<p>The reason the more distinguished posters are getting uncomfortable and everyone else is getting nasty is that the former refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room while the latter care more about flaming than playing nice. But if I had to pick sides, I’d go with the rougher crowd. Honestly, HarrietM nailed it in post #18 – but if you want a rougher evaluation, see Duhvinci. </p>
<p>And isn’t that a little sad? This conflagration was resolved on page 2, yet it has mostly regressed from there. And in the meantime, I would credit Duhvinci’s rants as having the most truthful and constructive elements (buried, of course, in a lot of bile) – all because the staid majority still pussyfoot around whether dchow should ‘chill out’.</p>
<p>Everything else is completely off the mark. You cannot evaluate an institution without taking the individual into consideration, and here the individual is an extreme case. I think this is fairly evident from the OP, which is why I blame most of the posters for side-stepping the issue. You can spit platitudes all day, but when the advice is blatantly misaligned with its recipient, you do the boards (and the OP) a disservice.</p>
<p>I still can’t believe so many posters read the OP and tried to respond as if they were addressing your average john. What happens when someone makes a ridiculously fringe OP, it’s met with a sympathetic rush to help that is more consolatory than apt, the ensuing exchange becomes increasingly burdened by what’s left unsaid (and what, tacitly, becomes what cannot be said), and both parties are forced to come to off-kilter and awkward conclusions? Well for one, it leaves interesteddad feeling uncomfortable.</p>
<p>I’m uncomfortable because I feel empathy for dchow who, IMO, could benefit from some compassionate mentoring and because I think that duhvinci and A.E. are beating up the kid unmercifully in a way that, while perhaps acceptable on the Daily Jolt, is both ugly and against everything Swarthmore stands for.</p>
<p>dchow keeps leading with his chin and the other two keep throwing punches. It’s all very unpleasant, completely unproductive, and the subtle hints from a number of concerned adults is going unheeded by all.</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, I would hate for 'specs to view this thread and think they could end up with any of the three as a roommate.</p>
<p>I’m glad that you, someone who didn’t even go to Swarthmore, are here to speak for everything Swarthmore stands for and to proclaim an alum and a current student anathema to that. Furthermore, if anyone here is beating up on dchow, it’s you and Duhvinci, not me and Duhvinci. I haven’t actually insulted him and have responded to his points; you continually dismiss his entire perspective by citing your daughter’s perfect college experience and not actually addressing any of the points he has tried to make. Even Duhvinci is at least giving the kid some tough love. You’re just using this thread as yet another platform to spew the exact same thing(s) you’ve been posting here since you arrived in 2004. We get it already: you and your daughter believe that Swarthmore scores 110 out of 100 on the awesome scale. Great.</p>
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<p>Could you maybe ramp up the condescension another notch? I am a concerned adult. Surely, anyone who graduates from Swarthmore, the institution you seem to esteem beyond all other things on Earth, should be accorded the respect of not being talked down to by some overzealous Williams graduate on the internet.</p>
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<p>Guess what. It could happen. No, they’re not going to end up with me, but they could certainly end up with someone like me. As it happens, my freshman roommate and I got along just fine. But, as hard as it is to comprehend, some specs who go on to matriculate at Swarthmore are going to end up with roommates who don’t completely love Swarthmore and who may be a little on the sarcastic or abrasive side. Some may even end up with roommates who refuse to help them get up for a chemistry final, for no good reason. It happens.</p>
<p>I generally appreciate your posts, interesteddad, but I think A.E. has a point.</p>
<p>About the chemistry final: I had already explained my reasoning in the thread a long time ago. I haven’t said this yet, but before the chem final he’d already slept through two chemistry quizzes and probably more than two chemistry classes. I chose not to promise to wake him up (which is different from not waking him up) and I was tough on him, but he did find ways to wake himself up without depending on me. It’s not that I won’t do any favors for anyone or that I don’t like to help people; that is an unsound generalization based on little evidence.</p>
<p>Anyway, this thread wasn’t supposed to be about all that. These last few posts haven’t been constructive, and we’re not getting anywhere. If you disagree with me about the chem final, then we’ll agree to disagree.</p>
<p>Your inability to quit a conversation that NO ONE (including you!) seems to want to continue will be very socially taxing for you - at Swarthmore and anywhere else.</p>
<p>dchow: for once, i think we agree. the last few postings have not been constructive. you still show that you have absolutely no clue as to why to why you are a pariah. i will assume that you know that the primary focus of this thread is not the intellectualism or lack thereof at swat, it is your boorish behaviour and pretentiousness that keep this thread alive. a villian is always needed to make any story interesting and you, my sad little sack, have chosen to play the part big time. it is clear from your last posting that it was your clear intent to teach your roommate the life lesson you feel his parents should have taught him years earlier, whenever you are faced with a disagreeable discussion, the other party is always an ignoramus and you still show no contrition in locking your roommate out while he was in the shower. although these transgressions do not rise to the level of lee harvey oswald, but as a bud, these are serious misteps illustrating that you are clearly, not a bud. </p>
