Question

<p>So, about a month ago, after being given an etra week to make my decision, I declined transfering to Swarthmore. I had undergone some stress since applying, including getting bad mono and having a friend in an abusive relationship. I wanted to be closer to home. Sometime since then, living and working alone over the summer, it hit me that I really don't know what I want to do and don't feel a need to specialize too much as an undergraduate, and that I really would be happy pursuing a double major in Bio and PolySci from a small progressive LA College where I'd have less rigid curriculum. It hit me so hard that I thought about taking off school for a year to be close to home for awhile and then re-applying to Swat and some other places. However, my grades were lower this last semester due to mono, so that's no good. I actually called Swat admissions to check if their class this year was full, but of course it is. Do you think it would be possible for me to do really well at a university for a semester and be accepted to Swat again, or would I just seem too flaky? Do you think visiting in like November to show I am serious would help?</p>

<p>Escape:</p>

<p>I really think you need to focus on being positive and excited about UChicago. To go there already thinking about transfering again, whether to Swarthmore or anywhere else, is just going to make you predisposed to not enjoying another year in college.</p>

<p>I did enjoy last year of college. I enjoyed it a lot. I was just really underwhelmed with Smith's academics, and I'm able to separate the two. I'm still best friends with those girls, and planning on going back to visit. I'm not planning on transferring until I've been to UChicago for a couple of months and checked stuff out. I'm sure I'll have fun there too, and make friends. I've just picked up and moved too many times in my life to feel obligated to stay somewhere if there's something else I know I want. Truth be told, I really wanted to be closer to family for awhile, because I haven't lived at home since I was 13. To be honest, being close to home and more out in the "real world" for a year and THEN getting to go back to a COED liberal college on the east coast having a better idea of what I wanted out of education would sort of be my ideal college experience. Being uber liberal myself and liking to know my professors, I always liked Swarthmore better as a whole. I had been sold on the idea touted by UChicago admissions that UChicago offered an undergrad experience like that at a college. I was put off when I recently talked to some UChicago profs and learned how opposed they are to independent study before the Senior year. Perhaps my irritation with that too shall pass.</p>

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I did enjoy last year of college. I enjoyed it a lot.

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<p>Usually, transfering out of a college after freshman year is not indicative of a satisfied customer!</p>

<p>I enjoyed my life overall. I didn't learn much in the classes beyond what I learned from the readings.</p>

<p>except for the presence of men, i'm not sure that swarthmore would be that different from smith. sure, some campus and student culture stuff, but not so much academically. both great schools with great professors, etc.</p>

<p>Do you think this is true? This is a discussion I'd like to start, comparing academic rigour at various colleges. Perhaps Swarthmore would not be much different than Smith, but even taking advanced classes I seriously did not feel I had to work very hard at Smith, or that I learned very much in class, AND I was not such a stellar student at my high school. One of our profs said that when he taught at UMass the students there got lower grades for doing the same quality work Smith students do. I don't think SATs are a good representation of people's ability to learn, but I think they may mean something about preparation for college... Smith's students have SATs about 200 points lower than Swarthmore students on average. Also the few Swat and Haverford students I've known at least seemed more knowledgeable than all but the top students at Smith (although this is a crude estimation, I'm sure). Why do people say Smith is a great school? Because of its selectivity ranking? Because it's had prominent female leaders attend? The former can be controlled by the college admissions department, and the latter is mostly a matter of whether children from influential families decide to attend the college. What do you think?</p>

<p>Swarthmore has a long tradition of rigorous academics and a self-selected student body engaged enough to allow professors to challenge them. </p>

<p>How that compares to other colleges would be difficult, if not impossible, for any of us to say. Probably Professors who have taught at Swarthmore and other colleges would be in the best position to make comparisons.</p>

