Swarthmore vs. Dartmouth :: HELP

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
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Hi everyone,

So I’m in a bit of a terrible situation as a senior in high school.

I’ve gotten into Swarthmore and Dartmouth for college, and I’m deciding between the two…

I am in love with Swarthmore College, just because the vibe I got from it was really really good; the people are just my kind of folk, the academic rigor is exactly what I’m looking for, and the faculty really seem to care about what and who they’re teaching. It’s my dream school… Really, it is. My PARENTS, on the other hand, like Dartmouth a lot, and it’s causing a lot of friction at home.
I want to go into medicine, and I want to be either a neurologist or a neurosurgeon; this is my passion, and I’ve wanted to do this for a long long time… That much is known.

My parents argue that Dartmouth would be better because there’s a medical school on campus, wherein I’d be able to take classes there; there are many research opportunities for me on campus and in nearby hospitals; plus, it’s an Ivy, which helps with prestige and applying to med school. Dartmouth might have more medically-oriented research opportunities and the like, I’ll grant that, but is it really the case that I’d be crippled by going to Swarthmore? There are still lots of research facilities there, right? And there’s Penn and Philly just a half-hour away! And Swarthmore is extremely well-known, and very well-respected, is it not? Will it really be a detriment to me if I go to Swarthmore for a medical future??

If I know that I’ll be unhappy at a school even though it may have certain better opportunities than another, should I still go to it???

I’d really appreciate any help that anyone could provide… Particularly a doctor, or a passing Swat/Dartmouth student/graduate, if they’re to be found… If there might be one who went pre-med like me, that would be even more of a dream. Basically, I would be particularly grateful for any help from an authority on any aspect of this thread, though please, any help at all is welcome.

Thanks so much guys.

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is it really the case that I’d be crippled by going to Swarthmore?
Definitely not!

There are still lots of research facilities there, right?
Plenty of opportunities for research as well as close relationships with faculty which will be helpful with recommendations for med school

And there’s Penn and Philly just a half-hour away!
Yes! I’ve known some students at other Quaker consortium colleges who’ve done summer research at UPenn.

And Swarthmore is extremely well-known, and very well-respected, is it not?
Yes, again. No 3 LAC in the country. I’d say it is a more intellectual vibe than Dartmouth.

Will it really be a detriment to me if I go to Swarthmore for a medical future??
Nope. Swarthmore does well in med school placement.

2 great choices you have but very different campus vibes. I think a student will be a higher achieving and more engaged student in a campus environment where they feel comfortable.

I know a student who graduated recently for Dartmouth, premed focus, one of the top students. Her intro classes like Organic Chem were at least 200 students. You won’t have an experience like that at Swarthmore.

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Find some Dartmouth beer pong videos on youtube and share them with your parents.

JK

But seriously, point them to the med school section of this forum. You will see examples of students who declined Ivies because of price and went to a less prestigious place and then got into that same Ivy for med school. No guarantees, of course. But the main things you want for med school are a high GPA and a strong MCAT score. And it’s not as if you’re comparing Dartmouth to community college. Swarthmore is one of the best LACs in the country and it also is in consortium with Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and U of Penn. Your chances of getting into a top med school will not be reduced by going there. And should you shift directions academically, Swarthmore would provide a superb foundation in just about anything.

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Or the Rolling Stones article. :wink:

@GenericMermaid Do you think the Ivy status of Dartmouth is playing into your parents’ desire to have you go to Dartmouth?

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GenericMermaid,
You will be hard-pressed to get a finer undergrad education anywhere else in the country than you will at Swarthmore. Swarthmore has EXCELLENT med school acceptance percentages and a great academic reputation within the med school community. It is so different from Dartmouth in terms of atmosphere, as others have said.

I have two sons who have graduated from Swat. One of them is applying to med school now. For the past couple of years, he has been working in a very well-known hospital in a Neurology Clinical unit. He was a double honors major in a science and in a humanities discipline. Here is a link to one of the Swat pre-med advising pages. They welcome questions from prospective students and parents. http://www.swarthmore.edu/health-sciences-office

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^ agree with the two schools being VERY different. I am an alum and parent of a current student at Swat. It is an intellectual place with students who want to have those famous discussions into the night on all sorts of topics. My impression of Dartmouth (from a sample of one: a close family friend (DD’s BFF) transferred from Dartmouth to MIT because of the big party atmosphere at Dartmouth. The fact that a high percentage of Dartmouth kids are in the Greek system led to neither of my kids applying there. Dartmouth is an excellent school; I’m not knocking it, just saying that the two schools are very very different.

