parents

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
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<p>no longer being of applying-to-college age, i hadn't heard of this website until it was referenced on the swarthmore jolt (which i read when bored at work, being a recent alum). i guess this is just a (sad, if) logical progression in the growth of the college application process as big business, but, that debate aside, the thing that strikes me most is all of the parental involvement on this forum. i can perfectly understand fretting over the future of your son/daughter, but for some of the parents on here it seems like something of an obsessive disorder. </p>

<p>what i found almost infuriating was a post by "interesteddad" that included this:</p>

<p>"I don't believe "burn-out" or "apathy" are common at Swarthmore -- well, at least until the honor seniors are busy finishing their thesis and preparing for their four sets of written and oral exams by outside examiners. There is about a month there where they disappear into a special zombie section of the library."</p>

<p>speaking as someone who went to swarthmore for four years, "interesteddad"'s comments are either blatantly ignorant or blatantly dishonest. (before making any serious points, and just to be a pedant, the philosophy department does not require written honors exams. one vote for ignorance.) maybe his sophomore daughter hasn't had it happen yet (my freshman year was idyllic, too) but burn-out at swarthmore is universal - everyone has a moment when they crack. i even had two. a staggering percentage of students visit psych services at some point, and there are a significant number of suicide attempts every year. as much as you'll love swarthmore, you'll also hate it.</p>

<p>swarthmore is nothing if not intense, and i wouldn't trade my experience for anything. that said, "swarthmore isn't for everyone" doesn't come close to the truth, which is that "most people shouldn't go to swarthmore." if you'd like to know exactly where your limits are, then go ahead - it's an incredibly valuable lesson to learn. i cringe when i read these laundry lists of statistics punctuated with "what are my chances?" swarthmore isn't admitting resumes, it's admitting people who have a fair idea what a swarthmore education implies and are willing to inflict it on themselves. this is the reason that the "why swarthmore" essay matters so much. i find attempts to "sell" the school to be extremely dishonest and potentially damaging - both to the students and the school. any swarthmore "ambassador" should do nothing but tell the truth, and i think that the parent of a student in her third semester most likely has an extremely tenuous grasp on what it's like to be a swarthmore student.</p>

<p>last, i think it's completely perverse for adults to be engaging in campus gossip. "I would just point out that I first posted about the table incident four days before the first news story broke in the Phoenix and leave it at that." BRAVO, but you aren't a student, it's none of your business, and it would probably serve you well to take up some kind of a hobby.</p>

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<p>ID's advice and knowledge about Swarthmore helped me TREMENDOUSLY in gaining admission to the class of 2010. and that's all i have to say about that.</p>

3

<p>The Daily Jolters said last night that they planned to visit en masse and attempt to make this forum useless by swamping it with negative comments. Looks like we have our first visitor.</p>

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<p>Who are the daily jolters?</p>

5

<p>actually, "interesteddad", i'm trying to make this forum <i>useful</i>. cjsb, i'm sure that you found "interesteddad"'s comments useful, just as i'm sure you'll eventually figure out that swarthmore is a very different place from the one he describes. condensing my entire critique into "negative comment" shows, dare i say it, an entirely anti-swarthmorean lack of analysis and critical thinking. a lot of your posts contain information that is very, very wrong, and i would rather not see people make the mistake of going to swarthmore based on your description of a college that doesn't exist. </p>

<p>last, i find it more than a little twisted that you read the daily jolt. shouldn't you have better things to do than interesting yourself in the swarthmore bathroom wall?</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.dailyjolt.com/forum%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.dailyjolt.com/forum&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Well, let's talk Swarthmorean "analysis" and "critical thinking".</p>

<p>First, I'm sorry that you had as miserable time during your four years at Swarthmore as you make it sound. I would agree that it is not "for everybody". Why didn't you transfer?</p>

<p>Second, don't be so presumptious to assume that Swatties are the first college students in the history of education to feel the pressure of exams and papers. That's been a part of the college experience for decades or centuries. Believe it or not, almost all colleges have papers and exams that fall due at the end of semesters and result in considerable stress. I think you would find that most parents here also experienced moments of academic pressure during their own college days. </p>

