<p>A while ago (well before I was accepted, probably before I applied), I received an info package from Swarthmore than contained a DVD entitled "Swarthmore Unscripted." I apparently had never gotten around to watching it, and tonight, I came across it and decided to pop it in. Boy am I sure glad that I did. It was so helpful... answering my questions... easing my fears... and got me thinking about a lot of other things I hadn't thought about before. At first I was in awe. So I read some stuff on this forum, went to go talk to my mom about it, and reached the point where I had a gut feeling... that I knew this is where I want to go. Now I just have to visit and hope the experience only strengthens my love for this school. So yeah, if you haven't already seen it, I urge you to check out that video.</p>
<p>will,
So great to hear that the DVD made such a great impression on you. If others want to check out a trailer for the video, just go to the Swarthmore website, and then to "admissions." The trailer is right there on the admissions website page.</p>
<p>Will:</p>
<p>Swarthmore students think the DVD was too "polished", but I thought it was a refreshing change from the slickly produced infomercials most colleges send out -- you know, the ones with the perky blond in full make-up staring doe-eyed at the beaker boiling away on a bunsen burner in a chem lab. I liked that the Swat DVD showed snow on the ground, messy professors's offices, real dorm rooms piled to the ceiling, and a range of students.</p>
<p>BTW, Emiliano Rodriguez, the rugby player from El Paso featured in the video must have been quite the star at Swarthmore. Co-president of student council, Phoenix columist, Honors graduate, and won one of 50 post-grad Watson Fellowships awarded annually.</p>
<p>The other video on the DVD -- the "Meaning of Swarthmore" alumni fundraising video -- is a bit more slickly produced, but has some really interesting historical footage and is also worth watching for some alumni perspectives. It has footage of something that is almost never mentioned -- the candle-lighting ceremony in the amphitheater during freshman orientation.</p>
<p>IDad,
Emiliano was my S's RA freshman year. I heard nothing but good things about him!</p>
<p>Those are slick videos. High production values. Must have been very expensive, but the top colleges and universities can afford this sort of marketing and public relations.</p>
<p>They're certainly nice to watch, but the things they talk about like "the life of the mind" and "commitment to the liberal arts" and "teaching students to contribute to society and the world" and "high quality teaching" and "how the school prepared me for life afterwards" are universal to all good colleges and universities. In fact, if you go to the websites of any of the top 15-20 liberal arts colleges, you'll find similar videos used as either fundraising or admissions tools. You could replace the word "Swarthmore" in the "Unscripted" (which probably was scripted or at least directed) or "Meaning" videos with "Vassar" or "Williams" or "Bard" or "Grinnell" or "Reed" or "Pomona" or "Carleton" or "Middlebury" or any of a number of colleges and the words would still hold true for the most part. I know those videos are supposed to distinguish colleges from their competition, but they actually show how similar the top schools really are to one another.</p>
<p>I am torn between not responding to the above post because it is so misguided, and trying to clarify the background of the DVD. </p>
<p>The Swarthmore DVD is a unique one. I happen to know the production group that made it, and they did this as a unique DVD for Swarthmore. It definitely was not scripted, and it was filmed but not directed. The purpose of it was to make a spontaneous Swarthmore DVD, that reflects the students and the culture. They actually would be quite taken aback to hear that someone thought it was cookie cutter and not a unique offering.</p>
<p>Having said that, I am sure that other schools have DVDs and videos that are distributed, but the Swarthmore DVD was a sincere attempt to capture what Swarthmore is about. The students in it are real students, and they only represent Swarthmore, not other schools.</p>
<p>I know that no one asked, but as a student who was seriously considering applying EDII to Swarthmore the Swarthmore UNscripted DVD was one of the reasons in my decision NOT to apply early decision. Along with some interesting insights made by apparently down-to-earth kids, there was some MAJOR pretentiousness going on- especially that girl who talked in such grand terms about the "meaning" of her pottery who mentioned Lao Tsu (sp). Major turn off from the school. I'd still be thrilled to be admitted, but its not my top choice anymore, 'cause students there seem a bit out of it, albeit in an intellectual way.</p>
<p>Was your opinion based more on the DVD or your visits(s) there?</p>
<p>I thought that the DVD was not very representative of Swarthmore. When I watched the DVD, I felt that Swarthmore was a bit pretentious and boring. Fortunately, I had conducted a campus visit before and felt that the school was just the opposite. It definitely has a geeky/intellectual atmosphere, but most of the students there are fun, down to earth people. I love the school!</p>
<p>bubblewrap:</p>
<p>I hear you! I'm sure that we all had our own reactions to the various students featured in the video. That's what I was politely getting at when I said that I respected Swarthmore's willingness to show a wide range of students, including vegan art students practicing the language of the New York arts scene.</p>
