Hi!
I’ve been accepted to Swarthmore, and I think it’s my #1 choice rn. However, I’ve been hearing way too many horror stories about the intense workload and grade deflation. I know there’s other threads, but can more people just share their experiences (especially current students or recent graduates) and compare this school to like Ivy League colleges (such as Penn)
Also, I want to go to medical school, so is it even possible to get into med school with a low gpa from Swat?
Thanks!
Bump
Current parent perspective: It is rigorous, but the students are very engaged in their studies…nearly all of them. The competition is high, but there are many with high GPA’s. The field hockey team was just listed as the highest GPA of any D3 team in the country…with (I recall) a 3.72, so it’s possible to have a life away from the books and still achieve.
I am aware of several MD’s who graduated Swat with interesting undergrad degrees, including art history. At the accepted student forum a few years back, the issue of pre-med was a hot topic and the panel was unanimous in their belief that Swat was a wonderful place to prepare for Med School.
Medical schools look for rigor in undergrad studies. Swat does well with medical school placement (I’d ask someone in admissions for specifics). It’s incongruous to fear rigor and desire medical school. If you want to go to medical school, Swarthmore is a great choice for undergrad studies.
@EyeVeee Thank you for your response! I guess I was just scared by listening to stuff like “Anywhere else it would have been an A.” I’m very excited to be attending Swarthmore 
Swarthmore no longer has grade deflation. The average GPA of 2013 graduates was a 3.56 in 2013, and it generally rises each year, so my guess would be around a 3.6 now. (http://www.gradeinflation.com/Swarthmore.html) That’s one of the highest GPAs in the country. Swarthmore is difficult and the workload intense, but the professors reward hard work and dedication. If you’re putting in the effort to get an A, you’ll get an A. Swarthmore is one of the top 20 colleges for sending students to the best medical schools (https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/infographics/top-feeders-medical-school), so students can definitely have fantastic outcomes with a Swarthmore degree. Congratulations to you!
Hey! I am a Swat alum who re-stumbled upon this forum and thought I might share some thoughts on the school even though this question is slightly old (but I am sure the answer will be helpful for future viewers). I feel like the previous times I got to chat with prospective students in person, I didn’t feel 100% comfortable giving the whole truth about my experiences, so here goes:
The workload can be extremely intense, but as one might expect the intensity varies depending on your major and the professors. For the most part there are no easy A’s; you’ll have to work twice as hard to score well in a course that you could easily put in minimal effort and do well at other institutions. This is not based purely on speculation; many of my swat classmates (myself included) took courses at peer institutions (you can easily enroll in courses at Bryn Mawr, Haverford and University of Pennsylvania) and many would remark that the majority of those courses are a joke/very easy compared to equivalent courses at Swat. Moreover, you’ll notice that new professors or visiting professors from other schools are often much easier compared to ‘veterans’ professors in their respective departments. And with time and pressure, the new professors get the hang of turning up the intensity/difficulty (or don’t get tenure and eventually leave). A lot of Swat professors maintain the idea that a C is the true “average.” If they assignment ask you to do X and you do X, that is worthy of a C, if they ask for X, and you do X + Y or X + Y + Z, then you get a B and A respectively if that makes sense. Often times you need to over perform on assignments to achieve an A (less so for science courses when the answer is a lot more straightforward).
** tl;dr Anywhere else it would have been an A is the motto at Swat for a reason. **
With that said, that doesn’t mean achieving a high GPA is impossible, it just often comes at the cost of sacrificing either a healthy amount of sleep or a healthy social life (and at crucial points in the semester you might have to temporarily sacrifice both). Personally, more often than not I chose sacrificing my “social life” because the vast majority of Swat students were miserable to be around and just not my type of crowd, so I distanced myself from most of them for sanity’s sake. If you put in the necessary work, you will do well. If you got into Swarthmore, that means you are smart enough to perform well academically. You need to figure out the ways to properly navigate the intensity via all the available tools/resources and make appropriate sacrifices.
