Swarthmore vs Northwestern

College Search & Selection
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<p>Hey guys!
As you can guess im really really confused. I was admitted for engineering to Northwestern and know thats NW Engineering is awesome but Swarthmore is also really really exclusive and the student - professor interactions + exclusivity and badge value seem better at Swarthmore. As an international student from India, Im really attracted to Swarthmore cuz of how exclusive it is, (admitted only 2 from my country) but at the same time I dont want to lose out on how amazing a 'University - Undergrad Education' would be compared to a ' Small College Undergrad Education' which NW can probably boast of over Swarthmore.</p>

<p>My sister went to Yale & I absolutely loved it (was deffered SCEA and then rejected) so perhaps im looking for the closest to a Yale kind college experience. </p>

<p>Please let me know Swarthmore or Northwestern...which would be the best choice?</p>

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<p>Also - im wondering if there is truth in the perception that Swarthmore kids have better post grad placements/job placements?</p>

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<p>Swarthmore offers a wonderful liberal arts academic experience but there is simply no comparison between engineering programs - Northwestern’s is vastly superior on all levels. Placement into engineering jobs and recruitment into business related fields will be significantly stronger out of Northwestern. If your interests are not truly engineering based, both schools will serve you very well and go where your gut leads you.</p>

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<p>Swarthmore does not have better “badge value”. Swarthmore is a top-3 LACs but many people never heard of many top LACs because they are so small.</p>

<p>It isn’t really much more “exclusive” either. The admisison rates this year are 16% vs 23%; that’s not a huge difference especially when you consider the fact that the SAT ranges were about the same last year. </p>

<p>On grad school placement: this is mostly based on your GPA, test scores, essays, research experience and prof recommendation. There’s virtually no difference; you may have better prof interaction at Swarthmore but NU has the edge in research opportunities with leaders in the field. Actually in engiineering, there is simply no comparison.</p>

<p>In terms of job placement, I am not sure what kind of job you are thinking about. As far as engineering jobs go, there aren’t many engineering firms going to recruit at Swarthmore because of its small size and its lack of different engineering departments. NU engineering has great industry connections and one of the most well-established CO-OP programs. As far as IB/MC positions with top firms go, I haven’t seen people mentioning Swarthmore much while people on this forum say NU is a semi-target for WS positions. NU is a target for top MC firms like McKinsey or BCG.<br>
[Northwestern</a> University | US Schools Recruitment](<a href=“http://www.mckinsey.com/careers/us_schools/campus_calendar/northwestern_university.aspx]Northwestern”>http://www.mckinsey.com/careers/us_schools/campus_calendar/northwestern_university.aspx)
[BCG</a> - BCG at Northwestern University: all undergraduates](<a href=“http://www.bcg.com/join_bcg/oncampus/northwestern.aspx#events]BCG”>http://www.bcg.com/join_bcg/oncampus/northwestern.aspx#events)</p>

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<p>Fanboys speak about Northwestern as if it were MIT, Stanford, or Caltech.</p>

<p>“vastly superior,” “significantly stronger,” “simply no comparison?” Empty observations made by posters who know nothing about Swarthmore but are basing their remarks on their own prejudices against liberal arts colleges.</p>

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<p>Slice, I know nothing about Swarthmore, but I know of two friends of my D who are in the college of Engg. One started working in industry in her very first term - some sort of a program that the college of Engineering fosters that led to excellent work experience in R&D. The second was placed in a great summer internship (might even have been beyond just summer, if I recall) with a top tier Silicon Valley company where she earned close to $30/hr and she has an offer from them when she graduates this term. From what I can see NU (at least the college of Engg) has outstanding connections with industry and the students get connected with the real world very early in the game.</p>

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<p>Here’s a Swarthmore Engineering student project from last year, building a hydrogen fuel-cell motorcycle:</p>

<p>[Swarthmore</a> College - Department of Engineering](<a href=“http://engin.swarthmore.edu/?page_id=72]Swarthmore”>http://engin.swarthmore.edu/?page_id=72)</p>

<p>And the Wired Magazine article:</p>

<p>[Homemade</a> Hydrogen Motorcycle Is Ugly, But It Runs | Autopia | Wired.com](<a href=“http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/03/two-college-stu/]Homemade”>http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/03/two-college-stu/)</p>

