<p>If you have direct info on student satisfaction levels at Swarthmore, cause you go there or cause you're a parent of someone who goes there, please comment.</p>
<p>I am the parent of a rising junior at Swarthmore. In my opinion, Swarthmore provides the best undergrad educational experience in the United States. So with that bias, I'll attempt to answer your question from a several perspectives:</p>
<p>a) On the student satisfaction surveys conducted and shared by the 31 COFHE schools (see list at <a href="http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/)%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/)</a>, Swarthmore scores at or near the top pretty much across the board. It is a very student-focused college -- from the professors, to the deans, to the nurses in the health center who put you up in a private room with a TV and feed you chicken soup when you have the flu.</p>
<p>b) Visiting accreditation review committees note an unusually high degree of shared purpose and mutual trust among all three segments of the campus community (administration, faculty, and students). I don't think there is a college with a strong sense of community and a campus culture that is essentially self-governing because everyone is on the same page. The faculty loves teaching Swarthmore students. There has really only been one major policy decision that has generated signficant heat in the last seven years: the decision to discontinue varsity football in 2000.</p>
<p>c) My daughter pinches herself. She is very aware of the opportunity for a very special experience. She absolutely loves the place for 13 of each 14 week semester. Overall, that is the prevailing sentiment of most Swarthmore students and alumni. </p>
<p>d) To temper that a little bit, Swarthmore is an academically challenging place. The students are demanding of themselves and their professors. The professors respond in kind. The average degree of academic engagement, effort in preparation, and level of discussion in the classroom is very high. It is not a place that allows students to hide in the back of a lecture hall. So, there are times (for example, during exam week when all the papers are due or during preparation for oral exams by outside experts for honors senior candidates) when students aren't so fond of the workload they have taken on. Few of them would want to give up the demanding academic experience (after all, they chose the school because they wanted to push themselves), but there are times when it is grueling.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Hey interesteddad, I hope you don't mind I sent you a PM. Thanks!</p>
<p>swarthmore is one of the best schools in the us. that being said, i just want to give a more level opinion on colleges as i'm searching them out right now. there're probably 5-7 colleges out there that interetsed dad's description of swarthmore could be cut and pasted to describe 100% and to which his daughter, if she attended, would be pinching and bruising herself at as well.</p>
<p>williams, amherst and wellesley all have consistently higher alumni giving rates than swat. bowdoin, haverford and swat alumni all give similar %s. if % giving correlates with satisfaction, then swat is similar to these schools... of course alumni giving office budgets can play a role here too i imagine.</p>
<p>for princeton's review of happiest college students for 2006, stanford, whitman, brown, smu, rhodes, college of nj, st johns, unc, u tulsa and haverford. for best overall undergrad experience, its carleton, haverford, amherst, pomona, smith, macalester, midd, williams, reed, mhc... i found this on cc... posted last year.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.studentsreview.com/PA/Swarthmore_College.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.studentsreview.com/PA/Swarthmore_College.html</a>
some opinions of swarthmore by 50 alumni</p>
<p>here's a post by intersted dad saying that all rankings and surveys have
some methodological flaws. i imagine the cofhe survey has flaws as well... so why cite it... just because it's favorable of swat?</p>
<p>You miss my point. All arbitrary rankings are a reflection of what is being measured more than any inherently "correct" ordering of schools. The Princeton Review rankings (unscientific measures of student response) isno better or worse than the USNEWS rankings (an indirect measure of per student endowment and location combined with SAT scores). The rankings are just different. Nothing more, nothing less.</p>
<p>Each prospective student has to decide how to weight the many many factors. For example, a student who weights "professor interaction" and "small class size" heavily will come up with a different ranking than a student who weights "lectures by Nobel Prize researchers" highly.</p>
<p>A student who weights "big frat scene" as a positive will come up with a different ranking list than a student who ranks "big frat scene" as a negative.</p>
<p>I'm not saying I agree with the Princeton rankings anymore or less than I agree with the USNEWS rankings (or which year USNEWS rankings I agree with the most). I'm just saying that the Princeton Review rankings are probably a valid measure of their particular weighting system (whatever that may be). There is some merit in the Princeton list; I don't think many educators (or even Harvard students) would rate Harvard as offering the best overall undergraduate experience. That's not why you go to Harvard.</p>