<p>Third:</p>

<p>
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there are a significant number of suicide attempts every year

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</p>

<p>"Critical thinking" would reject such a vague claim with no data to back it up. Your claim is in direct contradiction to the statistics given by the health center. Let's put it this way, if your unsubstantiated claim were true, then either the college support services have done a spectacular job of intervening as needed and/or Swarthmore students over at least the last ten years have been notably ineffective in their efforts. As I'm sure you are aware, there has been one suicide at Swarthmore going at least that far back -- a fifth year senior just a month or so before graduation. I have no idea if that student's depression resulted from academic pressure and I doubt whether you do either. There is no question that Swarthmore has at risk students, just like at every college in the United States. The college-age years are, unfortunately, high risk years for suicides. Why do you think colleges have invested so heavily in counseling and support services?</p>

<p>As far as "a staggering percentage of students visit psych services at some point", "staggering" is such a vague quantifier that it is difficult to respond. From talking to the head of psych services during parents orientation, I got the impression of a welcoming, supportive staff and a number of both formal and informal mechanisms for referring students when they hit a rough patch. To the extent that students use the counseling services, I would consider that a plus, not a negative as you apparently do. </p>

<p>Fourth:</p>

<p>You don't approve of parental interest in college education, but it may surprise you to learn that many parents make an effort to encourage their kids to take advantage of the resources at Swarthmore -- whether it's the WA program, the counseling center, the deans' offices, the academic advisors, etc. One of the things that differentiates Swarthmore from many larger schools, and from schools in decades past, is precisely these support services and the mechanisms in place to encourage students to use them. I would hope that "staggering" number of students (whatever that means) do take advantage of these resources. If you were to do a little analysis, such as reading college accreditation reports, use of such services is considered to be a positive indicator.</p>

<p>
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i cringe when i read these laundry lists of statistics punctuated with "what are my chances?" swarthmore isn't admitting resumes, it's admitting people who have a fair idea what a swarthmore education implies and are willing to inflict it on themselves.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Maybe if you had been around here longer than your one post, you would be able to do a little critical analysis and see that very few of the potential Swarthmore applicants asking questions here are "stat oriented".</p>

<p>Do you honestly think that anyone applies to Swarthmore oblivious to the fact that the average student at the school studies hard? A spec would have to be a real moron to have not picked up on that characteristic of the school somewhere along the line, right? Maybe we could ask for a show of hands? Have any of the current Swatties or specs here NOT heard that Swarthmore is academcally challenging before they applied and considered that in their decision-making process?</p>

<p>The vast majority of Swarthmore specs here have done overnight visits, sat in on classes, and are making very informed college decisions. They get accepted at unusually high rates precisely because they have thoroughly researched their college selection choices and, as a result, they write effective "Why Swarthmore?" essays.</p>

<p>As for selling a rosy picture, my advice has been consistent in this regard. There are two kinds of students who should not go to Swarthmore. The first is a student who feels pressure (either internal or external) to get As in every course. The second is a student who is not prepared to study hard on a consistent and routine basis.</p>

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<p>or you could have read the section of my post where i said that i wouldn't trade my experience at swarthmore for anything. i don't think it should be too much to wrap your head around that i had a love/hate relationship with swarthmore, much like every student winds up having - and how upon further reflection i realize how grateful i am for that experience and how much i value everything that i took from it. i wouldn't have gotten nearly as much from any other school, and i'm glad that i went to swarthmore.</p>

<p>shockingly, i do realize that other colleges assign work (imagine!) but what you absolutely have to grant is that the environment at swarthmore is somewhat unique, which is exactly why there are plenty of people who choose swarthmore over, say, harvard or yale. what i'm simply pointing out is that this environment is a double-edged sword, and that while i haven't read every post in this forum, i've read quite a few, and haven't come across anything you've said that would indicate the other side of this. and, to be fair, how would you know? your daughter is only in her third semester, so there's a good chance that she hasn't hit it full-on yet, and you don't even go to the school, so you would have no idea.</p>