** tl;dr It is not impossible to get an A, it just takes a lot of hard work and many sacrifices. Another motto is ‘High grades, adequate sleep, or great social life: You can only choose two, choose em wisely.’ **
Related to sacrifices and the consequences of them, one thing that Swat oddly likes to boast about is how many students (I think the number is ~1/3 of the class by their senior year) end up utilizing the free counseling and psychological services that they have available. Swat really takes a toll on your mental health because of the work load and poor social life so much so that many students find themselves seeking professional mental health services… Now it is wonderful that this service is readily available, but I wish Swat would work harder to address why so many students eventually find themselves with poor mental health as a result of spending fours years here… I know a number of students who either took a year off or straight up transferred out due to the intensity/stress. So this is something to consider about how strong of a person you are and to evaluate your coping mechanisms.
** tl;dr Swat can and will steer you towards mental instability with the crushing workload and relatively mediocre social life. But there are services and resources in place to help you cope! **
Back to GPA considerations: Even when you don’t have the highest of highest GPAs, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you do not know the material. It is just extremely difficult to achieve a 4.0 here. For instance, I was a STEM major and took organic chemistry, which no matter where you are is a difficult course to do well in. Ultimately, I received a C in ochem II despite dedicating significant effort and time towards the course. I was pretty devastated because I was premed and recognized that it was an unattractive blemish on my academic record. I ended up taking the poor score with pride because a) the professor himself told us that he also received a C in the course, which made me feel less bad about it and b) I genuinely learned a ton, which really hit home for me when I took the MCAT (entrance exam for medical school, which largely tests knowledge of chemistry, biology and physics) and ended up scoring 90+ percentile (for comparison the average applicant has 50th percentile and average matriculant has 79th), thus illustrating that my deflated GPA is not representative of my actual strong knowledge in topics such as organic chemistry.
** tl;dr Swarthmore will prepare you for the future. You will learn a lot despite deflated GPAs. **
My GPA was relatively low for a med school applicant (it was between 3.4 and 3.5 and the average applicant is 3.55 and matriculant 3.7) but coupled with a very high MCAT score, great extracurricular activities and graduating from a prestigious institution like Swat that is know to produce extremely qualified students, I was able to get into a top 10 medical school. So yes you can get into medical school with a “low” GPA! But the rest of your application needs to be great.
** tl;dr Getting into medical school with a deflated Swat GPA is very possible **
In the end I will say that I absolutely hated my experience at Swarthmore. My mental health took major hits every step of the way (experienced lows that I would not wish on my worst enemy) and there were a number of times I considered transferring out. But what I can’t deny is that I learned a lot from professors who truly care about teaching undergraduate students. There are a lot of resources and great opportunities to get you through to the finish line. At the end of the day, it is only four years of your life and they will fly by. They gave me amazing financial aid and I managed to graduate debt free, something many of my friends from high school absolutely envy.
Moreover, having a Swarthmore degree made it very easy to find a gap year job in my field (I had 4 jobs offers a month before graduation). Job interviewers would remark how much they love Swarthmore graduates because they always have a great work ethic, are extremely smart and compassionate people. And there is a similar dynamic for medical school admissions. Medical school’s love Swat graduates because previous graduates have demonstrated that we make excellent students. So no matter where you go you get the benefit of the doubt that you are great because of the Swat legacy.
Ultimately I had a terrible time there, but I accomplished a lot as a result of being a Swat student so I can’t bash it too much. ** But I’ll end with this: If I were to wake up tomorrow and discover that I was transported back in time to the first day of my senior year in HS, I would not apply to Swarthmore again. ** I would go to a different school with similar prestige, but with happier students and obviously preference for schools with grade inflation. It would make my college experience a lot more enjoyable, while still engaging in high quality academics. But you need to figure out what is right for you.
Good luck!