<p>Hello. I was admitted to Haverford and waitlisted at Swarthmore. I discovered Swarthmore first and then ended up applying to Haverford pretty much on a whim, so I don't feel like I know as much about it. I'm also accepted at Hopkins and Vassar (and waitlisted at Wesleyan and Pomona). I know that Swarthmore has a reputation for being very quirky/nerdy (things like <a href="http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/09/jsaxon1/bathtub/bathtub.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/09/jsaxon1/bathtub/bathtub.html</a> for example) and I'm not really sure how Haverford compares. I get the sense that the kids are a little more basic and also that it's a lot jockier (although being placed with a lacrosse player for my overnight didn't help). Hopkins doesn't seem very quirky and I'm not really sure how Vassar compares either. The decision time is fast approaching (eeeek!) so opinions on any of this would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Congratulations on show great choices. I have not visted Pomon and was only at Hopkins many years ago but have visited Swarthmore, Weslyean, Haverford, and Vassar as my daughter applied to all this year. She was rejected at Swarthmore (the clear favorite of these for both of us due to its intellectual intensity and campus), waitlisted at Wes and Haverford and accepted at Vassar. She and I both, we really didn't agree on all her choices<g>, rated Vassar very slightly above Haverford and Wesleyan though the choice was very close for me and it is naturally not clear what would have happend if she was accepted and participated in the various accepted student days. Some quick comments:</g></p>
<p>I agree that Hopkins does not have a very quirky reputation but cannot really comment as my experience with their students was 30 years ago.</p>
<p>I have never thought Haverford was very jocky, quite the opposite actually, but have seen other comments along those lines recently. Still don't believe it though. A very nice campus with interesting/quirky, well as a parent on the tour at least, students. It is very small (1100 or so) and while adding Bryn Mawr to the mix does increase the overall size of the community the resulting male/female balance is not as favorable to a straight female as it would be for a straight male. A very safe neighborhood with easy access to Philadelphia As an aside, being able to walk to the local Ferrari dealer is a plus but, only being to look myself, that would not seem to be a relevant factor.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is a slightly larger school 2700(?) or so we a correspondingly larger set of course offerings but is still not huge at all. Middletown has never turned me on at all, visited 6-7 times over two kids, though it does have a fair number of stores and places to eat. All evidence suggests that it is reasonablely safe (I am parent after all so researched crim statistics) area now, it did not used to be, and there are all the usual shopping one could want accessible by car (little public transportation but I have always found that students can usually find someone to drive them where they need/want to go). The campus is not as pretty as the others by a long shot, in my subjective view. The new student center does look great. Awesome for film studies. Students are traditionally politically active.</p>
<p>Vassar (along with Haverford and Swarthmore) is one of the prettiest campuses you will find anywhere (Ok, I admit we do have different seaons here in the NorthEast so let us not compare it to Stanford). The campus is very safe but the surrounding city offers very little and may be a bit dodgy in places. Once again it somewhat larger at 2400 or so with a slightly more female balance, I think, than Wesleyan. It is especially good a theater but has very strong programs in all areas.</p>
<p>In terms of the students I think that Wesleyan and Vassar are both known to be full of quirky, arty, and interesting people. I thought the same of Haverford but perhaps you have better information on that. It may be that Vassar students are very slightly more arty and Wesleyan students very slightly more political but I think that is splitting hairs. None of these schools are considered "party" schools though I am very confident they students at all these places know how to have fun and do the same sort of things their parents did...uh deny happened...when we were students.</p>
<p>There seems to be some consensus on this Board that Wesleyan and Haverford may be slightly stronger in sciences than Vassar but all three are such great schools I doubt that an undergraduate would not find all the resources they might want.</p>
<p>At Vassar you can take a train to New York City but that ride is considerably longer than from Haverford to Philly. Wesleyan is not particularly close to either Boston or New York, New Haven has some attractions but Hartford has little, but both are within reach.</p>
<p>I would go with your instincts as to what sort of location you want to be in, how close they are to your home (if only for logistical purposes but please remember we parents still do like to see our kids every so often and hope the reverse is also true), the size of the environment, how you felt about the people you met (remembering that was a small sample of the students), and if there is any particular program one may have that the other may not.</p>