<p>and if you'd like me to get specific about the ugly side of all this, i'll say that a friend told me that according to the health center, there were 14 attempted suicides our sophomore year (2001-02) - this is a number that the health center most likely isn't too keen on advertising, and, to be truthful i don't know exactly how my friend found this out, but she's not the type to make anything up. i also don't find it particularly surprising, nor do i find it surprising that none of these "went through" - most "suicide attempts" are of the cry-for-help variety. i'll admit that i don't know the attempted-suicide rate of this particular demographic, but i found the numbers i heard about swarthmore alarming. anecdotally, also during my sophomore year, a girl with painfully obvious mental heatlh issues was kicked out of her lodge by her 4 roommates, and the deans' response was to put her in the basement of mary lyons, alone, where she spent the next month coming into my room and staring at me and my roommate. swarthmore did nothing until her mother came and took her home - i couldn't have imagined a more callous non-response on the part of the school. additionally, i would appreciate it if you weren't so presumptuous - i happened to be pretty good friends with the guy who killed himself last year, and while the college can't be blamed, a lot of his problems were obvious and i really don't think the administration did a whole hell of a lot to help him. but hey, maybe i'm biased.</p>

<p>i'd like to point to the current thread of "post your admissions status & stats" thread as evidence that a lot of people in this forum seem to be pretty stat-crazy. i applied six years ago, and i wonder if my application would be accepted today - i took no sat-prep classes, had no one read my essay, did no extensive preparation for my interview, and didn't fluff up my "resume". though, truth be told, i think that the admissions office sees through quite a bit of this - my roommate wound up being an admissions fellow, and we used to talk about this all the time. i'm just concerned that things like this website result in an over-polished and distorted applicant pool for swarthmore, which i would like to stay the way it is. </p>

<p>i don't object to parental involvement, but it's pretty obvious that any parent reading the daily jolt is quite a bit over-involved and might want to think about taking a step back. what exactly do you get out of reading hot lists? is there anything that reading the skewering of arthur chu does to enhance your life or your daughter's college experience? and maybe you'd like to take a deep breath after your 3019th post?</p>

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<p>And now for some "critical thinking" on Nancy's claim that "a staggering percentage of students visit psych services at some point":</p>

<p>Here is a link to the Annual Report of Swarthmore's Psychological Services Center:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/deans/pdfs/2004-2005annualreport.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/deans/pdfs/2004-2005annualreport.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This report contains a wealth of statistical data. For example, 243 students visited Psych Services during academic year 2004-05, about 18% of the student body. </p>

<p>Just a quick perusal of data for peer colleges shows that this number is not "staggering" in relative terms. For example, about 25% of Smith's student body visits that school's psych services each year. In the interest of "critical thinking", perhaps Nancy would spend a few minutes tracking down the data at additional peer colleges.</p>

<p>Swarthmore's Psych services reports that they have seen an increase over the last decade, but an increase that is consistent with national trends.</p>

<p>Of the 243 students who visited Psych services last year, 15% had one visit, 33% had 2 to 6 visits, 24% had 7 to 12 visits, and 28% had 12 or more visits.</p>

<p>Note that these 243 students include those refered by the deans as a result of specific incidents including those refered for alcohol evaluations following any alcohol incident including health center visits, disciplinary infractions, etc. </p>

<p>The 243 students resulted in a total of 2288 individual "sessions" or contacts during the course of the year. Of these, 36 contacts during the year were unscheduled and deemed to be of an emergency or urgent nature. There were 3 hospitalizations by Psych Services during the year. According to the report, "All three of these were acute situations where the student was deemed at high risk for selfharm."</p>

<p>8 of the 243 students were seen as part of a re-admission evaluation by the Dean's office for students who had previously left school and were seeking to return.</p>

<p>10 of the 243 students were seen as part of a comprehensive ADD/ADHD evaluation.</p>

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<p>Are we talking about the same college, N_R?</p>

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<p>No, Nancy. Psych Services is actually quite forthcoming with their data as you can see from the report I cited.</p>

