Other LACs like Swarthmore

<p>If anyone has actually visited/attended Grinnell or Earlham, what are your impressions?</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=48507%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=48507&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>post #11 - Earlham (by Carolyn)</p>

<p>Thanks nngmm. That is a great description of Earlham.</p>

<p>Are you or others who have responded parents of current or former Swarthmore students?</p>

<p>Does the Swarthmore approach to study abroad work as smoothly as the college literature makes it sound?</p>

<p>This is another thread with great trip reports:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=54564%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=54564&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>My daughter is a sophomore at Swarthmore. From what I heard, study abroad does work smoothly, but for students considering honors major + honors minor or double major it has to be planned very carefully in order to fulfill all the requirements.</p>

<p>I have a daughter currently at Swarthmore. Her experience, and ours as parents, has been better than advertised and exceeded all expectations. I wish I could be more help with lower selectivity schools like Swarthmore. However, in hindsight, I'm not sure that my daughter did a particularly good job of identifying similar "match" and "safety" schools. I don't think any of us really understood what really makes Swarthmore Swarthmore until after she was accepted early decision. For example, she had Davidson on her list because of similar size and very strong academics. But, Davidson are night and day as far as campus culture. At the time, we didn't know enough about the published data to fully unearth those differences. Being from New England, we were at a geographic disadvantage, not only from an admissions standpoint, but also because my daughter didn't really want to go to college in her backyard.</p>

<p>I have no reason not to believe that the study-abroad programs operate very smoothly. It is a very student-centered school. I do agree with nngmm that study abroad requires some careful planning for double majors, more so in some departments than others. It's a question of fitting in the required courses for the major and what may or may not be offered in a study-abroad situtation. This is probably more of an issue in science and engineering than it would be in a major like sociology or history or art or language or political science where study/research abroad could be an integral part of the coursework for the major.</p>

<p>Each student picks a faculty advisor in the desired major department during sophmore year. After discussions with the advisor, the student then writes a "sophmore paper" that basically lays out an intended course of study for the major. Issues of fitting in the desired courses and study abroad would be hashed out during that process.</p>

<p>Grinnell, Macalaster, Carlton--all three good second-ups to Swarthmore. Grinnell has a similar crank factor and is by and large more druggy, but same caliber student. Haverford and Bryn Mawr would be most like in terms of setting, obviously, but even though they share similar roots, their branches bear different fruit--recognizably so; not better, not worse, just different. A place like Kenyon would not be at all similar, because there the student body is wick, and actually very diverse in its own way, but wick for the most part, nonetheless.</p>

<p>I had heard very little about Macalester College until the recent Newsweek article which was very favorable.</p>

<p>A professor at a local regional college in our town has told me that Physics might be the most female unfriendly of the hard science disciplines. This is one reason that I am pleased that my daughter is interested in an LAC. Perhaps it is not the case, but I feel like an LAC may be more supportive than some other options. On the other hand, I am concerned that there will be too few peers at an LAC. A statistic that I wish more colleges published is the number of students majoring in each major/concentration. Some provide this in descriptions of the departments, but most do not.</p>

<p>My perception from Swarthmore's Physics department web pages is that Swarthmore is supportive of its female majors. Bryn Mawr directly addresses the issue in its departmental web page, as do some of the other women's colleges, but my daughter doesn't want to attend a single sex college.</p>

<p>Comments?</p>

<p>invirginia
I can't speak for the physics/female issue, but I have a couple more suggestions. In addition to Hamilton College in NY there's Brandeis and Vassar. They're both excellent in the sciences. Also, I know a girl who's a freshman at MIT and if you're interested I could ask her what type of support females are given. Obviously it's not a small LAC but your d would find more other female scientists there. pm me if you'd like me to look into it.
I have a son who is taking freshman physics there now.</p>

<p>Check out Pomona and Claremont as well--you can take courses at Harvey Mudd and they have an outstanding study abroad program. And they aren't near home! (And they are beautiful.)</p>

<p>Invirginia:</p>

<p>This PDF will give you information about the number of majors in each field at Swarthmore. Page 1 is the raw totals at five year intervals for the last 25 years. Page 2 is the same thing expressed as a percentage of graduating seniors.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/DegMajors.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/DegMajors.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Last year 2.9% of the seniors majored in the department (Physics, Astro, or the Astrophysics special major). Keep in mind that Swarthmore's Physics numbers will be held down a bit by the presence of an Engineering department (3.6% majors). There's an obvious overlap between the two.</p>

<p>In terms of raw numbers last year, that was 12 majors in the department with 9 full-time faculty members.</p>

<p>BTW, this link to the Swarthmore on-line factbook will take you to a wealth of statistical information, both current and historic:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/factbook2.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/factbook2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>My daughter considered Physics as a potential major, so I can tell you a bit about the program.</p>

<p>Two of the faculty members, including the current chair of the department, are women. I would urge your daughter to contact the dept. chair, Amy Bug, for info about women in physics (in general and at Swarthmore). She got her B.A. from Williams and her PhD from MIT. She's also done some teaching at UPenn, Brown, and Columbia. She's actively involved in "women in science" issues. </p>

<p>Swarthmore has a long tradition of graduating women in science with a fairly illustrious group from the 1950s, including Nancy Grace Roman who went on to head the Astronomy Dept at NASA that developed the Hubble telescope.</p>

