<p>As a prof. at a community college I am always looking for info. about transfer schools for our brightest students. From my point of view I can tell you duelers that chauvinism is usually not a good indicator of intelligence. Parsing the very minor differences between these two schools is inane. Both are excellent institutions, both have good bio departments, both send kids to PHd programs, both have Quaker roots, they are ten miles apart, to the average person they would be identical.</p>
<p>Quibbling does a disservice to your schools. If Swarthmore has such intelligent students, be an example of that.</p>
<p>/\ I agree with you mythmom. As my sister, brother and I went to the tr-colleges, I always likened them to political opponents of the same party... now, it would be Clinton, Obama and (hopefully) Gore. Just because they are very much the same, that doesn't really stop them and their supporters from arguing their minute differences as can be seen from all the Sunday AM talk shows.</p>
<p>I guess you would be Michelle Malkin or Ann Coltour, basically saying, "It really doesn't matter... you clowns are really all the same to most people."</p>
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<p>fhimas... I check my reply to you way back when... I did say "a small minority of" (twice) ... I don't know how you read differently but I feel a little bad I "scared the CRAP" out of you as I don't like scaring teens. As about 10% of my social group are Swat alumni, I absolutely would not make generalizations but rather am addressing a particular small facet of the school.</p>
<p>Pretty sure that (1) metaphors are non-concrete by their very nature and (2) the average IQ of a Swarthmore student is higher than that of a Haverford student. Probably by about 5 points. Whether or not you want to be concerned with this is entirely up to you.</p>
<p>I stand by my original answer: both Swarthmore and Haverford have excellent biology programs.</p>
<p>There are many reasons why one student might choose Swarthmore over Haverford or vice versa, but the absolute potential to get an excellent undergrad Bio education would not be one of the more significant reasons.</p>
<p>If you are looking for statistical differences, I would suggest financial resources and per student endowment as important measures. Additionally, I would recommend visiting both schools and seeing for yourself. Of course, there is always that other little factor which helps many students decide: which one mails you an acceptance letter! The two schools have somewhat different admissions profiles.</p>
<p>Quote: "So, IF we are to indulge that this difference is significant, what are those possibilities? Given that Swat’s bio isn’t 100% health related, it probably attracts more kids interested in organism based bio and developmental studies which is more in line with a PhD. So, in my mind, out of these 5 people/10 years, maybe this accounts for… I don’t know, what’s a reasonable estimate… “3” of them. So that leaves maybe “TWO” LEFT and the stuff I wrote later (“SECONDARILY”) was in regards to that… to the minority of students at Swat who MAY possibly account for this residual and everything I said is true."</p>
<p>I don't really care who has more PhDs in biology or Physics or whatever. I just find your obsession with comparing these schools and defending Haverford vs other places to be a bit strange and unnecessary. </p>
<p>Quote: "As my brother (1 year older), college GF and ### college friends and friends from medical school went to Swat within the last decade, I have my experience and theirs. The same issues that they discussed are the same one’s I’m seeing here on CC. Again, while there are conceited posts on every LAC forum, I have yet to read of any so socially maladjusted as here. IN FACT, if I remember correctly, several CURRENT students have written/implied that “…there are a few more dudvinchi’s at Swat than expected…”. My assertion that you are taking offense to is utterly benign. Can a few OF THESE PEOPLE be science majors/pre-meds and be either shut out of med school given their pretense and everything else that I wrote about or the fact that they just aren’t “people persons” and prefer not working with patients? Can some OF THESE PEOPLE then account for the remaining miniscule difference that is the crux of this ridiculous “debate”? That is my point and you should read the last 2 sentences of my initial response again as I said it there too."</p>
<p>Guess what: you have NO IDEA on College Confidential who is real and who is a troll and who is a Swat student and who went to Haverford or no college at all! So anything that you read on this website cannot be taken seriously, per student's personalities, because you don't even know who has ever stepped on the Swarthmore campus! Just like that I don't know if you went to Haverford, or were rejected by all the Tri-Co schools or were fired from a Swarthmore position or whatever. No conclusions about a college or its students can be made from this website. </p>
<p>And why are you so obsessed with analyzing students at a particular college with which you apparently have no connection, if in fact you really did attend Haverford, or any other college? Is it some kind of hobby? Do you long for your college girlfriend and this makes you feel closer to her?</p>
<p>If you notice, after your 1st hostile response, I tried to remain respectful by repeating myself and explaining to you calmly what I felt you may have misunderstood. I remained patient even after the fact that you seemed so intent on dismissing me that you irrationally overlooked the SEVEN times I tried to get my point across. In light of that, I find your reply where you didn’t really address anything I wrote except to be in denial and attack me personally is a little surprising and somewhat disappointing. Collegial you are not. So, in conclusion, your 1st reply to me was a hostile mischaracterization and an overt simplification of my multifaceted and restrained argument down to a blanket generalization and your 2nd reply to my respectful response was knee jerk, emotional and embarrassing. </p>
<p>Personally, I ‘m here for the same reasons you are… to try to give an honest depiction of college. Regarding the “obsession” of comparing colleges in which you are diagnosing me as having, once again you are wrong. In fact, the majority of my recent posts are in response to Swat students comparing Swat to Haverford and dismissing Haverford by using inaccuracies and mischaracterizations.</p>
<p>1) Suggesting Swat is better than Haverford cause only Swat students can take classes at Penn as if this is some type of IVY stamp of approval. (HC kids can take classes at Penn but really don’t do it often cause the Bi-co’s resources are expansive). </p>
<p>2) Haverford’s Bio-med can be dismissed when compared to Swat. (I made my point)</p>
<p>3) Miniscule differences on the PhD rankings are a measure of quality and intelligence. (I made my point)</p>
<p>…and in the past as well where Interested Dad suggested that “Swat dominates” the Tri-co where in fact, the Bi-college is self-contained and Swat kids misrepresenting and bashing Haverford’s honor code when their only understanding of it is a ½ hour college tour. </p>
<p>Rather than, as you suggested, dismiss people who challenge your beliefs as “trolls or fakers”, I think it’s important to hear these people out and, if they’re wrong, tell them with reason and detail why they may not be correct, why their facts are not right, and why their analysis of numbers isn’t as thorough as it should be. As the main reason for CC is to disseminate information on college to prospective students (marketing), wouldn’t you be a little frustrated if mischaracterizations and inaccuracies seemed to be repeated by individuals associated with a neighboring (rival?) institution? Wouldn’t you want to clarify the facts so that comparisons are more honest and representative?</p>
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Can you tell me where you got this information, or if it is just a guess on your part the rational you used to arrive at your guess?