<p>Last year's numbers were fairly typical, but you can look up the number of unscheduled visits and hospitalizations for five different years in their annual report (1995/1996 as a baseline and the three most recent years 2003-04-05). I think your "friend" needs to be a bit more precise. I have no doubt whatsoever that 14 students may have met with psych services and discussed thoughts of suicide. There is no evidence in the data or the "successful competions" of anywhere near that number of "attempted suicides" in a given year. </p>

<p>Again, people have had psych troubles during their college years for decades. I, and several friends during college, had to go to the dean and call the parents of a friend to "come get him". He went directly from a college dorm to McLeans. Do some critical thinking...track down the numbers for any range of colleges of your choice. </p>

<p>Oh, and by the way....no data to prove this one, but I really don't think Swarthmore is inherently more difficult than any of several dozens of other colleges and universities. I am quite confident that you can find students at any college of your choice who work just as hard and are just as "stressed" as Swatties. Maybe even more stressed at schools where there is signficant competitive grade pressure. I think the only diffference is that a somewhat higher percentage of Swatties are fully engaged academically and, therefore, the professors are able to push a bit harder. Two fifteen page papers and a pair of exams are the same, regardless of the school. Like at most schools, Swatties can, and do, figure out how to make their workload match their desire to work.</p>

<p>As for reading the Jolt, I don't. Except when I get an e-mail telling me that my name is the featured title of a thread and Ray<em>Lewis</em>52 comes looking for me.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
i'd like to point to the current thread of "post your admissions status & stats" thread as evidence that a lot of people in this forum seem to be pretty stat-crazy. i applied six years ago, and i wonder if my application would be accepted today - i took no sat-prep classes, had no one read my essay, did no extensive preparation for my interview, and didn't fluff up my "resume". though, truth be told, i think that the admissions office sees through quite a bit of this

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I would invite you to stick around and actually see the quality of the applicants who learn about Swarthmore on this site. These are not puffed-up and slicked-back stat-monger specs. Let's see. One guy celebrating his ED acceptance here today spent a year in Tanzania with his missionary parents and holds down a full-time job. Another has done two service learning trips to Africa. And, then there is Yimei, a full-financial aid applicant from a public school in mainland China who fell in love with Swarthmore reading "The Meaning of Swarthmore" essays. I could go on. These are Swatties, through and through.</p>

<p>Spend some time. Learn about what the Swattie parents here recommend. I think you will see a consistent message that stats don't mean diddly. That to get into Swat you have to bring something interesting to the table and effectively communicate a degree of Swattiness.</p>

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<p>To Ms. Reagan: I think that interesteddad presents a fair and balanced picture of Swarthmore and has helped innumerable applicants to be realistic, which he is doing as a public service. One of your "jolt" posters said that id had been very helpful.</p>

<p>What I fail to understand is that if you and your friends are such compasionate people concerned for the mental health of others, why are "jolt" posters are trying to connect id's daughter to him and "out" her? Why you are going along with this, as the supposedly concerned college graduate you say you are, and not trying to call a stop to it? </p>

<p>I would have hoped that at your ripe age of 22 years old, with the worldly wisdom you say you have, you would be more concerned with your colleagues. I also don't understand why you want to be anonymous, if you expect id's daughter to not be able to be?</p>

<p>Having had several years of undergraduate work, and 10 years of advanced degree training, I have been around universities a lot, and have a fairly good understanding of their missions. I think that Swarthmore is a good school in many ways, but I am sad to see that a graduate would display such a lack of understanding. I would hope that you would use your good intelligence for another project that does not involve trying to make people miserable or embarrassed.</p>

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<p>Thanks, Collegialmom. </p>

<p>You are correct. If my daughter had her druthers, I would stop posting here and offering advice to prospective Swarthmore students. On the other hand, 13 College Confidential applicants have been accepted ED so far and I am certain that number will rise over the next two days. When all is said and done, it looks like perhaps 10% of all Swat's EDers this year will be College Confidential regulars. So, the advice from all the Swat parents here must not be all bad.</p>