<p>Good luck these are all awesome colleges and I am sure you will enjoy whichever you pick.</p>
<p>1) Lacrosse: Why be turned-off just because someone plays lacrosse?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.haverford.edu/newsletter/july06/coleman.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.haverford.edu/newsletter/july06/coleman.htm</a>
<a href="http://www.biconews.com/article/view/5343%5B/url%5D">http://www.biconews.com/article/view/5343</a>
<a href="http://www.biconews.com/article/view/5643%5B/url%5D">http://www.biconews.com/article/view/5643</a></p>
<p>If you have a “bias” against people before knowing them, I don’t think you should go to HC cause it’s too small for you to “pick and choose” your friends and acquaintances. You know, I “did quirky”… almost as well as any “freak” you can point out at Vassar or Wesleyan (no piercings, though). However, one of my good friends from college was white, conservative, co-captain of both the basketball and baseball teams and pretty much fits your idea of “jock”. He also is one of the best people I’ve ever met as well. Among other things, although living in both Drinker and Yarnall (the “party” houses), he never drank alcohol, in college or after, and was very unassuming about it too… he still brings his own bottle of Sprite to dinner parties just in case people forget… he’s a lawyer now. I’m grateful that HC challenged me @ a young age to look deeper beyond appearance and to search out similarities when there are differences.</p>
<p>2) Basic: I’m not sure what you mean by this. If you mean that HC students are less likely to engage in fluff, bravado and conceit, then you’re right. As I posted earlier, you see Quaker wisdom in the campus architecture… no curly-ques and minutia… and this reflects in the campus culture as well. Personally, I think such simplicity is very important in life… to see the bigger picture and to know what is insignificant detail and what is important. This is also the reason why CC is such a turn-off for most HC people I’ve spoken to. While there are helpful and friendly postings… and people who mean well… much of what is written is really redundant, forgettable and occasionally regrettable.</p>
<p>3) “don't feel like I know as much about it”: I have to ask, is this because you looked for yourself and couldn’t find your answers or is HC not worth your time to do your own research? CC has been around for a few years, colleges don’t change much from year to year, and everything you could possibly want to know about a college has been written twice over (and in Swat's case 4-5x over)… just look with the search function, change the display option to look at older posts, or even just take the time to read some of my posts. I've written about "quirky", "why I chose HC>SC (and Brown)", HC's campus culture, ect... Seriously, if you don’t even want to take an active role in learning about the school, why would you enjoy going there?</p>
<p>Quirky?</p>
<p>One of my friends forwarded this to me... not sure how she found it cause it's from around my time... before instant messaging and e-mail, we had VAX!</p>
<p>The following slightly paraphrased conversation took place on
the Haverford College vax this semester. The posters are:
Steve Anderson
Charlie Bonnell
Jordan Chodorow
Jenny Epel
Ian Fraser
Kate Martin
Eva Milstein
Phil Sugar
Alex Werner</p>
<p>AW: If you're talking about the people who make the cheese, would you say
they make cheese or manufacture it or grow it or what? And how about
milk? You can sort of say someone produces cheese but if you say
someone produces milk it sounds like they're lactating
JC: produce cheese because people are involved in it.
there is no word to correctly describe the human's role in making milk,
because there is none.
SA: (I'm being overcome by a terrible urge to "milk" this topic for all the
puns it's worth.)
EM: how cheesy.
AW: .5 was really la creme de la creme, punwise
IF: Shut up before I go insane
AW: I'm dairy, dairy sorry
JC: Excuse me while I go cheese.
I mean, you guys don't know Jack about puns.
AW: Hey.... chill out.... let it brie
CB: I'm groaning in my seat
AW: Don't have a cow!
KM: As Kate groans in her seat
AW: What was wrong with my last one, Kate? Was there something it lact?
SA: No, no, far from it. In fact, it was the cream of the crop.
AW: You make another bad pun like that one, and Iscream
KM: How can I not? It cut me to the Quick...
AW: Kate, just lait off me, ok!
JC: Well, rather than stay here and try to do battle with the pun master,
I'll simply cow-er before him and then go Moo for a while.
AW: Oh c'mon jordan, I was sure you would stick it out until the butter end!
KM: All these puns are making my stomach churn.
AW: Some of these are good, and some are awful... its about half and half
JE: i can't think of any puns... quelle fromage!
AW: These milk puns are great, but I've got to wean myself away from them
sooner or later
JC: I mean, there's a real Kraft to these puns.
AW: Get ready for the fastest (and worst) pun in the west:
See? I slipped it right pastyoureyes
JE: I like it.
AW: You liked it? No whey!
JE: Whey!
PS: These are fun but I gotta go. I mozzarella been here for a long time
EM: I've been laughing so hard i've fallen on my dairyerre. all of these are funny, especially the tail-end ones.
AW: This conversation is starting to go sour
KM: That's odd... I thought it was udderly charming.
