My older D graduated from Pomona in 2019. But she spent an exchange semester during her junior year at Swarthmore, so she was able to compare the Pomona vibe (laid back West Coast) to the Swattie vibe (they sell T shirts that say things like “Swat Life - Anywhere Else it Would’ve Been an A.”) While at Swat she took an advanced Spanish class, real analysis, a computer science class (data structures & algorithms) and an intermediate level economics class. She felt that the two schools were basically identical in terms of academic rigor, grading and amount of homework. But Swatties take pride in their reputation for intensity and sort of a “misery poker” attitude about how hard they work.
One of the administrators she met at Swat told her that if you invite a Swattie and a Pomona student to a party on a Friday night, the Swattie will say no way, I’m too busy and the Pomona kid will say “absolutely” but in reality both will go to the library first to work until 10 pm and then go to the party.