at Swarthmore, almost a "how could you?" response. My daughter found it all very odd. She just chalked it up to her friend having a bad experience or something???? </p>

<p>I've always believed that about half the student bodies at Williams, Swarthmore, and Amherst are interchangeable and could be picked up and dropped at another campus and nobody would know the difference.</p>

22

<p>Actually, my S goes to drinking parties a lot. One, because his friends are there, and two because he likes to be of help. He did not have one drop his whole freshman year (physical aversion) but decided he does want EMT training. </p>

<p>He's a very laid back accepting guy.</p>

23

<p>
[quote]
found a circle of friends and probably not hung out doing beer funnels with the ice hockey goons.

[/quote]
umm ... the discussion on the impact on sports at small LACs is a very interesting one ... but can we please avoid making sweeping negative generalizations about groups of kids. The last time a bunch of people on CC piled on "the beer drinking helmet sports kids" that conversation didn't turn exactly as expected. 3togo ... the proud Dad of a helmet sports kid and I do not appreciate the generaliztions thrown his way.</p>

24

<p>Well, while we're discussing Williams over here, I'd just like to comment on Interesteddad's impression that "Williams is two campus cultures sharing a college." I think that at the extremes of the athetics and arts cultures, you may have significant separation, but the main culture involves a lot of overlap between the students who identify with those cultures. Certainly Momrath's and Mythmom's S's experiences suggest that the divide is not so strong or distinct as some think it is or would like it to be. </p>

<p>My own S, who is an athlete (non helmet sport) and who will be a freshman at Williams in the fall, has friends in high school who are heavily involved in fine arts, music and theatre, as well as those who are involved in athletics, and some who are not really involved in either but who focus almost exclusively on community service. I expect at Williams he'll find himself in that middle area with friends who are artists, musicians, actors, and athletes and of course some who fit more than one category. The attempt of outsiders to pigeonhole students as either "athlete/binge drinker/mediocre students" or "artist/non-drinker/serious students" does a disservice to all students. The students at Williams, like those at most top schools, are multifaceted in their talents and interests, and the students that I know enjoy interacting with those who have interests and talents different from their own.</p>

25

<p>Really good point 3togo. Wished I made it myself. And so true from my experience.</p>

26

<p>The entry system enables them to be close friends with a wide variety of kids. Two athletes were among S's best friend, and one really close friend plays girls basketball. They went around together a lot (she 5'11", he almost 5'8") strictly as friends, but I bet they turned heads, haha.</p>

<p>I know that the kids is S's entry did not divide themselves along sport/non-sports lines, and they got my S to play in a broom ball league, though I can't imagine how that ever happened! He enjoyed himself and did not break anything. Haha.</p>

27

<p>icantfindaname, I don't think you have much of an idea of what you're trying to talk about. And it's really tiresome when people post just to bait other people. </p>

<p>It's doubtful whether your assertions deserve a careful response, but because there might actually be students following along here and wondering if you have a point, here you go:</p>

<p>Williams's sports are practically peerless. Their teams are almost uniformly great. I have no desire to argue with that. </p>

<p>Swarthmore's sports aren't peerless. Their teams are not uniformly great. They are, however, competitive, respectable, and in some cases darn near great. To claim that Swarthmore should give up varsity sports is ludicrous.</p>

<p>Would you like to start with women's soccer? Williams has a ferociously awesome team. Their record was 17-1-0. Conference champs, NCAA all the way to the Sweet 16 - dang, they are good! Here's Swat: 14-2-3. Third in the conference (awful loss on PKs). ECAC champs. Not tops, but considerably more than respectable. Anybody who follows the sport would agree. </p>

<p>On the other hand, we could look at women's lax. Williams, 4 and 8; Swarthmore, 6 and 11. Okay, Williams lost fewer - but Swat won more. Neither one was a conference champ. And if you're poised to type about how tough NESCAC is vs Centennial, then you need to pay more attention. Yes, NESCAC is great. But out of the 10 Centennial teams, 2 spent the whole season in the top five, 3 in the top twenty, and 6 in the top forty. Doesn't look like time to give up there, either.</p>

<p>We could go straight on through all the men's and women's teams, and Williams would in most cases look stronger. Sometimes way stronger. But not in any way that even vaguely approaches any support for your contention that Swarthmore shouldn't have a varsity program. </p>