<p>interesteddad: any spec would strike gold had he been lucky enough to have someone like me for a roommate, i had one for two and half years that will attest to that. on the other hand, i am somewhat concerned now what kind of roommate your daughter may have been. the fact that she discriminated against and avoided certain “types” of swatties is certainly not the quaker way and sounds suspiciously like code for something quite ugly.</p>
<p>AE said in post #62: “If I were a gambling man, I’d gladly bet you that the students going to the school to whom the second set of scores belongs are, on average, smarter.”</p>
<p>No, I do not agree that minor differences on SATs within that instruments’ margin of error mean that the kids at either school are smarter.</p>
<p>But would you?</p>
<p>Here’s data comparing one HYPed school to Swarthmore:</p>
<p>mid 50th percentile SAT for one Ivy: 1980-2220
mid 50th for Swatties: 2010 -2280</p>
<p>Doesn’t mean that Swatties are smarter than this Ivy . . . does it?</p>
<p>on a whole, i believe that it does indicate that the overall populace of swat is a higher caliber of high school student than the ivy depicted. most ivies, if not all, have to fill out sports programs and they recruit a lot of students that are superior athletically but lacking a little bit mentally. swat, on the other hand, have no real competitive teams to speak of and devote less space to the athletes. if you were to lop off the student athletes, the ivy may have scores comparable to swat. one has to understand also that being an ivy doesn’t mean that said university is one of the top eight in the country. if one were to use the hated usn&wr rankings, brown is below a lot of other universities, so swat being compared to just any ivy is not complementary to swat. some publications that combine lac’s and universities in the same rankings would place swat in the top ten of all colleges. so, yeah, as a whole swat is probably smarter than the ivy with the lower middle 50 sat scores.</p>
<p>So much heated arguement going on here! To be honest I did not read all 8 pages but the first page. Well to whomever made this thread: Why are you coming to Swarthmore’s blog and talk in negative terms about Swarthmore. The friend you had, who was graduated from Swarthmore made a fallacious arguement and fell into the problem of indcution: this is simple reasoning. What bothers me is that you are making the same problem! One light-headed Swarthmore is one vs the other students! He was with no doubt childish, but you are more impertinent by criticizing Swarthmore. You at least found him ridiculously ludicrous. Isn’t that so? So why show it!? I can recall Bush graduated from either Yale of Harvard and he made some of the stupidest mistakes in the history of our nation. Should I go to those schools blogs and make a “hate threat”? Is that even ethical in terms of Categorical Imperative? NO!</p>
<p>BTW top liberal art colleges are as good academically as the so Ivies. College experience is your experience, and if you attend Harvard “magical” knowledge would not be bestewed upon you. The reason why I top liberal arts are as good as Ivies is for the same reason Computers became cheaper! Supply and demand! I come from a low-income family from a different country, originally. Though I have a good chance at all colleges, and so many other kids. Was this possible in 1940’s, or 50’s? I do not think so. The world has become a more liberal place, and even though the state of equality is unachievable, we realize giving it a try is better than not bothering at all. Swat, Amherst, Williams, Haverford, Bowdoin, Middlebury, etc are as good as any other undergrad school. As a matter of fact check this link:
[America’s</a> Best Colleges - Forbes.com](<a href=“Forbes List Directory”>Forbes List Directory)</p>
<p>bluepurple: i’m not quite sure i get the gist of what you’re saying but i do appreciate the link you posted. although it reinforces my prior statements about the quality of my colleagues at swat as opposed to the ivies, the forbes ranking has to be deemed as suspect when it ranks wabash and centre colleges ahead of mit and haverford ahead of sarah lawrence regardless of the criteria used by forbes in their ranking system.</p>
<p>jupton: it doesn’t appear that the op has any friends so your description of him can only apply once he actually acquires a friend, however could anyone imagine that there exists a worse roommate?</p>
<p>Oh I was just trying to let whomever published this thread know that his friend was a muniac and so is he! Anyways…my sister goes to Haverford and she loves it, I think. She applied to Swat to but due to the nature of Quesbridge she was not matched; financial priority play a big role there! Oh and I was just using simple reasoning to show this whole threat is a joke!</p>
<p>Everything that you are accusing your friend of being, is what you are. Who are you to try and “Teach him a lesson” and not wake him up. If you missed your alarm, wouldn’t you want to be woken up? or would you, instead, thank your roommate for teaching you an important life lesson (while you failed your midterm).lol.</p>
<p>But you win. There are no intellectuals at Swarthmore…Why would an intellectual person sleep in?</p>
I found the ranking to be interesting, but are there any other rankings that list rank liberal art colleges and public/ private universities together? Such as USNEWS</p>