Students'/Alums' Take on Swarthmore

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
121

<p>I have to say that I disagree with Involved Mom about the first pass/fail semester. I think it makes a less stressful transition, and should give the students a pretty good idea to whether they can handle the level of academics expected at Swarthmore. Even if they go on to explain their shadow grades by "not working as hard as they could had it not been pass/fail", I think for themselves they should know by the end of the semester if they don't fit there academically.</p>

<p>As for the parents' weekend - I really don't think it matters when that takes place. I actually thought it was much wiser to hold it in the spring, when the students are settled in, feel at home on campus, and can show the parents what their life is like, as opposed to holding it in the fall (like many other schools do), when they didn't even have a chance to miss their parents).</p>

122

<p>
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why is there always a huge discussion about where to hold the annual Halloween party?);

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</p>

<p>Because the residents of the dorm that hosted the Halloween Party for the last decades decided two years ago that hosting the party wasn't worth the aggravation. The party has been hosted in the Tarble Student Center for the last two years, with some students grousing because drinking is not allowed on the upper level.</p>

<p>This has proven to be a better location than Mary Lyons in one key way: no arrests for public intoxication as several hundred college students stagger through downtown Swarthmore at 2:00 am. The Mary Lyons Halloween Party used to consistently generate substantially all of the alcohol related arrests during a typical year.</p>

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...monitoring for students taken to health center (current policy is for "friends" to stay and monitor inebriated students - how safe is this?)

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<p>If it's too much bother for a friend to stay with an inebriated student taken to Worth on a Saturday night, then I am sure the College would be happy to arrange ambulance transport to the local hospital. That will cost the student several thousand dollars between the medical bills and the police citation for underage drinking that is automatic with a hospital transport. Or the College could just do like other schools and close the health center on nights and weekends. Most Swarthmore students would rather have a friend stay and babysit at Worth with trained personnel on hand. The system works pretty well.</p>

<p>The College is under no obligation to run a drunk tank for binge drinking students, nor do they advertize drunk tank services in their admissions literature. Honestly, if you think you are going to need medical attention for alcohol poisoning on a regular basis, Swarthmore is probably not the right school for you. There are better party schools with much higher binge drinking rates.</p>

123

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There is nothing at Parents Weekend that would help decide to transfer or not transfer.

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I agree completely.</p>

124

<p>
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There are more women than men?

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</p>

<p>Just about everything you need to know about Swarthmore statistically is in the College factbook.</p>

<p>Swarthmore</a> College :: Institutional Research :: Fact Book</p>

<p>Here's the enrollment data broken down by gender:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/RaceSex.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/RaceSex.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

125

<p>

involved mom gave a logical argument for her position. You did not, but I acknowledge that one could probably be made for your position. Thus, this is a case of it depending a lot on the individual. Some will cope better with the transition and understand the reality of college and how they fit in at their particular institution better through a trial by fire. Others will do better by easing into their new academic environment and using their intuition to figure out the difference in expectations between their pass/fail semester and their first "real" semester.</p>

<p>Personally, I don't think it made any difference for me that the first semester was pass/fail; it didn't make my transition any easier and it didn't make my evaluation of the school any more challenging (I was always in the "anywhere else, it would have been a B+ camp" anyway... grades were but one small aspect of college). One thing I did like was having the option to take a few classes pass/fail later. I definitely used that to make my senior year a piece of cake. It's quite rewarding to get to the end of the semester and realize you don't even have to hand in a final paper in order to pass.</p>

126

<p>
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Not as easy to take classes at Penn, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr as expected.

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I agree. I don't think many Swarthmore student are looking for classes at Haverford, Bryn Mawr and Penn, for those who do it might turn out to be a bigger hassle than they expected based on advertisement. Nevertheless, those who want it do take classes at the other schools.</p>

127

<p>
[quote]
This has proven to be a better location than Mary Lyons in one key way: no arrests for public intoxication as several hundred college students stagger through downtown Swarthmore at 2:00 am.

[/quote]

Those students deserved to get arrested. The clever drunk students could always evade the police. For those who were unable to do this, this arrest amounted to a much needed learning experience.</p>

128

<p>
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involved mom gave a logical argument for her position. You did not, but I acknowledge that one could probably be made for your position.

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</p>

<p>I'd think that pass/ fail should make transferring much easier, if anything - you'd have no bad grades to show at the time you are applying, and being accepted to Swarthmore in the first place would probably be to your advantage.</p>

129

<p>
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...involved mom gave a logical argument for her position.

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</p>

<p>Not really. The argument seems to be that her daughter ignored the danger signs from first semester shadow grades and that somehow it would have made it easier to transfer if the poor grades were on her official transcript.</p>

<p>For incoming Swarthmore students: The point of pass/fail first semester is not to let you be a total slacker without consequence, but rather to let you figure out where you stand viz-a-viz Swarthmore academics. Take warning signs from the shadow grades seriously. If you bomb first semester freshman year, you either need to come up with a new plan of attack or start thinking about transfering to an easier school.</p>

130

<p>
[quote]
Those students deserved to get arrested. The clever drunk students could always evade the police. For those who were unable to do this, this arrest amounted to a much needed learning experience.

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</p>

<p>I agree with you. They did deserve to get arrested. Nevertheless, the number of alcohol arrests has dropped with the move of the Halloween party back to an on-campus location.</p>

131

<p>
[quote]
Advising has not been helpful. D has learned much from older students, peers, her own research, and discussing things with us.