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Hi, I’m a current Swat student. For med school purposes, Dartmouth should give you the same boost that Swarthmore does (source: http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/wedgedawgs-applicant-rating-system.1131149/). On top of that, undergrad prestige only helps so far for med school admissions. That means it’s important for you to go to a place where you will be happy, get a good GPA/MCAT, and participate in meaningful activities.

Still, it is true that Swarthmore has much less clinical research opportunities than Dartmouth (the type of research in a hospital or medical school). But it sounds like that doesn’t bother you, and clinical research experience is not really necessary. You would still have access to great research at Swat. I would recommend you to look up the Neuroscience program if you haven’t already and see if it caters to your interests. Neurosciences majors are deeply involved in research, and they all write theses their senior year.

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Go to Swarthmore. Dartmouth has a toxic, regressive, downplaying-your-smarts social environment. Then again, Swarthmore has a self-conscious intellectual focus. So you’re looking at two extremes, both of which will prepare you exceedingly well for med school (as, frankly, will just about any accredited university–it’s not rocket science). I don’t think Dartmouth-Hitchcock is “on campus,” and the school’s emphasis is on primary care much more than research. Though it would take some doing, you probably could work out a better research opportunity with UPenn (very much a research-focused med school) through Swat.

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Hi everyone,

Sorry it took so long for me to reply; I only got home a half an hour ago from school and after-school activities…

Thank you so much for all of your replies! I know that both are great places, but I just am so nervous of the environment at Dartmouth for many reasons, all of which would probably be pretty apparent :confused: Swarthmore is where I really want to go…

Does anyone have sources showing that Swatties end up at great medical schools in larger numbers? I am beginning to get the impression that only such ridiculously black-and-white facts will convince my parents; I’m reaching the point where I’m considering sending off an email to “top medical schools” to ask them if going to Swat is a bad place for pre-med (just so I can get a completely irrefutable source on this…).

Another point my parents have been making is one advocating the strong alumni network at Dartmouth; it’s true that it’s got one of the best in the country, but that shouldn’t be the reason for me to go there… Swat does pretty well in that regard as well, doesn’t it? Even though it’s a far smaller school with far fewer alums?

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As a small note: I’m really amazed at the prompt and supportive replies on this website… There’s a good community of people here, and I just want to say that you are all appreciated. :slight_smile:

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http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/postgrad%20plans%202010.pdf

here are the self-reported numbers

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GenericMermaid, there’s even a more up-to-date document, categorizing the post-graduation plans of the classes of 2005-2015. If you go on the Swat web site, just search “post graduation plans by major.” Remember though, not all students report their plans, e.g. my older son didn’t, and, not everyone goes directly into medical school nowadays without taking some time off. If you saw the link I posted in #4, you can go right to the pre-med advising pages and you can literally have your parents contact the advisor, if they feel that would help them become more comfortable.

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Hi! I’m not someone who replies a lot, but I might be able to share my perspective, since you were specifically interested in comments by someone in the medical field and your dream is to become a neurologist or neurosurgeon. Well, I’m an academic neurologist and a professor at a medical school; and have been involved directly or indirectly with medical school admissions and medical education in my current and all previous university hospitals where I have been employed.

I can tell you, although anecdotally, that 2 of my most respected colleagues in neurology went to Swat for their undergrad and LOVED it. They both could not stop talking about how wonderful their undergrad experience was. One went on to Harvard Medical School and the other to Columbia Medical School. In my circle, I have yet to encounter a Dartmouth undergrad that REALLY LOVED their undergrad experience as much as the two neurologists that I mentioned. Of course they exist, I just have not come across them.

And in medical school admissions, I see no big advantage of one over the other. If anything, I give a slight advantage to Swat because I read much more personalized letters of recommendations from their Professors. But the advantage is slight and whatever difference is coming more from the student than the school.

I can tell you that the genuine satisfaction that I saw from my 2 colleagues who went to Swat has had a significant impact on me that I am trying my best to encourage my own daughter to seriously consider Swat, should she be fortunate enough to be accepted there (next year). Of course, like all the other advice from this thread, I would support whatever school she likes the best and where she thinks she can thrive. And if she chose Swat over Yale, Harvard, Princeton or MIT, I am PERFECTLY FINE with that decision. I’ll be proud of it, and I’ll buy a car sticker to show my support and approval. In the medical field, what matters most is your “terminal degree” and not your undergrad. In the undergrad, the foundation, happiness and readiness to tackle medicine is much, much more important than the prestige (although we would consider Swat, Pomona, Williams, Haverford, etc in the same league as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, etc). And we would certainly pass up on an average Ivy League or LAC undergrad over a stellar/exceptional state school undergrad—in a heart beat!