<p>They were also featured on Discovery Channel.</p>

<p>Here are the links to all of last year’s senior projects. I liked project building a functional hovercraft. That’s kind of fun.</p>

<p><a href=“http://engin.swarthmore.edu/?page_id=191[/url]”>http://engin.swarthmore.edu/?page_id=191&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>kwu,
There are only 8 engineering faculty members at Swarthmore. Most of them haven’t had anything published in recent years. The very few recent publications were not in prestigious journals. Many research universities would have a lot more research activities, not just MIT, Stanford, or Caltech.</p>

<p>In case you don’t know, NU’s material science and engineering as well as industrial engineering and mangeement sciences are pretty close to/on par with MIT, Stanford, and Caltech.</p>

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<p>Is 8, all teaching undergrads exclusively, not enough faculty for 20 engineering majors? That’s only 2.5 majors for each faculty member. That’s seems like it would probably be enough. I’m taking a wild guess that there is a ton of interaction between the engineering students and the faculty.</p>

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<p>Dude, you don’t need to bash a school just to elevate your own. We all know that they’re both very strong institutions and that you can’t go wrong at either (though you’ll probably disagree with me on the latter point). </p>

<p>The citation about the number of faculty members tells us nothing about the quality and type of education that Swarthmore is offering in this field. Keep in mind that on the whole professors are teaching EVERY class at Swat. And contrary to Sam Lee’s insinuations Swat professors are given semesters off every few years to publish and work on their research. Just because it’s a small school doesn’t mean they’re not getting anything done. Anyway, I’d like to hear some more informed people speak to Swat’s engineering offerings. (I can talk a bit about other stuff.)</p>

<p>The “feel” of the schools is very different, obviously. Is there any way that you could visit the schools? A larger university versus a very small college = veryyyy different. Both are very academic and intellectual places; but there is a “nerdiness” and “quirkiness” that is often seen as unique to Swarthmore students. </p>

<p>If you can’t visit, I would probably try and reach out to students that you know in the programs – if you don’t know anyone I’m sure the admissions office at each school could put you into contact with someone! I have a friend who’s turning down 2 ivies to do engineering at Swat so the program can’t be THAT terrible ;)</p>

<p>You’ve probably checked this out already, but just to be safe!: [Swarthmore</a> College - Department of Engineering Why Swarthmore Engineering?](<a href=“http://engin.swarthmore.edu/whyswat.php]Swarthmore”>http://engin.swarthmore.edu/whyswat.php)</p>

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<p>Yes, the interaction between profs and students would be stronger at Swarthmore, as I mentioned earlier.</p>

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<p>

I’m perhaps misunderstanding - is it eight faculty altogether to cover all the engineering disciplines? If so how can you have sufficient depth and breadth of coverage for a student who wants to explore different areas? In my DS’s Elec Engg department in another tech school, there are over 50 profs in just one department, and while I don’t know the details for NU, I suspect it’s closer to that than 8 altogether.</p>

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<p>Northwestern is a lot like Yale. It has the same type of exciting campus ‘vibe’ and probably a very similar college experience. My daughter loved both schools and has been admitted to both- she is still not 100% sure that she will choose Yale over Northwestern (though to be honest she is about 90% sure). </p>

<p>She visited Swarthmore and while it was great she did not think it was suitable for her. It did not feel ‘like Yale’ to her.</p>

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<p>Swarthmore doesn’t offer specialized engineering degrees, like a BS in Chemical Engineering. They offer an ABET accredited BS degree in Engineering, the same as Harvey Mudd, Dartmouth, and Harvard.</p>

<p>The program has been ABET accredited since the first year ABET started accrediting Engineering departments (Swarthmore first offered Engineering in the late 1800s), but it is intended to be a major in a liberal arts college setting. Swarthmore’s engineering majors are required to take the same distribution of courses (three social science, three humanities, three writing courses, and obviously three science/math courses) as all Swarthmore grads.</p>

<p>If you view an undergrad engineering program as a terminal vocational degree, then you should generally go to a specialized Engineering school and get a degree in Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or whatever. Swarthmore is probably not the right program, although many of its grads to go right into entry-level engineering jobs:</p>