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<p>Personally I feel that both sides to this argument have some valid points, and both are in error in some respects, but I would like to add two thoughts of my own. Firstly, I think that being the parent of a Swarthmore student, or even being an older alum doesn't really compare in any sense to being an upperclassman/recent alum at Swat. Not to belittle Arador, but your Swarthmore experience changes drastically over the course of your time there, and Pass/Fail semester is really its own little universe. I also think that it will be interesting to see how the College Confidential regulars who have been admitted to Swat will react to the actually experience there. College Confidential did not prepare me for Swat, nothing did. My experience has been entirely different, and in many ways better than what I might have expected. I think therefore that helping applicants get into Swarthmore is a worthy cause; however a high admissions rate might not necessarily result in high quality Swarthmore experiences.</p>

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<p>Well, I'm confused. I thought I was the one overselling Swarthmore?</p>

<p>So to summarize:</p>

<p>Nancy_Reagan says: "and how upon further reflection i realize how grateful i am for that experience and how much i value everything that i took from it. i wouldn't have gotten nearly as much from any other school, and i'm glad that i went to swarthmore."</p>

<p>And, Swat_Student08 says: "My experience has been entirely different, and in many ways better than what I might have expected."</p>

<p>So my question is, why would you guys expect anything different for these new Swatties? Just as you two experienced, these high school seniors (and, in fact, any high school seniors in the history of the universe) cannot fully predict what their freshman year at college will be like. And, in turn, no freshman can fully understand what their junior or senior years will be like. It's a period of rapid growth. You guys are so close to it that you may not even notice. As parents, it is breathtaking to see how much smarter our kids get semester by semester.</p>

<p>How will a dozen College Confidential Swat freshmen fare next year? Probably about like any other random collection of a dozen Swat freshmen. Some will sail along enjoying themselves immensely. Some will probably encounter some rough spots. Some will hit it off with their roomates. Others will swap rooms after the first semester. Two or three will probably stop by the counseling center at some time during the year -- either because they miss home, or are wrestling with social issues, or maybe orientation issues, or having roommate troubles, or maybe even down in the dumps over getting their first ever C on a mid-term. Hopefully all of them will get their papers WA'd, but some won't. Some will call home and unload on Mom every few days. Some will call home once a week like they promised. Some will call for the first time in October just to give their flight arrival information for break.</p>

<p>Statistically, maybe none or maybe one will decide to transfer after freshman year -- perhaps because they had a messy romance with the upperclassman down the hall that went horribly bad when his old girlfriend came home from semester abroad or any of the million other reasons that people play the college transfer version of musical chairs after the first year. </p>

<p>Four won't drink at all, four will drink moderately. Four will probably booze it up pretty good from time to time. Probably half of them won't major in what they think they will major in. </p>

<p>Actually, my guess is that College Confidential bunch probably fares a little better than average statistically, mostly because they have overnighted at least once so far and will do so again for Ride the Tide. So they'll be more acclimated than the average bear starting out. The EDers have a little more of an edge because they mentally began shifting gears from being high school kids when they opened their letters. They have a long time to transistion into being college freshmen get to know some of their new classmates on Arador's site, plus they go off to college with a level of enthusiasm that is a huge plus mentally. It appears to me that the kids most likely to struggle freshman year (and we've seen a few around here) are those who really aren't sold on the college they end up going to. (And, yes, you CAN thank the parents here for a certain someone deciding not to transfer to Swarthmore -- should have heard us singing the praises of UChicago).</p>

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<p>Not to mention hoping for a certain other someone's early acceptance to Yale!
I agree with what ID says about attitude going into freshman year. I talk to my daughter quite a bit about whether kids are happy or unhappy at the school and whether it is meeting/failing/exceeding expectations. Although she was RD, she says most of her friends were ED'ers with a lot of enthusiasm for Swarthmore, and she prefers that attitude. Though there may be disappointments and rough spots along the way, overall they've gone in with the desire to make it work and get the most out of their time at the school--good or bad.</p>