<p>Of course, the video also showed the laid back side of college -- drinking at a party, being stupid at a burger cookout, playing video games, and so forth. Maybe Arador and some of the current students can chime in, but I do not get the impression that Swarthmore students sit around debating Foucault 24/7. Based on the stories my daughter tells me, they know who the uber-pretentious kids are and are careful not to get stuck at the end of a dinner table with them -- a good skill to learn for later in life!</p>
<p>interesteddad (by the way, I've gleaned a lot of valuable information from your posts, so thanks) you're absolutely right in asserting that a whole group of students were showcased. I was relieved by the goofy burger cooking scene, as all the students looked so normal. I can only hope you're right about the "wide range of students": the aforementioned 'pottery girl' was featured probably more than any other student in the Swarthmore Unscripted DVD, and she also got a two page spread in Swarthmore's viewbook. To me, at least, it seemed as if the college was touting her as a model Swarthmore student, and that left a bad taste in my mouth. </p>
<p>The other major reason I decided against ED: while I had been hearing things, on this board and elsewhere, about the incredible difficulty/grade deflation/misery poker thing going on there, it didn't dissuade me that much; I thrive under pressure. But college is about self-discovery and self-initiated education too, and after talking to a couple of Swarthmore students who said things to the effect of, "I'm WAY to busy to read books just for fun.. are you crazy?" I got scared that I'd be too stressed to learn in a holistic way.</p>
<p>Finally, notices on their website's study abroad page caution about programs that demand a certain gpa (ie, Oxford) "Don't expect special allowances to be made, regarding GPA, for Swarthmore students." I do not want to work like a maniac for years and STILL be at a pronounced disadvantage from kids who took on a more reasonable schedule. That just doesn't make any sense.
Whoo! Long post. Sorry.</p>
<p>Again, maybe Arador or others can comment, but my daughter shares most of her course reading lists. I think that it is difficult for a high school student to understand that some of the reading for college courses is fun. Of course, some isn't! </p>
<p>As for GPAs for study abroad. Yes...you probably need a 3.5 gpa to be a solid applicant for a study abroad year at Oxford; a 3.7 for Cambridge (neither of which is an unattainable gpa at Swarthmore). That's probably more of a reflection on the mass-market nature of Oxford study abroad programs than anything else. </p>
<p>What the study abroad site doesn't put on their website is how much competitive study abroad programs "love Swarthmore students". My daughter and all of her friends have just gone thru the study abroad selection process. There wasn't much concern about getting accepted into their first-choice programs. I don't think Swarthmore students are at a disadvantage in too many academic programs.</p>
<p>If any of the "specs" are interested, stop by the Study Abroad office during Ride the Tide and chat with Rosa or Prof. Piker. From what I have heard 2nd hand, the interaction with student support departments such as the Study abroad program or Worth Health Center or getting a faculty recommendation for a study abroad program is one of Swarthmore's strengths. It's easy to make stuff happen without a bunch of red tape.</p>
<p>i hope this won't offend anyone... :)</p>
<p>i get 2 impressions about swarthmore... 1 from my swarthmore friends and another from the admission's office, college guide books and many of the comments on CC. i think that the degree of academic difficulty and intellectuality at swarthmore is often oversold like haverford's honor code (both are my top choice with pomona) or any number of other examples i've encountered in the last year. while each top college is truly unique is some way, i think such defining characteristics are overstated as an attempt to create "brand" distinction... which is a shame because it winds up reducing these complex colleges down to bullet points. while swarthmore is very intellectual, i'd find it difficult to say it's more so than wellesley or bryn mawr. while students at swarthmore for the most part work very hard, i think colleges like pomona and haverford have backbreaking course loads as well... engineering students are a separate issue.</p>
<p>however, in swarthmore's case, i think being "beaten over the head" by such an identity ("Anywhere else it would have been an A") does a real disservice to students if they come out believing such things... and it's an insult to swarthmore's quaker heritage as well. as an example, as a small college, the likelihood of a future job/grad school interviewer being a swarthmore alum is statistically small. even if "anywhere else... an A" were TRUE, an interviewer who graduated from yale, harvard, columbia is not going to say... "well this 3.5 is from S-W-A-R-T-H-M-O-R-E so it would probably be a 4.0 at my easy school". people have egos and no graduate at a top college is going to say that another college is that much better than theirs... and that's assuming the "A" assumption is true.</p>
<p>i know kelleymegreener has no fans on this thread, but i have to agree with her up to the "scripted" part. these colleges are more similar than different... especially when it comes to the faculty, resources and seriousness of the students. also, the marketing wizards at these schools know the type of intelligent, independent and savy students who are applying and will not roll out the traditional infomercials common at less prestigious schools.</p>