<p>Here are the career plans of Swarthmore’s engineering majors over the last five years (at least the ones that listed their plans on the senior exit surveys!). This will give a decent idea of what kinds of opportunities they have with a Swarthmore engineering degree. It looks like they do OK. As you can see, a lot go directly into graduate school programs in Engineering and related fields. Quite a few go into buisness and finance, where obviously there is some demand for very smart technically-inclined graduates:</p>

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<p>BTW, I’m not sure that Northwestern is a lot like Yale. Its per student endowment is one quarter Yale’s ( and less than half of Swarthmore’s, where the entire endowment is focused on undergrads).</p>

<p>Also, Northwestern is a very heavily pre-professional school as opposed to Yale and Swarthmore which are more “academically” focused as evidenced by the large percentage of graduates getting PhDs. Swarthmore is #3 in the country with 21% of its grads getting PhDs in a recent 10 year period. Yale is #10 with 15% of its grads (just behind Chicago, just ahead of Princeton and Harvard). Northwestern is #68 with just 6%.</p>

<p>That’s not a measure that means good or bad, it’s more descriptive than anything else. UChicago would be the midwestern school that is more like Yale. Northwestern is probably more like Duke.</p>

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<p>"Is 8, all teaching undergrads exclusively, not enough faculty for 20 engineering majors? "</p>

<p>IMO , probably no it’s not. Not for someone who wants to be an engineer, and therefore wants maximum exposure to opportunities within the field,to inform their path as their interests may develop. Because those 20 majors will be forced/funnelled/limited to study only what those 8 people know. the number of sub-specialties they can pursue in upper years has got to be severely constrained, vs. a “real”, comprehensive engineering college.</p>

<p>But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe those 8 people offer the same breadth and depth of courses in engineering as an actual engineering college, with many times the number of faculty, does. Someone please look at the registrar’s list of courses for swarthmore, and then for Northwestern, count the number of engineering courses actually being offered at each institution this semester. Then we can see how equivalent the opportunities for what one is able to learn in engineering at each institution is.</p>

<p>For someone whose primarly goal is to receive a top-flight liberal arts education, but might also be interested in engineering and wants to check it out, I can see where a program like Swarthmore’s would have some appeal. If it turns out that engineering really does float your boat after all, the plan would be to go to engineering grad school. If grad school is an integral part of the plan then you have more time to pick stuff up later. However your path to get there may not be as fully informed as the case where you had more to choose from in undergrad. If they don’t teach it there, you probably won’t learn it there.</p>

<p>IMO.</p>

<p>One footnote to this is that you might be able to take courses at Penn’s engineering school, which would expand the catalog considerably. However this involves time & trouble, you should investigate to what extent this can realistically be relied on, in practice, to plug the gaps.</p>

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<p>Idad, thanks for taking the time for the detailed post. It does provide a comparison and contrast that should help a student select between Swarthmore and a traditional Engineering school.</p>

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<p>Swartmore’s Engineering Department makes no attempt to offer the breadth and depth of courses as the engineering programs at a public university or huge private university. They make no attempt to offer the breadth and depth of a public university or huge private university in ANY department. That’s not what a small boutique-scale liberal arts college does. </p>

<p>They specialize in a highly-interactive undergrad educational experience in ways that no public university or huge private university can touch. If you are looking for breadth and depth, you should not go to Swarthmore, just like, if you want the selection of Macy’s, you shouldn’t shop at a clothing boutique specializing in one-off designer clothes.</p>

<p>BTW, you only take a maximum of 12 courses in your major in four years at Swarthmore. I’ve never heard of an Engineering major there not being sufficiently challenged.</p>

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<p>Almost nobody at Swarthmore takes courses at Penn, even though it’s a simple 20 minute door-to-door train ride – just a few stops on the same rail line – and Swarthmore pays your fare. Why? There are expections, but by and large, Swarthmore students find the courses at Penn disappointing compared to the standards at Swarthmore. Penn has a big name and some strong grad schools, but it’s not that great in undergrad education. It’s the size of a small state public school for undergrad.</p>

<p>The challenge most Swarthmore students have fitting all the courses they want to take into their schedule. Nobody is having trouble finding enough interesting courses.</p>

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<p>I have no doubt Swarthmore academics is among the most intense and challenging in the country. I saw some of the honors thesis projects and was impressed.</p>