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<p>Sorry, I came into this late. I agree with everything that Collegialmom says about Interesteddad and how he has helped many candidates with Swarthmore admissions. Every person who gets into a college, gets into it with a set of expectations that over time could be proven wrong. And most people have difficult experiences in college. Swarthmore is very rigorous with almost no grade inflation. My son has finished his exams but still has 2 papers to write and is griping about it. It does not mean he would like to be somewhere else. We as parents, do try to point that out to potential admits.</p>

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<p>I know this is a late post, but I have to agree with Nancy R. Although interresteddad is helpful and encouraging to many appliers, I don't think you can afford to say much about the college's "real" experience if you have never actually taken clases and lived there. I had lots of enthusiasm too, until I actually came back to Swat after my freshman year summer and realized what a mental workout it was. It can be claustrophobic, people are sometimes close-minded, and there is no leeway for personal differences. Some teachers are biased, a lot are amazingly smart, welcoming, and helpful. </p>

<p>Many students are depressed. Half of my friends broke down during finals. We can all agree that we've learned more here than a lot of places. But this isn't an ivory tower of learning, here. It's a bunch of really smart 18-22 year olds who are stuck together for four years. We are all a little immature to be forced to perform academically 24/7. (That's how much you have to work to keep up around here).</p>

<p>And by the way interesteddad, around 50% of Swatties go to psych services at least once during their time at Swat. But why does this matter? The school is hard and unforgiving. We do have a wealth of support for students that fall behind or get into academic trouble, but obviously students are under immense, and I mean IMMENSE pressure, no matter what you major in. And some people can handle it because they have a supportive family and enormous self discipline, or took challenging high school classes and did well.</p>

<p>If my daughter wanted me to stop "researching" things that I can't really say anything about, I would. As a parent, I don't think It's helpful to misinform people and, to bring even more attention to the "table dropping" and personal student issues. If you must know, the kid has been told to 'take a/couple of semester/s off' and is coming back. The person that has lost to "none of the above" was an *******. Kids do stupid things. If you must know, people take out light posts, pee on each other's dorm doors, and break windows every semester. (# of people that have vomited in my dorm hall this semester = 14) Only the table incident is publicized because he hurt someone. We are not perfect.</p>

<p>The Daily Jolt forum is meant for students, and I'm shocked that parents read it. Just another venue that parents have taken to unsuccessfully grasp at the essence of their son/daughters real life. I would say about 80% of the forum is comprised of INSIDE jokes and students trying to rile people up. All you'll get out of the Jolt are ****ed-off students taking advantage of the fact that you don't know anything, and leading you astray. Stop trying to get brownie points with other parents. It seems like you don't even respect your daughter enough to stop. She's probably tried to tell you about her life at Swat, but you don't understand because you still have a vision of it as "the perfect school" and nothing else. </p>

<p>Can you deal with that?</p>

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<p>Collegeapplier:</p>

<p>I have already given you the stats for annual visits to counseling services and a comparison to one other liberal arts college (18% versus 25% at Smith). Keep in mind that a good college counseling services covers a much broader range of issues than academic pressure -- everything from difficulties 18 year olds encounter living away from home for the first time to sexual orientation issues to eating disorders and so and and so forth down a long list of typical teenage/young adult counseling topics. The counseling center is typical of the kind of services that I like about Swarthmore.</p>

<p>BTW, it sounds to me like you might want to consider a transfer. The Swarthmore students I talk to do not appear to be feeling "immense" pressure, beyond the normal deadline pressures of exam week that all college students feel.</p>

<p>BTW #2: the conditions set for the table-thrower's suspension make it virtually impossible for him to return to Swarthmore. One of the conditions requires him to get a two semesters of academic credit that would transfer to Swarthmore at another college. Once he has enrolled at another college for two semesters, it is highly unlikely that he would then turn around and return to Swarthmore for his senior year.</p>

<p>
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She's probably tried to tell you about her life at Swat, but you don't understand because you still have a vision of it as "the perfect school" and nothing else.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Actually, we have long, enjoyable conversations about her life at Swarthmore. The social life, the professors, the characters...</p>