<p>Swarthmore is tiny ! Does anyone think that its too stifling - i know that phillys not that far but are swarthmore students the type of students that after two years of make you need a change of scene? or will you love them so much that you never want to leave em?</p>
<p>About the time college starts to feel too small, Swatties go spend a semester in China, or Africa, or South America, or Europe, or Russia.</p>
<p>When they come back, it's a sprint senior year to graduation with plenty to keep them busy.</p>
<p>All liberal arts colleges start to feel a little too small at times. It's not so much a function of size as it is the isolation from the real world in the ivory tower. Swarthmore students are lucky because it is so easy to go get a breath of fresh air in the real world -- for an afternoon or evening or for a weekend.</p>
<p>Even without a semester away junior year, there is enough to do at Swat, and Philly is so near and easily accessible that I haven't heard the Swarthmore students that I know complain about the size. </p>
<p>It is so close to Philly that it is more appealing for some applicants than some of the very isolated LACs. It obviously is not an urban campus and would contrast greatly with Columbia or Penn in that regard. Depends what you want.</p>
<p>Not just access to Philadelphia. My daughter averaged a weekend a year in New York City. She did a couple of trips to D.C. It was easy to visit friends at other northeast colleges on the train. And, air travel is easy and cheap, opening up possibilities to visit friends in places like Atlanta or Miami or Boston or wherever.</p>
<p>It is a very, very easy campus for travel of all varieties.</p>
<p>As for small size, my daughter recognized most, but not all, of the graduating seniors in her class, but that she didn't know all of them by any means. She's living in D.C. in a house with two Swatties in the class ahead of her. She knew who they were, but had never talked with either of them at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>I have over 350 swat friends on Facebook and I rarely see half of them. Of the other half, I get the opportunity to socialize infrequently with half of them and of the remaining quarter of the the 350, I see half all the time and the other half only frequently. So exactly how many students does one need to be at a college or university for the place to not be "stifling?" a) 40,000 b) 11,000 c) 6000 d)1,400 e) you worry too much.</p>
<p>I do not feel that Swat is too small, and I'm going into my senior year--I'm still meeting new people in my own class, and I'm not a hermit by any means.</p>