<p>I don't know anything about Smith, so I can't comment. I used to take the rigor of Swarthmore with a grain of salt, especially since my son went to a very rigorous, no-grade-inflation high school and worked his tail off there. But now I don't, after he completed his first year at Swarthmore. There is NO watering down of grades here, at least in the courses my son and his friends took. I don't have charts and graphs to demonstrate this, just anecdotal experience. But you really have to earn your grades. An A is very hard to get. An A- is hard, a B+ is hard as well. Even in humanities subjects - which are supposedly easier (don't want to start a war here over that, but I hear that from non-liberal arts students all the time).</p>

<p>Not only that, you have to go a whole lot beyond the material in standard introductory text books in order to really succeed, even in freshman year. Missing from and non-participation in class discussions is to your great disadvantage. For example, the Econ. final needed an understanding of how to apply the principles taught all year to solve problems around the world and to really apply critical thinking skills. It needed you to read beyond the textbooks recommended, keep an eye on problems/solutions around the world, be aware etc.</p>

<p>My son has kept in touch with his high school friends who have gone on to many selective colleges. When he discusses his freshman year, he is convinced that Swarthmore is one of the best liberal arts colleges in the country and his experience is very different from theirs.</p>

<p>ok, that's very interesting. It makes me really think that the people who say one LA College is like another are wrong. now i still haven't got my question answered -I think I really will benefit from a year closer to home and more time with family, so I don't have too much of a prob with that. However, after having continued to hear from students at UChicago and Swat (and having made good friends over the summer who go to Swat, dammit...), I'm pretty sure Swat would be a better fit for me academically as well as socially. This makes me an idiot, I admit. Have all the fun with "I told you so"s you want. I'm still wondering if you think it would be possible, hypothetically speaking, to go to two schools and then be admitted to Swat again, perhaps as a second semester Soph? (assuming I do well academically at UChicago) I don't know too much about college admissions, and the best my parents could ever say was "we've never even heard of Swarthmore, and neither have our friends." I do have a lot I'll get to do and eplore this year in Chicago, like building up Illinois' student environmental network, working on the Chicago county election, volunteering at a women's shelter, etc., so like I said, it's not a total loss -it's just that with the price of college I feel a right to be picky</p>

<p>I don't think you can transfer second semester of sophomore year. The transfers that I know about are only the Fall semester.</p>

<p>I mean transfer in the fall with 3 semester's credit, so that I'd have 2nd semester Sophomore standing and could go 3 years at Swat. What I'm trying to ask is whether having already been at two different schools would make me as an applicant look worse than someone who's only been at 1 school. Possibly, I could still go back to Smith if that would make transferring someplace else next year easier. Again, this is all very hypothetical...</p>

<p>Don't take the word of internet strangers in an important decision like this. But I don't see why not. However, I have NO experience with this. Also, I don't know how multiple transfers for no apparent reason would look like to the admissions commitee at Swat. UChicago is a wonderful university....so even if they understood why you wanted to transfer to UChicago (more rigorous academics), how would you explain the transfer again to Swarthmore?</p>

<p>The reasons I am suddenly not liking UChicago are short and sweet: the political science department at Chicago is mostly conservative (I did not know this when I decided to apply, I only knew about the economics dept), Chicago as an institution apparently makes independent study before Senior year difficult (sort of the polar opposite of Swat here), and more personally (though I likely wouldn't put this in an essay) I actually do not like being in a city very much -I grew up in the country, so being right in a city makes me feel claustrophobic. Chicago is probably somewhat stronger in Biology than Swat, so why I was trying to convince myself to specialize as an undergrad, it was a good choice -however, this summer I've done some things which cause me to consider my political science double major more seriously -I may end up at law school instead of grad school. Also more personally, I would really enjoy being in a community with many people interested in social service (this is one thing I definitely did LIKE about Smith), and what always drew me to Swarthmore.</p>