<p>I cannot answer the original poster's question yet, but I do want to comment on the "rankings."</p>
<p>The original question concerns how happy Swarthmore students are. I think that a survey of satisfaction is useful in determining how happy students are at a particular school. On the other hand, I think rankings of happiest students is not useful is finding an appropriate school for a specific person. I say this because the student body at a school may be very happy, but be completely different from the particular prospective student. </p>
<p>I think a prospective student should look for schools that meet whatever criteria that student thinks are important, and then look at how happy the students at those schools seem to be.</p>
<p>Concrete example: students may be very happy at SMU and at Brown, but those two schools are quite dissimilar from each other. I would quess that a student who would be happy at one of these schools would not be happy at the other.</p>
<p>I am a current Swarthmore student.</p>
<p>From my own experience, and judging by those of my friends and people I've talked to, and the general vibe amongst us students, I'd say that satisfaction levels are high on campus.</p>
<p>Think about it. We have a extra-rigorous courseload, grade deflation, are pretty obscure in comparison to many schools despite being as good as them, have a non-existent dating scene on campus and a pretty low-key party scene, and are trated to the same dining hall food over and over again. Sounds like a recipe for student discontent, doesn't it?</p>
<p>But it isn't. Instead, we have fun and are involved in a million things because we like those things. Students are generally supportive to each other. People take time out to be nice to each other. A palpable sense of "community" exists. There is a strong element of "warm fuzziness". We have fun. Many of us cannot imagine being anywhere else. Most of our professors are amazing and encouraging.</p>
<p>Yes, we stress out, yes, we play misery poker, but the important thing to remember is that a lot of people impose that stress upon themselves. And they know it.</p>
<p>I can't account for individual experience, of course. But as for my two cents on the general level of wellbeing and contentment on campus, I'd say, yeah, we feel really good about Swarthmore. </p>
<p>Sorry for the super-long post. I felt some qualifications and explanations were necessary parts of this.</p>
<p>i agree with you 100%. i think all rankings have issues. as you said, they're good at measuring satisfaction at those schools... and that all they're good at. in addition, i also agree with interesteddad's 2005 comment that rankings and surveys are good at measuring what they measure. however, i think taking any survey results and saying that one particular school is better or has more dedicated teachers, a better campus culture, ect is really a reach and underestimates many equally (but in a different way) fantastic schools.</p>
<p>i also find interested dad's last paragraph somewhat disingenuous... it's like a beauty queen saying that her biggest flaw is that she's so beautiful she intimidates people or the overly used "my biggest flaw is that i push myself too hard and don't know when to stop working" that you hear on too many "Apprentice" episodes.</p>
<p>"i also find interested dad's last paragraph somewhat disingenuous... it's like a beauty queen saying that her biggest flaw is that she's so beautiful she intimidates people or the overly used "my biggest flaw is that i push myself too hard and don't know when to stop working" that you hear on too many "Apprentice" episodes."</p>
<p>But it actually holds true amongst Swatties. The focus isn't on "getting by" in Swarthmore. It's on doing a terrific job of already-hard classes, and obviously this leads to people feeling somewhat overwhelmed during finals and midterms. We enjoy making things difficult for ourselves as far as academics go. I don't know what the individual motivations are for this behavior. Most of the time it's just an active interest in our work and the desire to explore it as thoroughly as possible.</p>
<p>It has its payoffs, most definitely. Grad schools and employers know most of us have earned our grades and that we've had a stimulating and in-depth education. And for Swatties, what better than serious intellectual stimulation!! =)</p>
<p>i'm glad you're having a great time at swat! i imagine you realize how lucky you are to be there. i agree that swat students work very hard and harder than many college students... it's just the presumption that the workload or seriousness of the students isn't as high at any number of top lacs that i found in interesteddad's comment a little overly indulgent. </p>
<p>"The focus isn't on "getting by""... at swarthmore... and amherst, wellesley, haverford, williams, pomona... :) i think student who have to stretch their finances to attend any of these schools will want to do more than "to get by".
