<p>I'm considering applying to Swarthmore but while my academics and extracurriculars seem like they are up to par, I'm not into arts at all. The only class I've taken for art in high school was a ceramics class and only because it was required. I'm interested in communications. Do you think this will hurt my chances at being accepted? And does Swarthmore require students to take arts classes?</p>
<p>Not sure where you got the impression that Swat is “artsy”- the music and studio art/art history departments are very strong, but more students major/minor in the natural sciences, social sciences and other humanities. Swat (like Williams but not Amherst) has distribution requirements, but one could pretty much avoid the fine arts if one were to so choose.</p>
<p>The Fiske Guide states that the Swarthmore student culture is comparable with Wesleyan, and should not be compared with Williams or Amherst. I cannot vouch for this, but hope it helps.</p>
<p>I suppose the prevalence of “artsiness” depends on how you define it. The majority of Swarthmore students never take a studio art class, but if you are including other “arts” such as music/dance/theatre, yes, a sizeable portion of the student body has at least some interest in some kind of art. </p>
<p>However, you won’t be out of place or weird or shunned if you don’t like “the arts”. The closest distribution requirement that Swat has to “the arts” is 3 classes in Humanities, which could be fine arts but also includes disciplines such as English, Modern Language & Literature, Classics, Philosophy, and Religion. You could easily get through Swat without taking any art classes. </p>
<p>But keep an open mind – it can be interesting to gain exposure to something even if it’s not a primary (career) interest for you, and that’s what a liberal arts education is all about.</p>
<p>Nobody at Swarthmore is going to really care if you have little interest in art. It’s not unusual at all. I don’t think the admissions people are going to care either if you don’t like art. I agree with etselec, though: many people have interests in music, or dance, or painting, but you don’t have to be artsy at all to like Swarthmore. I also agree with etselec that it’s a good idea to be open and to make sure you’re supportive of your friends’ varied interests. As long as you don’t make it your business to tell everyone how much you dislike art, you’ll be fine. </p>
<p>Also, taking art is not required. But circumstances might force you to take one art class. For instance, if you’ve put off distribution requirements until second semester of senior year and need a Humanities course to graduate, and your schedule only leaves room for art and religion courses, and you really don’t want to take religion, then you’d have to take art. But I wouldn’t worry about this at all right now. This consideration would definitely be a terrible reason to not apply to Swarthmore.</p>
<p>dcsmiss: I think what the Fiske Guide is getting at is that there’s less preppiness, perhaps less of a high place on athletics at Swat compared to Williams and Amherst. I could be wrong, though.</p>
<p>A more accurate quote: “When thinking of Swat, don’t think Amherst and Williams, think Swat”. What Swat has in common with A&W is high selectivity, high endowment and of course it is on any educator’s short list of best colleges in the U.S… The flavor at Swat is not directly comparable to A&W (or Wesleyan) in that there is probably a higher level of out-of-classroom intellectualism at Swat and in general more of a core of social concern/activism. Swat is not just a mini-HYP, but occupies its own niche.</p>
<p>^ Ahh, I misremembered. What I was recalling was a segment that’s in Wesleyan’s profile. It states that Wesleyan is often compared to Amherst and Williams, but in reality, it is more comparable with Swarthmore.</p>
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<p>Fiske is totally wrong here. People at Swat are way more intense than those at Wesleyan. It may be true that people are (much) more preppy at Williams/Amherst than students at Swat, but the similarities between Wesleyan and Swarthmore are few.</p>
<p>Seriously, “art school?” Swarthmore is not an art school. Indeed, it has some of the hardest / most demanding undergraduate academics, in any discipline, anywhere.</p>
<p>^^I think you need to dial back the rhetoric, here. It would really be a shame if Swarthmore students foreswore art history, dance and theater courses because they didn’t think they would look good on their resumes or because they have the mind-set that they aren’t hard or demanding disciplines. If you want to see intensity, try putting up a theatrical production at Wesleyan or following a film major around for a shoot, or take a peek in the Center for the Arts as senior thesis time rolls around. That’s intensity.</p>
<p>I guess I wasn’t clear. </p>
<p>It’s true that Swarthmore is not “an art school” though it has art programs. I understand “art schools” to be perhaps “fluffy,” but perhaps this perception isn’t right.</p>
<p>I guess I’m having trouble identifying just where in this thread anyone accused Swarthmore of being an art school?</p>
<p>The OP wrote:</p>
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<p>as if this were incongruous with Swat.</p>
<p>At Williams, they wear the wool unicolor sweater over the back with the sleeves knotted in front, and the slacks rolled up a single involution. This adds a +0.8 modifier to the Ralph Lauren PREP scale, for a total of 5.9. This is at odds with the Brook Brothers rating of 4.0 for Williams, losing nearly 2 points for not being Ivy League. In that regard, Swarthmore scored only 3.0, because of the absence of the sweater motif, the non-Ivy League designation, and the location further south than appropriate, but the BB scale adds +1.0 due to the “-more” suffix in the school name which confers a distinct but vital Anglo-Saxon character. Wesleyan does not show up on either scale because of undue association with unseemly personalities involved in entertainment of the masses.</p>
<p>^^^LOL. This raises the interesting question whether it is better or more rewarding to create a Don Draper or just dress like him? :)</p>