AW: Rondele, people would be shot for making puns like that one!</p>
<ol>
<li> i would choose haverford over hopkins or vassar. i can embellish on this further if you'd like.</li>
<li> speaking as a current haverford student, i would still encourage you to consider swarthmore; (i also was deciding between the two). however i think to choose swarthmore merely because of its superior USNews ranking would be a mistake. there's not a significant difference in terms of the top haverfordian academic potential compared to the top swat student.. however i would guess that there are a higher amount of "really smart" kids at swat than at haverford. then again, college, especially a small LAC such as swat or haverford, is really what you put into it.</li>
<li> that having been said, i would still choose haverford over swarthmore. the overall sense that i perceived at swarthmore was a bunch of cut-throat, academic elitists who severely needed work on their social skills. it's not that i enjoy don't enjoy my fair share of competition, but i was wayy too competitive in high school and felt that the environment at swarthmore would probably drive me insane. haverford is very good at cultivating an environment in which individuals excel without feeling compelled to steal each others' notes (not that swatties do this-- but i've heard this of other "elite" institutions) or talk about grades. talking about grades is considered to be very taboo at haverford. additionally, there is a wide array of other forms of opportunities aside from academia (athletics, journalism, improv groups, PHILLY, a cappella groups, political groups, community service-- haverford recently received an award i think for its stellar student community service involvement, etc. etc.).</li>
<li> if quirkiness is what you're looking for, you get your fair share of nerds at haverford-- believe me. people just try to hide it more here than at swarthmore, i think, but everyone's pretty much a closet-dork. it's part of the charm!</li>
<li> our campus is beautiful, but so is swarthmore's. swarthmore is a bit more "natural"; haverford is a bit more planned out, but i'd still venture to characterize it as gorgeous (especially in the spring).</li>
<li> i'm sorry they set you up with a lacrosse player. i agree that it's a mistake to make generalizations, and not every lacrosse player is what i imagine you think they are, but they are probably the most "jock-ish" team on campus. for the most part, they're fine. there was controversy involving the lacrosse team a couple of years ago, but the students involved will, i'm pretty sure, have graduated by the time you'd be attending. the current sophomore and freshman classes are especially starting to reform the "lacrosse image" at haverford. lastly, i'm also a member of a varsity team at school but can safely say that i do not merely confine my interests/friendships to athletics. i would admit it is more "jocky" than swarthmore, but it's not quite up there with such LACs as williams.</li>
<li> you do have somewhat of a point of haverford students appearing "basic"; however, the quantity is smaller than you may have perceived/come to believe. take into consideration the size of our school compared to the size of swarthmore.. i could be wrong, but i think that swat is three times the size of haverford..? at any rate: swat's bigger, and therefore it has more room to accept "worldly" students with rare, fascinating backgrounds. this isn't to say you don't meet your fair share of really awesome people at haverford. but there is definitely more a sense of quaker modesty/quaker complacency here than at swarthmore, and thus people are less willing to brag about/publicly divulge in their life stories or accomplishments.</li>
<li> nonetheless, the decision is ultimately up to you. i really feel that you can get a sense of whether you'll be comfortable on a campus by spending time at that respective school. if you really felt more integrated in the swarthmore community, that may indeed be a vaild point to choose swarthmore. i can tell you, though, i spec-ed at swat and met their team at dinner. i walked up to the table and sat down.. and they all just stared at me and continued their dinners without saying a word to me. i stayed overnight at haverford on a weekend and, although the parties were awkward since i didn't know anyone, i went back to my host's dorm to meet the custom group; we watched ali g in the common room and was able to genuinely meet a lot of really cool, interesting people.</li>
</ol>
<p>the speed limit is 17 in the school, i think</p>
<p>wrong, its 13 buddy = P</p>
<p>haha i knew it was some random prime number</p>
<p>Also, there must be a reason why one of the quirkiest tv shows of the 1990s by one of the quirkiest directors (David Lynch) had its main character a Haverford alum.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Cooper%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Cooper</a></p>
<p>... long tradition of "quirky" here... :)</p>
<p>Her goats, Brownie and Snowflake, "are happy, they have each other, they have enough space to do the things goats like to do," Grant said at a public hearing. "Every day they harvest blackberry bushes. Every day Snowflake gives a half gallon of delicious milk. I make cheese and I bring it to the neighbors"... Grant sees a pastoral future for Seattle populated with minianimals. "We would be a really charming city if we were a place people could keep minifarms with chickens, goats, a vegetable garden and fruit trees," she said. </p>
<p>/\ Alum</p>