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This info probably comes from the same source as the one A.E. bases his estimates of chances for admissions on (which he gives with remarkable "precision" on this board...)</p>
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Personally, I ‘m here for the same reasons you are… to try to give an honest depiction of college. Regarding the “obsession” of comparing colleges in which you are diagnosing me as having, once again you are wrong. In fact, the majority of my recent posts are in response to Swat students comparing Swat to Haverford and dismissing Haverford by using inaccuracies and mischaracterizations.
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<p>Collegialmom, in fact many of HC_Alum's posts do exactly what he said.</p>
<p>If anyone should care, as someone who doesn't have a horse in this race but got started looking at both the Swarthmore and Haverford boards from time to time a couple years ago when my son was applying to college (and visited both schools), I'd have to say that the posts that I've read over the years from HC Alum have tended (as far as I can recall), at least in the main, to be informative, even-handed, and (from the standpoint of potential students and their parents) helpful.</p>
<p>Sure, HC Alum may go a little over the top at times. But so do virtually all of us who appear on these boards (even, to take but one example, the seemingly indefatigable and often exceedingly helpful idad). But, hey, such passages tend to be pretty self-evident (I suspect that, with at least some of them, even he might even have chosen to word them a bit differently in retrospect) and, when you come to one of them, you can just turn the volume down.</p>
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Can you tell me where you got this information, or if it is just a guess on your part the rational you used to arrive at your guess?
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I'm just going by the well-documented correlation between SAT and IQ. I realize this is a controversial topic, and there are experts who agree with either position on the matter; I just happen to fall into the camp that does see there to be a correlation between the two, even for today's SAT. My rough estimate of the difference in IQ between Swarthmore and Haverford students is based on the difference between the average SAT scores of the students at the two places.</p>
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Also I am not really an expert on the question of IQs is there much, if any, real world difference in an IQ of 130 and 135?
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A 135 on most IQ tests will get you into MENSA. A 130 won't. But, what qualifies as a "real world difference" is subjective, so I'll leave it to you to make that decision for yourself in the event you ever decide to inform yourself on the matter further.</p>
<p>A.E.: You've reached a new level of silliness. The I.Q. test was devised by the army to sort draftees. Neither Richard Feynman nor James Watson meets your benchmark; I do, but I assure you I am no Richard Feynman.</p>
What benchmark? What are you even talking about. I'm merely letting you and everyone else know that, on the debate as to whether there is a correlation between SAT and IQ, I fall in the camp that says there is... along with many professional psychological researchers whose business is it to study such things.</p>
<p>And by the way, thanks for taking this opportunity to share with us all that you have a 135+ IQ. LOL.</p>
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And Alfred Nobel, whose name is attached to the peace prize, invented dynamite and a host of other explosives which have been used in weapons for over a century. So, even though your point is irrelevant, thanks for sharing with us one of life's great ironies.</p>
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And since both schools have better SAT's than Cornell, just make fun of those Ivy retards, as the SAT is all that matters. <em>sigh</em>
<p>Since when does a 135 get you into MENSA? I thought it was a 150.</p>
<p>Swarthmore does tend to attract kids who are "quirky".
Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr (third school of the tri-co consortium) all enroll students who are interested in learning.
It's not particularly useful to quibble over the academics but each school has a different feel.</p>
<p>A.E. My point was that the IQ test is silly and revealing of just about nothing. And even those who favor the test wouldn't care about 5 pts. It's not even a standard deviation. The beligerant attitude you are taking is doing your wonderful school a disservice.</p>
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A.E. My point was that the IQ test is silly and revealing of just about nothing.
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Thanks for your opinion on the IQ test. I disagree, and actually think it's quite often a great measure of someone's cognitive capabilities.</p>
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And even those who favor the test wouldn't care about 5 pts. It's not even a standard deviation.
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What difference does it make if it's a standard deviation or one third of a standard deviation that separates two populations? It's still measurable and, as such, significant.</p>