<p>Or we could look at the all-conference honors for Williams v Swarthmore, just for spring because it's most recent. (Bearing in mind, of course, that to earn that honor in NESCAC, you need a 3.35 GPA. Centennial requires a 3.4.) So what were those totals? Williams, 58; Swarthmore, 50. And Williams fields three more spring varsity teams than Swat. </p>

<p>Now that I think about it, maybe it's nice to be offered an opportunity to talk about sports at Swarthmore. Go Ephs, Go Garnet, Go, um, read some sports blogs, icantfindaname.</p>

28

<p>Here here Swat sports. Sorry Harriet, I was just ignoring OP. You set the record straight, and ably, too.</p>

<p>balletgirl said something last year about the tyranny of small difference quoted from Freud (then she went on to start a whole franchise of threads along the lines of I chose X over Y -- not sure why.) But her initial point was excellent.</p>

<p>Yes, we can parse these differences if we want, but these schools have much in common including excellent academics, interesting student bodies, and for most, vigorous sports teams for those talented folk who can partake and fabulous entertainment for those who can't.</p>

<p>Hats of to Centennial Conference and NESCAC and everyone else.</p>

<p>Now let's fight about their orchestras. (Hey, kidding.)</p>

29

<p>:D Or maybe we should just have a series of walk-offs, a la Zoolander. </p>

<p>With music provided by the - let's see, the viola section of Williams's orchestra is very strong, I hear.</p>

30

<p>Well I do know one student whose arms are aching from holding up the extra weight, um rather like the stress injuries of an athlete.</p>

<p>Has been advised that he must work out. So, not so different after all, proving NCEph's point. Aching muscles all.</p>

31

<p>And they're all helmet sports, really, aren't they? At least, the other kids in the violin section should have worn helmets, back when my D still played.</p>

32

<p>And mythmom, I bet the orchestra doesn't have a trainer to help with those muscle strains and other injuries, so knowing an athlete may prove beneficial after all! As for the helmets, I hadn't thought of them as possibly useful in the music realm, but yes, they would have helped the rest of the middle school band during my (tone deaf) S's trumpet-playing days. As an athlete, he had a very powerful set of lungs, which was unfortunate in the music setting.</p>

33

<p>
[quote]
So what were those totals? Williams, 58; Swarthmore, 50. And Williams fields three more spring varsity teams than Swat.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Swarthmore also has fewer athletes overall, 290 to 697. </p>

<p>Swarthmore had 91 student-athletes make the Conference honors this year. Not allowing for any duplicates, that's 31% of Swarthmore varsity athletes with a GPA of 3.4 or higher. Considering that First-Years are not eligible for the award and 3.4 may be slightly above Swat's median GPA, that means that the rate of GPAs above 3.4 may actually be higher among Swat varsity athletes than it is for the entire student body. Wouldn't that be a hoot.</p>

<p>It's easy to see the impact of football on these percentages. Only two of Williams' 75 varsity football players made the Fall NESCAC honor roll with a GPA of 3.35 or higher. So, with the same recruiting, Swarthmore continuing with the football program would have been ensuring that one-tenth of male student body played a single sport, was much less diverse than the campus as a whole, and virtually all had below average academic credentials coming in and below average academic performance at Swarthmore with an associated opportunity cost of 20 to 30 slots a year that could have been allocated to diversity and/or 21 other sports teams where a single "slotted" athlete can make a difference. It's too bad that football is the third rail of American higher-education. There isn't a DIV III small college in the country that couldn't address almost all of the issues surrounding athletic recruiting and campus culture by simply dropping one sport.</p>

<p>For 3togo: the hockey team at Williams faired better than football, placing 4 of 23 players on the NESCAC academic roster...not terribly far off the overall school average of 22%. I apologize for calling them hockey goons. I thought that's what you called hockey players, since that's what they call them on sports radio in Boston, the full extent of my contact with ice hockey.</p>

34

<p>Forget the orchestra. Swarthmore could have used helmets at a certain infamous Sharples party!</p>

35

<p>
[quote]
The agrguement was offerred that Reed College was the correct model for a lac.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Reed has the correct athletics model for Reed College. I don't recall anyone suggesting that Reed's model would be the correct model for any other LAC.</p>