some colleges that i've been reading about, the students work really really hard, but don't like showing it and don't like talking about it. :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
for best overall undergrad experience, its carleton, haverford, amherst, pomona, smith, macalester, midd, williams, reed, mhc... i found this on cc... posted last year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Swat is #4 on that list...<a href="http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingDetails.asp?CategoryID=1&TopicID=9%5B/url%5D">http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingDetails.asp?CategoryID=1&TopicID=9</a></p>
<p>I was merely explaining why SWATTIES tend to stress themselves out. Where have I claimed that other students at other top schools don't?! </p>
<p>I don't think any of us questions that other comparable schools are rigorous as well. I don't see how that's relevant. We were talking about Swarthmore, and yes, Swarthmore is academically hard. I'm making no comparisons between Swarthmore and any other school. Nor is interesteddad.</p>
<p>In his post, interesteddad openly says that he's biased in favor of Swarthmore. He's a fan of Swarthmore. So fine! Keep that in mind when you evaluate his comments.</p>
<p>We're not blowing our trumpets about how hard we work. Somehow the "intensity" fable always comes up when we talk about Swarthmore. It's a STEREOTYPE. And since it's one that sidles its way into every conversation about life at Swat, I felt I should mention it and its lack of actual impact upon student satisfaction.</p>
<p>So you've been "reading" about colleges where "students work really really hard, but don't like showing it and don't like talking about it.", Aren't you contradicting yourself there?</p>
<p>That aside, fur uncle, I'm glad I'm enjoying myself too. Thanks! =)</p>
<p>i wasn't referring to any of your posts. sorry if you read it like that and i hope you have a re****l summer.</p>
<p>"It is not a place that allows students to hide in the back of a lecture hall." </p>
<p>"The professors love teaching..."</p>
<p>ID's post was trying to say why he felt that swat is the best undergrad college around, which is fine cause he's entitled to his opinions... and swarthmore is very good. i just wanted to point out that nearly all of his statements to support his claim are more than obvious and are not unique to swat and are common for 5 or so of its peers. </p>
<p>i just think that if you assert that something is the best, you should at least support it with concrete examples rather than "cut and paste" adjetives that can be found in any college glossy and apply to any of the top 10 lacs.</p>
<p>why is r-e-s-t-f-u-l ****?</p>
<p>fur uncle:</p>
<p>I think that our family has a pretty solid knowledge of some of the other schools you mentioned. For example, my daughter would have been a double legacy (both mom and dad) at Williams. </p>
<p>Most of the things I described about Swarthmore do not apply to Williams. Specifically, the sense of community does not apply. There are significant portions of the Williams community who feel estranged from the dominant social culture of the school. That is simply not the case at Swarthmore. The "being on the same page" as the administration does not apply; see the recent change to the housing system that had virtually no support among the students. While Williams is an academically superb school, the average degree of academic engagement is not comparable. It can't be with double the binge drinking rate. To suggest that the same things could be said about both schools is ridiculous. After all, Swarthmore has not closed its health care facility on nights and weekends because excessive alcohol poisonings led the attending physicians to say "no mas". Nor has it had two visiting high school prospects hospitalized with alcohol poisoning in the last three years.</p>
<p>As for the COFHE surveys, these are private, internal student satisfaction surveys administered by 31 of the best private schools in the country. They measure literally hundreds of aspects of the college experience in great detail and serve as a primary tool in establishing priorities by administrators at each of these schools. It has nothing to do with "ranking" colleges. I cite it because the visiting accreditation panel cited Swarthmore's very high satisfaction numbers across a wide range of COFHE categories.</p>
<p>As for working hard academically. I think it's important for prospective students to know that. Simply put, if you aren't planning to take your academics seriously and be fully engaged in your classes, then Swarthmore's the wrong school. In large part this is because the style of education is so interactive (both professor/student and student/student) that being unprepared for a class just doesn't work.</p>
<p>the s-t-f-u in the word got it banned. sheesh!!</p>
<p>and thanks. sorry for sounding jumpy, i was just clarifying my view of things.</p>
<p>^^haha...I don't know if that's more sad or funny...</p>
<p>Anyway, ID, your link in post #2 doesn't seem to work...can you please check to see if it works for you?</p>
<p>Sorry. The close parenthesis ended up being formatted as part of the link. Try this:</p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/</a></p>
<p>THANKS! I hadn't even looked at the link when I clicked it....</p>
<p>furuncle,</p>
<p>1st, that is a very unfortunate choice of a name.
2nd, if you are interested in the best undergrad experience, you should ask yourself what you value the most and then go to the school that fits your criteria. If you like academics and drinking, then ID's description of Williams may be a good thing.</p>
<p>For me, taking into account academics, extracurriculars, campus culture, college location and diversity, I think there are 4 LACs that I would consider #1 in terms of undergrad experience.</p>
<p>Swat=Pomona=Amherst=Haverford/Bi-co</p>
<p>Those four would certainly be on my short list of schools to investigate further.</p>