<p>With all due respect, ecape, because I know this is difficult, you need to do as interesteddad suggested and psyche yourself up for U of C. The fact that you transferred out of Smith after one year without learning those things about Chicago (they would have very been easy to find out) indicates to me that you may be not only unhappy at any other school you transfer to, but unlikely to be admitted again to Swarthmore. Swarthmore is a self selecting student body that just "knows" they belong there. You may feel that you belong there, but then, you should have known it before, and you shouldn't be still trying to convince yourself by posting here! U of C is a fantastic school in one of the most wonderful cities in the world (and I have lived in many wonderful places!) and if you go with a positive attitude, you have so much to gain. The student body at both schools have so much similarity, you really can't go wrong. Also, despite Swat's focus on "social change", quite honestly, you'll probably find more opportunities for volunteerism in the city of Chicago if that's what you want. You need to learn to "bloom where you are planted"--one of the most valuable lessons you will ever learn. Good luck with everything!</p>

<p>I always preferred Swarthmore to UChicago, and I loved LOVED Swarthmore when I visited. My parents who had never heard of Swarthmore accused me of trying to psyche myself out of UChicago when I visited it and came back and told them I didn't like it. I was having a hard time making a decision because I was stressed out from having mono, having a friend in an abusive relationship, living and working and paying rent alone for the first time this summer, and having people I know encouraging me to go to UChicago. I swear had I made that decision any other month of my life I would have made it differently. I understand how important it is to psyche myself up for UChicago this next year, it's just awful feeling like I wasn't my normal self when I made my decision. And in terms of being able to find out my two "problems" with the university earlier on, I swear I asked people and got responses to the contrary. It is far harder to find out such things about universities than about colleges, because no one you talk to will have a good overall sense of the university. It was only once I got to campus that I found out. Truly, finding out that what I had been told was somewhat misleading was the breaking point in my ability to be profoundly optimistic about UChicago.</p>

<p>AND with all due respect, considering that the only people Swarthmore seems to accept right out of my high school are depressed grinds interested in math or science who go to Yale if they're not given full rides, I think all y'all need to stop being so idealistic about Swarthmore's "community" and "just knowing you belong there". I'm totally optimistic about UChicago -at least I'll have guys. It's just tough not feeling ****ed when one finds out one has been mislead. I'll see where I am in 3 months.</p>

<p>While I'm not going to agree with everything escape had to say, I do think she has a point about the "just knowing you belong there." Swatties are as insecure about themselves as any other college students. There's a reason they tell us at freshman orientation that "the only admissions mistakes we make are the people we don't accept." </p>

<p>Plenty of people feel they don't belong at Swat. Plenty of people aren't sure that they're in the right place. Not everyone "just knows they belong there," and I think it does a disservice to people who feel unsure to suggest that they should know for sure.</p>

<p>I definitely didn't feel I belonged at Swat during my first year. Am I a Swattie? Heck, yes. But it's only really feeling that way after two years. It's a place you can grow into and come to feel that you belong in, but for a lot of people the fit isn't instant.</p>

<p>All this is to say that, really, just about any place can come to fit if you give it the chance. Sometimes the difference is so drastic that it just doesn't work, but I don't think that's the case with UChicago and Swat. Let yourself breathe a little, escape. Give it a chance. If you find that it still isn't working for you, then I think your best bet may be a gap year. That would give you the chance to really look around, at both the schools and yourself, and figure out what it is you need and want.</p>

<p>ecape, you seem to have--if you don't mind my saying so--a real love-hate relationship with Swarthmore. You speak now, as you did those few months ago when you were making up your mind the first time, of how much you love Swarthmore. Yet now, as then, you then make nasty remarks about the college which make your statements of how much you love it a tad less credible. Be that as it may, I think you should, as the song goes, love the one you're with.</p>

<p>Honestly, Ecape, I think you should seek counseling as soon as possible to try to solve these conflicts you appear to have within yourself. With all due respect to the many helpful parents on CC, you really need "real" help to sort this out. Happy people are generally happy anywhere, and I doubt that college-hopping will solve your problems. U-Chicago and/or the surrounding area are filled with fine therapists, as Chicago was one of the first places in the US to foster this kind of help. Good luck, but I would get this help ASAP, so that you can enjoy your college life!</p>