<p>wok:</p>
<p>I agree with you. I think the image of Swarthmore's difficulty is overhyped. </p>
<p>However, on another level, I think overhyping it works to Swarthmore's advantage in attracting the students that it wants to attract. Simply put, almost nobody goes to Swarthmore without making a conscious decision that they want to be academically engaged in college. Now, it does not work out that way in actual practice for every Swarthmore student. However, the degree of academic engagement is quite high and part of what gives Swarthmore its distinctive character.</p>
<p>Every top college has plenty of students who are just as engaged as the students at Swarthmore. However, you or I could name some very well-known schools that also have signficant percentages of students looking to party their way to a prestigious piece of paper. From everything I have ever read from Swarthmore, the one thing conspicuously absent is faculty ever complaining, anywhere, about the lack of academic engagement on campus. That is not the case at every hoity-toit college.</p>
<p>The issue really isn't one of "how hard" Swarthmore is, but rather that it is unusual in the degree that students, faculty, and the administration have a shared view that challenging academics are OK.</p>
<p>thanks for your insightful reply.</p>
<p>I'm gonna start talking about what swarthmore "undersells"...</p>
<p>1) the "wing bar" in the dining center
2) the pirate flag that sometimes flies over the main building!</p>
<p>To add to the list, I think Swarthmore undersells:</p>
<p>3) The benefits of first-year students living in regular dorms with "veteran" students.</p>
<p>4) The benefits of the first-semester pass-fail policy.</p>
<p>5) The friendliness and supportive nature of the campus community, which sometimes gets overshadowed by the stories of "misery poker" and demanding professors.</p>
<p>I would disagree with 5) interesteddad- the impression I get from the school (promotional materials, admissions officers, the tour, etc) was that Swarthmore was a 'big happy summer camp-like atmosphere for kids who like to learn.' They presented the school in a very low stress way, never saying anything about grade deflation or especially heavy classloads or whatnot. It was only from actual Swarthmore students that I got stories of misery poker/difficult workloads/overwhelmed students. If Swarthmore truly is one of the toughest "pressure cooker schools in the nation, that's not what I got from the school's offical persona at all.</p>
<p>There is no grade deflation at Swarthmore. To the contrary, a study by an Econ professor in the mid 1990s showed mild grade inflation at Swarthmore -- although not to a degree that raised any particular concerns by the faculty. The median GPA is somewhere in the very high B or B+ range. The median GPA for the Class of 1997 was a 3.24. This compares to a median GPA at Pomona the same year of 3.36 and a 3.32 at Williams, not much difference, really -- especially when you consider that Swarthmore's median includes the universally-challenging engineering major.</p>
<p>To be perfectly honest, if a 0.1 difference in GPA is that important to a student, Swarthmore is almost certainly the wrong school -- both for reasons of externally-driven stress and missing the fundamental point of a Swarthmore education.</p>
<p>As for not being upfront about the academics at Swarthmore: it's the very first sentence in the About Swarthmore section of the school's website:</p>
<p>One of the finest liberal arts schools in the country, Swarthmore College offers its 1,500 students a passionate learning community that prepares them for full, balanced lives and effective citizenship through **rigorous academic study* coupled with an emphasis on social responsibility.*</p>
<p>I can't imagine that anyone has ever applied to Swarthmore without being aware that it is a challenging school academically. Certainly, anyone who has done even the most cursory research on the school would find that out. I've never run across a single Swarthmore student, alum, professor, or parent who isn't upfront about the fact that the academics are demanding.</p>
<p>I cannot imagine a tour guide at Swarthmore saying that students don't study hard. That is not a message that my daughter received from anyone connected to the school when she was hunting or a message that she gives to prospects.</p>
<p>Swarthmore presents itself as challenging its students in a healthy, holistic, maneagable way. I think that the comments of some of the Swarthmore students on this board-who may have agendas, to be sure, but their comments are very like those I've heard from talking to current students- indicate that it is not the happy-go-lucky community of committed intellectuals that it portrays itself as. It is difficult, stressful, and not the right place for many very smart kids.</p>
<p>And again, if grade deflation is not present at Swarthmore, than why the Swarthmore website's warning about study abroad at Oxford: "Don'e expect special allowances to be made, regarding GPA, for Swarthmore students." I don't see notices like that at the Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Amherst, or Williams etc websites. Tell me why that notice is there.</p>