<p>Your younger child should determine the proper emphasis on varsity athletics for him or herself and choose accordingly: a college where varsity athletics is a top instutional priority like Williams, a college where varsity athletics are such a low priority they don't even exist like Reed, or a college somewhere in the middle like Swarthmore or Pomona.</p>

36

<p>"icantfindaname, I don't think you have much of an idea of what you're trying to talk about. And it's really tiresome when people post just to bait other people"</p>

<p>I was really just engaging in free speech. There is a Swat parent who posts incessantly on the Williams site about how bad athletics are for a college. Many prejudicial generalizations that border on bias then spew forth always leading to the conclusions that white prep school helmet sport jocks lead to anti intellectual binge drinking bias crime producing thugs. But this only seems to be an argument that applies to Amherst and Williams that excel at sports. I was truly curious if this was a belief held uniformly at Swat and if so how did it coexist with a varsity athletic program that has a multi million dollar budget and grants admission preferences based on athletic prowess. The argument was offered that Reed College was the correct model for a lac, but only in the sense that Williams and Amherst should drop sports, not other schools. To excel at sports like Williams and Amherst is bad but to be mediocre or simply have walk on participation is good? With one child very happy as a varsity athlete with a 3.8 gpa at Williams but a younger child now looking at schools I am trying to ascertain the place of athletics at other schools. As a former profession athlete I am trying to understand this anti sport movement (if it really exists), and its motives. Having a father who was the team doctor for an NHL team and having grow up playing golf with a number of hockey hall of famers I do resent the hockey goon comment, by the way. Having worked on wall street for 25 years I can say without reservation that I perfer the hockey players as people hands down. Legitimate inquiry I think.</p>

37

<p>Hm. Back to helmets. A must for most early band concerts, I think, and DD played flute and DS sax so no diss to others or orchestra snobbery. Orchestra teacher must have chosen easier music.</p>

<p>And every time I saw a choral concert I thought I was wearing a helmet because the tenor and baritone sections were . . . . silent, or almost because the boys didn't want to open their mouths!</p>

<p>DS grew to love showing off his bass voice, so bass section covered, hehe. You may want to wear a helmet just because of that. Sometimes I do. DS does not stop randomly singing.</p>

<p>One guy told me he sang in the men's room as I waited for him when he was seven or eight. Big doings in a public restroom by himself. A gentleman, recognizing my mother-panic face said, "He's fine but he sings while he p***. </p>

<p>We do have a stack of helmets at our door. C'mon in.</p>

38

<p>interesteddad, I think it's actually 100 - 21 fall, 29 winter, 50 spring. I can't get the fall list to load, but I'm sure there are some xc/track duplicates between fall and spring, and some fh/lax ones too. Also, it's not just GPA; they have to be starters or key reserves. </p>

<p>icantfindaname,
[quote]
trying to ascertain the place of athletics at other schools

[/quote]
is as legitimate an inquiry as any other, by all means. Kind of hard to see your initial posts that way though. If you're honestly looking for information for your younger son, why not just ask straightforward questions?</p>

<p>mythmom, my second boss whistled while he p**d. :eek: For some reason, everyone I worked with was convinced that I needed to know this. I didn't. </p>

<p>Around here, with a six-year-old still in the house, life itself is a helmet sport. We like it that way. :D</p>

39

<p>Sadly we live in a world where direct questions are not always best. Look at the endless amount of data pollsters are going through trying to ascertain if voters vote based on gender bias or racial bias. I have read in the past year an endless flood of comments since my child started Williams that division III college athletics are horrible and should be eliminated, or that they about to explode. I have also witnessed first hand the incredible amount of effort if takes to excel in both academics and athletics at superb schools like Williams and Swarthmore and to tell you the truth kind of resent the endless condemnation that seems to emanate from this corner of the world. So once again just checking to see if it is an institutional bias or an opinion held by certain individuals.</p>

40

<p>
[quote]
interesteddad, I think it's actually 100 - 21 fall, 29 winter, 50 spring.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Jeez. I shoulda gone to Swarthmore instead of Williams. Or maybe it's just Alzheimer's. I read 20 instead of 29! Thanks.</p>