So, know your priorities…or rather, hopefully, your parents will eventually realize what matters most…and to me, it is the place where you have the best chance of thriving, whether it’s a state school, LAC or an Ivy League university. Although the saying “what matters most is what you do in college and not where you go in college”, this is most specially applicable when going to medical school, especially if you graduate from any the top tier schools.

Best of luck!

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This is for the class of 2015 for Swat. It’s not specific for med school but it seems as if the med schools can’t be too slouchy.

Advanced Study Trends
Of the seniors who enter graduate school immediately upon graduation:

45% enter Ph.D. programs
31% enter Master's programs
12% pursue law degrees
11% pursue medical degrees

The top attended universities of those students immediately entering graduate school were:

University of Pennsylvania
Harvard University 
Columbia University
University of California at Berkeley
University of Michigan
New York University
Oxford University
Stanford University
Yale University
Johns Hopkins University
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^Many students will take a year or two between undergrad and medial school to gain meaningful work experience, focus on MCAT studying etc so not all students going on to med school will be reflected in the numbers provided in the post above.

@GenericMermaid Not sure you have seen this from Swarthmore’s website but it includes some helpful info on pre-med studies including comments on finding volunteer experience at hospitals in the Philly area.

I wouldn’t hesitate to talk to the pre-medical studies advisors at both schools with any questions you have. There responsiveness to you as a prospective student might be useful in determining how helpful and receptive they are to helping actual students.

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Thank you all for your wonderful answers and responses; I appreciate them very much.

I know that Swatties go off to fantastic places after their undergraduate experience, but my parents seem to still be anxious; even though there are lots of research opportunities in Philly year-round, my parents think that there’s some inherent advantage in their being a medical school on campus… I guess the only way is to have their questions and concerns about it be answered by admissions representatives there?

As I’m going to visit both schools again this week for the admitted students receptions, I plan to ask all of these questions about what sort of opportunities would be afforded to me were I to attend Swarthmore.
Would it hurt to send an email to a “top medical school”'s admissions department to see what they say? I’m confident their position (if they’d answer) would be somewhat more aligned with me in that Swarthmore is a great place to study, than with my parents… I feel like a response from such a school would give my parents something that they couldn’t possibly refute on any reasonable grounds…

@ohiopop Thank you especially for your wonderful response :slight_smile: I will private-message you shortly…

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I’m a devoted Dartmouth supporter, but I say go to Swarthmore. I won’t bother responding to the Rolling Stone. etc., references. That junk has been dealt with ad nauseum elsewhere, and it just demonstrates how easy it is to trash a reputation and how hard it is to refute silly stuff once it is out on the internet. D went to Dartmouth, loved it, etc. You should go where you want to go, and there is no difference down the road or in med school acceptances between a Dartmouth degree and a Swarthmore degree. Good luck.

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Thank you all for your help!

I just came back from a Dartmouth visit, and I still definitely feel like Swarthmore is the place for me, even though Dartmouth is a great school.
@AboutTheSame Thank you for your response. I appreciate the very frank reply to the thread.

I still have to convince my parents of it, but I think I can in the next two weeks… I’ll keep you posted! :slight_smile:

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As a parent of a prospective Swattie for the class of 2020 and also a physician I would tell you to go where you think you will be happiest at. You will likely do better and thrive academically at a school you are happiest at. Both schools have amazing reputations. Getting into medical school can be accomplished at both schools. Medical schools care about GPA and MCATS and dem interest in medicine which can be accomplished at any school and certainly from Dartmouth and Swarthmore. There is no such thing as a premed major. You can major in anything that you are interested in as long as you take the required premed classes and take the MCATs. Are your parents coming to Swatstruck on Friday? As far as “top medical schools” I might be biased but medical school admissions is quite different than applying to other graduate programs as not everyone can get into medical school. Unlike law schools and other graduate programs, ANY medical school that results in a MD degree is prestigious and can afford the same opportunities.

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The most important thing is that you choose your best fit, the place that feels most like home. Obviously you need to be able to afford it, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue here.

Swarthmore and Dartmouth are probably about even in prestige among people whose opinions matter. And that’s even after you factor in the Ivy League boost for Dartmouth.

Swat is an outstanding school. It offers among the most rigorous undergraduate curricula anywhere, and its highly intellectual students gobble it up with gusto and ask for seconds.

Reed and UChicago are among the only schools known for the same/similar levels of rigor and intellectual vibe.

Now, practically speaking: the downside to that rigor, as it applies to your desire to go to med school, is that it is not likely going to be easy to achieve a high GPA. Just putting it out there.

Still, the Swat rep means med school adcoms are going to know how hard it was to earn an A.

Dartmouth is awesome too – just a totally different vibe for a different type of person.

Ask your folks to read this thread. Maybe that will convince them to allow Swat into their hearts, just as it has surely entered yours.