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This is truly unfortunate. The initial adviser is assigned to the student based on "interests" or "prospective major" and can often not be a good match. But by the end of the first semester the students usually know a professor that would be a better choice for them, and they can switch their adviser. They certainly should take advantage of this if the advising they were getting has not been helpful.</p>

132

<p>In prompting involved mom for the details I wasn't hoping to dump on her, and hope everyone can appreciate her point of view, even if they disagree or think that the facts are otherwise.</p>

<p>I was particularly interested in her last point about the lack of men at Swarthmore. Even 30+ years ago the social/sexual scene had a lot of "trial marriages," many of which became real marriages giving rise to the phrase "Quaker Matchbox." My understanding is that at many colleges there is little dating in the traditional 1950s - 1960s sense, but more serial monagamy and casual hookups. I think Swarthmore is not unusual in this regard. It is not necessarily ideal, but is the common scene at many or perhaps most colleges these days.</p>

<p>The basic demographics at Swarthmore are that there are probably a few more women than men (52% vs 48%), but that this ratio is more evenly balanced than at some other top colleges.</p>

133

<p>
[quote]
Not really. The argument seems to be that her daughter ignored the danger signs from first semester shadow grades and that somehow it would have made it easier to transfer if the poor grades were on her official transcript.

[/quote]

The grades aren't likely to matter much. Regardless of grades, it's nigh impossible to transfer to another elite institution after your freshman year. You'd likely have to "downgrade" whether you got straight As or straight Fs.</p>

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[quote]
For incoming Swarthmore students: The point of pass/fail first semester is not to let you be a total slacker without consequence, but rather to let you figure out where you stand viz-a-viz Swarthmore academics. Take warning signs from the shadow grades seriously. If you bomb first semester freshman year, you either need to come up with a new plan of attack or start thinking about transfering to an easier school.

[/quote]

Wow, I'm 100% sure your perspective is practically identical to that of 17-19 year old college freshmen. I can see how they would be thinking the exact same thing you just posted. Not something like, "Well, the point of this was so that these Cs didn't show up on my transcript, so I guess this system works," or "Wow, I got an A this semester and I didn't even try because it was just pass/fail so this place is going to be no sweat." </p>

<p>So, like I said before, there are no hard facts about any of this. There is no comparison between Swarthmore and other top LACs regarding the efficacy of a pass/fail first semester vs. a normal first semester. And, so, while logical arguments can be constructed for both sides, it probably depends on the individual and whether he responds to trial by fire type pressure or being eased into a new environment better. If one side can dig up hard facts that support their arguments and, at the same time, disprove the other side's arguments, then we can settle this debate. Otherwise, it's pointless, as it's just a matter of personal opinion or behavioral preference.</p>

<p>By the way, I don't know how it is in all departments, but I didn't really find out where I stood viz-a-viz Swarthmore academics until my junior year. That is when I was taking two (very challenging) seminars per semester in my major and being subjected to the utter grind of the academics Swarthmore is known for. Freshman and sophomore years had some weed-out type classes, but nothing of the sort that prepared you for the unending barrage of the junior year workload.</p>

<p>By then, it's definitely too late for an easy transfer.</p>

134

<p>
[quote]
The grades aren't likely to matter much. Regardless of grades, it's nigh impossible to transfer to another elite institution after your freshman year. You'd likely have to "downgrade" whether you got straight As or straight Fs.

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</p>

<p>I am not sure what you mean by this, A.E.<br>
It would be hard to "upgrade" from Swarthmore because not that many schools are ranked higher, and most of the schools at the top have very low transfer acceptance rates. However, I am pretty sure that an unhappy Swarthmore freshman could transfer "laterally" to a bigger U, or another comparable LAC, depending on the reason for the transfer, and not having poor first semester grades on the transcript would only help.</p>

<p>(On the other hand, if the reason for transferring is that the academics are too hard, the student SHOULD downgrade - nothing wrong with that.)</p>

135

<p>
[quote]
I am not sure what you mean by this, A.E.
It would be hard to "upgrade" from Swarthmore because not that many schools are ranked higher, and most of the schools at the top have very low transfer acceptance rates. However, I am pretty sure that an unhappy Swarthmore freshman could transfer "laterally" to a bigger U, or another comparable LAC, depending on the reason for the transfer, and not having poor first semester grades on the transcript would only help.

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What I mean is, straight As or not, good luck transferring into another top LAC. It's very unlikely to happen (compare transfer acceptance rates of top LACs to standard acceptance rates). You're probably going to end up at the University of <your home="" state=""> if you find that you have to transfer out of Swarthmore.</your></p>

136

<p>Every year there are a number of students transferring into Swarthmore (and most of them are "upgrading"), so it is not impossible to transfer even into a top LAC. </p>

<p>You rightfully noted that it is HARD to transfer, but your "whether you got straight As or straight Fs" comment is ridiculous. It will be hard, but possible to transfer with straight As. It will be far from possible with Fs.</p>

137

<p>Except in cases with very specific circumstances (a particular major, etc.), it would be nuts to transfer to or from Swarthmore and another top LAC. The overall "top LAC" experience is too similar. If you are unhappy at one, the odds are that you will be unhappy at all, especially if the reason for the unhappiness is the demanding nature of the academics.</p>

138

<p>so how many of you guys are alums' or students?</p>

139

<p>I am a parent of a senior.</p>

140

<p>Student ('09, junior).</p>