<p>Not to trash the school (which I am applying to), but Swarthmore did NOT emphasize the high stress factor, which at least according to the students I've talked to seems an integral part of the Swarthmore experience. And no, my tour guide never said anything about the school being especially back-breakingly rigorous. He just made it sound like a great place to learn. And "incredibly rigorous" and "great place to learn" are not neccesarily synonymous.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Swarthmore presents itself as challenging its students in a healthy, holistic, maneagable way.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That sounds about right. </p>
<p>It can be as hard as you want it to be. Some students (five courses a semester, double majors in tough departments, tons of ECs) make it very challenging indeed. </p>
<p>I doubt anyone sails through Swarthmore without ever encountering a course that gives them fits. Frankly, if you sailed through four years anywhere without ever being challenged, it wouldn't be much of a college. I still remember "Advanced Conversational French" and "Political Philosophy" (taught by Karl Marx) kicking my butt at Williams 30 years ago. I'm still not sure in which one I understood less of what was being discussed! Advanced Calc kicks butt at almost every college. I know of friend and family butt-kickings in that course at Swarthmore, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Georgia Tech just in the last two years. We won't even talk about the nearly-universal Organic Chemistry butt kickings. Of all the friend and family college pressure-cookers I've heard about, Georgia Tech is probably the worst -- there is intense competition for grades. My daughter teases her Ga Tech friend about picking such a tough school.</p>
<p>I have gotten no indication that Swarthmore is unmanageable or horribly stressful. My daughter gave me her updated "review" of that over Christmas break -- I knew that she had a particularly nasty "finals" week with one course having both a final exam and a final paper (that's unusual). She said that she got through it, still without having pulled her first college all-nighter (for studying). She said that the key was planning out what had to be done, starting at the beginning of reading period, allocating "x" amount of time for each item, and being satisfied with the results possible in "x" amount of time. She stuck to her schedule for 10 days and got it done. I think that she felt a sense of accomplishment.</p>
<p>If anything, she complains that Swarthmore professors are too lenient on extensions. She laughed that she and at least one of her friends have told professors, "don't you dare offer me an extension and let me e-mail you the paper from home, I just want to get the thing done!"</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is difficult, stressful, and not the right place for many very smart kids.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's not the right place for many smart kids. Here's what my daughter tells specs: "If you aren't the kind of student who just gets the work done or if you are going to go into a tailspin if you don't get an A in every course, don't come here." There are kids who don't do the readings, but I really don't think that's a sound strategy at Swarthmore unless you are really a genius.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And again, if grade deflation is not present at Swarthmore, than why the Swarthmore website's warning about study abroad at Oxford: "Don't expect special allowances to be made, regarding GPA, for Swarthmore students."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is in the study abroad handbook (and website) to provide useful information to students. Unlike many study abroad programs that do give preference to Swarthmore students, Oxford's very large study abroad population is judged by very mechanical standards -- like a large state university in the United States. The same advice would apply if you go to a very demanding prep school and expect to get a boost on a mechanical numerically driven admissions process like the old UMich system or the Texas top-10% system. Ain't gonna happen. </p>
<p>They provide additional information such as the fact that it is easier to get accepted to an Oxford program for the full year, rather than just for spring semester. Information like the study abroad website is typically very matter of fact at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>Plenty of Swarthmore students do study abroad programs at Oxford; a 3.4 to 3.5 GPA is not that unusual. Keep in mind that the Oxford programs recommended by Swarthmore are not watered down programs where the American students live together and have only limited access to Oxford facilities like the libraries or dining at the college. Most of the Swarthmore programs are direct enrollment and/or programs where you have full visiting student status. </p>
<p>Frankly, if you aren't in the top half of your class at ANY college, you probably aren't going to be a likely acceptance for an Oxford study abroad program. So what? It's not like it's the only English speaking study abroad program in the UK. Depending on what you major in, Oxford might not make any sense at all -- for example, it's not ideal for lab science courses. Who knows, you might end up wanting to do something a little more adventuresome, like a full language-immersion homestay or more culturally challenging type of program.</p>
<p>Honestly, if you are worried about whether or not you will have a 3.4 to 3.5 GPA to get into an Oxford study abroad program two and a half years from now (without having any real basis for knowing if that's what you will even want to do), Swarthmore is probably not the right school for you. You are smart to listen to your gut.</p>