Thank you! I watched campus tour in YouTube, it is lovely! I also attended parents sessions, and love it! 
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Swarthmore limits the number of CS courses that CS majors can take, due to overloading:
That suggests that if you find out which upper-level courses are not oversubscribed, it may be worth considering to take them as late as possible, if they will be offered in those semesters, because they could still be available if you have reached the cap, while taking them earlier will just be counted against the cap.
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Both are great colleges! Congratulations!
Dartmouth has the advantage of an amazing alumni network and many of the top tech companies recruit directly from campus including Microsoft, Google etc. It will also provide more opportunities should your son decide to change majors, particularly in exclusive/hard to get into areas like management consulting and investment banking. Neither school is considered āeliteā for engineering or CS.
One thing is that it is likely your son has taken a bunch of advanced classes, in which case he can absolutely complete his engineering (BS) degree in 4 years at Dartmouth.
Regarding cost, depending on what your child wants to aim for in life, opportunity cost will come into play. Is that worth $40K per year? I donāt know the answer. Also know that grade deflation and generally speaking, the social atmosphere is very intense at Swarthmore. Dartmouth is academically excellent and larger. In fact the opportunity to have āfunā is quite a bit more at Dartmouth. The movie Animal House was based on the frat Alpha Delta at Dartmouth ā for a reason 
!
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Dartmouth doesnāt accept AP credit.
As for opportunities, according to LinkedIn, Swatties do OK for CS too. The top 4 employers are Google, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, and Apple. MSFT and Meta are in the top 10.
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Not for reducing the number of courses or credits to graduate, although advanced placement may be given in some situations.
But plan on 1-3 extra quarters beyond the usual 12 quarters (4 academic years) for an ABET accredited engineering major at Dartmouth.
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That really depends on what āfunā is to an individual. For some, Dartmouthās entitled frat-boy reputation (which they are trying to tamp down) is not a positive.
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My Child would confirm that it is in fact alive and well. 
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According to their website, the Dartmouth BS in engineering merged into a BE degree in 1991 which is ABET accredited.
It seems as though most people are encouraged to take five years to complete it mostly in order to fully take advantage of Dartmouthās undergraduate offerings. This is the quintessential liberal arts college conundrum when it comes to engineering: how much to cram into four years?
I would compare the amount of non- engineering credits you can complete towards the bachelors at both schools.
Thatās the problem (advantage, maybe according to some) with Dartmouth. You cannot cut the core requirements. We were there in 2014. They were very clear that it would take 5 years.
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Ya, Iād love to know why Dartmouth is in consideration but not UIUC. Itās a far better ranked school for CS assuming ranking/prestige is the driver for the top 2 picks. Just objectively, UIUC would be #2 behind Swat.
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Did you ask if the Swarthmore program is ABET accredited? Also, how big is it? If it were my kid, I want to ensure itās ABET, that there are enough branched within the school of engineering program that he/she can be the type of engineer they want and also how is the CS program set up. Can kids switch between the two? Can they double up or have a minor.
Good choices.
The big issue with UIUC is that if the student desires a popular major (e.g. CS, ME) that they are not directly admitted to, changing into that major is very difficult (could mean needing a 3.75 college GPA just to enter a competitive admission process). A student who is undecided between popular majors will have similar issues.
https://amspub.abet.org/aps/name-search?searchType=institution&keyword=swarthmore indicates that Swarthmore has an ABET-accredited āEngineering, General Engineering, Engineering Physics, and Engineering Scienceā program.
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Correct. For CS - there is 0% chance. Theyāve completely closed off the path even if someone has a 4.0. I had assumed the OPās kid got into CS everywhere including Purdue and UIUC.
I was curious about this also and according to the Swarthmore website you can graduate with an ABET accredited BS with as few as 12 engineering courses out of a required 32.
This sounds great for liberal arts minded kids but it also means that you are limited to employers who are willing and able to give you on-the-job training.
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The difference with the Swat kids is that they often go on to specialize in grad school, and many of them who go to work do so in non-legacy āengineeringā disciplines. Business, analytics, operations, programming. The kids I met in the engineering program werenāt worried that they didnāt have an EE or CE or etcā¦ degree, they didnāt want to be one of those anyway. They had their sites on a more fluid, less structured career.
Iāve mentioned this before on these boardsā¦my Swat Engineering grad never wanted to be āan engineerā. She had no idea what she wanted to be, she only knew that she didnāt want to be any of the engineering types offered at most schools. The closest she came to being interested in one was Biomedical, but that didnāt last long.
She loved the diversity of classwork and lack of singular focus at Swat. She (as you noted) also LOVED the non-stem classwork. Itās not for everyone, but it was exactly what she wanted from an undergrad experience.
EDIT - it is ABET accredited. I donāt recall specifics, but they had some sort of exam that nobody at Swat has ever failedā¦which may have been the most nervous she was the entire time she was there. Didnāt wanna be the first.
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Note that this is exactly the ABET minimum amount of engineering science + engineering design course work. Math and natural science are also required beyond that. Swarthmore does require at least 20 courses outside of oneās major (although AP and transfer credit can count). So a student who enters Swarthmore with usable AP or transfer credit may be able to take more than 12 engineering courses.
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I know a kid like that. Iāve never come across Swarthmore in terms of CS or engineering. But good to know itās out there. IMO, engineering can be done at many places since the classes are mainly core. But some have more specializations at the undergrad level. More variability in CS.
In both fields, graduates are in demand. So if someone wanted to do these majors at a liberal arts college than at least they know they can get a job. Though wouldnāt some want to be with other STEM folks for research etc?
Here is a dirty little secret ā many interview spots at Dartmouth for companies like Microsoft and Alphabet go unfilled. The reason is (last time I checked), 1 out of 2 grads go into IB or management consulting (>50%). Another 20-30% go into grad programs straight after college.
Party atmosphere at Dartmouth ā yes there is one. I donāt know about you all but I wanted to have a good time in college!! It is outright ridiculous to state that Dartmouth is filled with entitled frat boys. I can make that statement about every ivy and top LACs around the country. There are many other top notch organizations like the Dartmouth Outing Club that offer alternatives to Greek life.
The point here is that OPās son has two really great choices. Swarthmore will be more affordable while Dartmouth will definitely provide more opportunities in terms of social life and networking. I am pretty certain OP is looking at these two colleges for opportunities, prestige and name recognition.
Departmental rankings do not mean anything to about 90% of the folks out there. The only people obsessed about them are ill informed tiger parents.
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I think the discussion begins and ends with the words āSwarthmore (tuition free)ā. Yes, Dartmouth is a great school and an Ivy and the other schools have their strengths too and are very good schools. But Swarthmore is considered one of the best schools in the country and it is being offered tuition free. I did not hear that statement (tuition free) made about any other school on the list. I think many would argue that Swarthmore is academically equal to Dartmouth and some would say Dartmouth is a little better - what that means is, its a wash and Swarthmore is tuition free for the OP. I have visited both campuses and loved both campuses. But if I had to choose based on a campus alone, Swarthmore would win hands down. To me, it is definitely the more beautiful campus and while also a non-city location it is very close to civilization while Dartmouth is in the middle of nowhere. (Although Hanover is a nice little town)
If the question was Dartmouth vs Swarthmore, both full pay? Or if it was a $10,000 difference. Then who knows, maybe I would lean towards Dartmouth. But with free tuition at Swarthmore and a $40k/yr difference? I think this is a pretty easy decision. The weather will be better too. 
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