<p>The intro course track for Physics at Swarthmore is quite interesting. Rather than start out with the standard two-semester "survey" course (which is never a "fun" course in any hard science), Swarthmore starts prospective majors out with a more engaging seminar called Physics 006H. Each section is capped at 12 students and the course meets once a week for three hours in the evening. It's taught by one of Swarthmore's best "nutty professors", John Boccio. The seminar concentrates on Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity and Quantuum Mechanics. The structure of the seminar is highly student-driven with each student presenting one of the week's problem sets to the class each week. </p>

<p>The concensus seems to be that the course is not particularly difficult. It is viewed as a fun course that does a great job of getting freshmen fully engaged in small seminar approach to science. They each make their first classroom presentation during the second class meeting. The purpose of the course is to give students a feel for what majoring in Physics at Swarthmore will be like so they can make an informed decision at an early point about their interest in being a Physics major. </p>

<p>I've seen a few other schools that approach Physics in this manner. It makes a lot of sense because, while classic physics is still very important, the reality is that the concepts of time, space, and relativity drive much of the theoretic research in modern physics. There isn't much more to be discovered about the behavior of springs and pendulums!</p>

<p>Those who opt to continue with Physics then take a two-semester advanced survey course covering classic physics that is more in-depth than the basic freshman survey course because intro to quantuum mechanics has already been covered in the first semester seminar.</p>

<p>My daughter decided that Physics was not her calling, but she really enjoyed this intro seminar. She thought Boccio was fantastic.</p>

<p>The Syllabus, Readings, and Assignments (including many of the assigned problem sets) for the course can be found here:</p>

<p><a href="http://chaos.swarthmore.edu/courses/phys6_2004/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://chaos.swarthmore.edu/courses/phys6_2004/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Thanks again to all for the suggestions and comments. The schedule showing the number of students who majored in each subject is helpful. From what I read the popularity of Economics is true at most schools. The information regarding Physic 006H is interesting and I will share it with my daughter.</p>

<p>Does anyone know of a reason not to apply ED if son or daughter is sure about a first choice? </p>

<p>For those who do not live in the Philadelphia area - where do you stay when you visit Swarthmore? Downtown?</p>

<p>The only down-side of ED is perhaps finanical aid. There really isn't a place to stay right ther, Philly or King of Prussia seem to be the logical choices.</p>

<p>If you have a clear first choice, then the only reason not to apply ED is that you give up the opportunity to compare need-based financial aid offers or play the merit-aid game at other schools. Whether that is important or not depends on your particular situation.</p>

<p>For a solid Swarthmore candidate, ED can be a definite plus because it demonstrates a strong commitment AND it gets your application read early in the process when the piles of apps are small and the adcoms fresh.</p>

<p>Different people stay different places. We found an inexpensive clean motel just west of Swarthmore in Media called the McIntosh Inn. It's $89 per night for a double, if I recall, and is full of Swattie parents during orientation, etc. I think there's also a Holiday Inn Express just over the state line in Delaware (pretty close to campus), that may be in the same price range.</p>

<p>The airport motels are all pretty close to campus. Other people stay downtown. Easy to take the train directly to Swarthmore from there. My wife has stayed in a private guest room in the house of a retired Swarthmore professor with the money going to charity. There are also a few bed and breakfasts in the village of Swarthmore. The only place I would avoid is the Days Inn in Chester.</p>

<p>One other suggestion...you should also visit Haverford while you are in the area. Its a top lac and has some things in common with Swarthmore.
Sometimes visiting another school in the same trip sharpens your opinions.
Good luck!</p>

<p>Definitely. Visiting Swarthmore, Haverford, and U Penn on the same trip sharpened my daughter's choice to a razor's edge.</p>

<p>Bryn Mawr and Haverford are just three exits up I-476. About 20 minutes door to door.</p>

<p>Invirginia.
I have a S who is a junior at Swarthmore. The other two schools he most clearly considered were Amherst and Vassar. I believe that Vassar would have been his second choice if he had not applied and been accepted ED to Swarthmore. If Swarthmore is your child's first choice and you do not have to compare financial aid offers, it is only to her benefit to apply ED. How will she know if it is definitively her first choice? My S made three visits. The last one was an overnight "on a school night." He attended a number of classes and came home absolutely convinced this was the right place for him.</p>

<p>As for places to stay near Swarthmore, the McIntosh Inn, previously mentioned, is quite close to the campus. A word of caution, however. Our one experience staying there during Parents Weekend '04 was not pleasant. Our room faced the parking lot of a Denny's restaurant, and the motorcycles were out in full force in the lot until well after 2 a.m. There are a number of reasonably priced chain variety hotels/motels in the King of Prussia area.</p>

<p>The McIntosh Inn is right across the highway from a large Harley-Davidson dealership You probably caught it on the night of a large Harley Owners Group charity ride. </p>

<p>I've stayed there twice now, and it's been peaceful both times.</p>

<p>"Does anyone know of a reason not to apply ED if son or daughter is sure about a first choice? "</p>

<p>If you are sure that you have a clear first choice, and financial aid is not an issue, applying ED will give you an advantage in admissions, and, if admited, a very peacefull and happy second semester of senior year in high school.</p>

<p>My son is a sophomore physics major who has enjoyed the profs he's had for physics and hasn't found the courses to be too demanding or difficult. My impression from him and from upperclass students he's talked to is that there will likely be an increase in the number of physics majors now that they have the more modern facilities in the new science center. I haven't asked him how many women there are in his class, but I could find out for you if you'd like. He did mention that a few women (ID's daughter included) didn't continue with the physics track after the freshman seminar.</p>

<p>Shellfish, I am very curious about the fall off in women from the physics track. Curious what they chose to study instead. My D hopes to major in physics and is definitely applying to Swat.
BTW, how are the math classes that he takes as a physics major.</p>