So, first things first.
If ending up with a PhD is your career idea, Swarthmore. It has one of the highest percent of students who go on to do a PhD - places 3rd or 4th among all colleges’ universities in the USA.
That is, of course, if money is truly not an issue.
The advantage of Swarthmore in this case is that it will give you a boost for jobs at LACs. As a rule, they prefer to hire applicants with experience at a LAC, so either a previous job, a visiting assistant professorship, or an undergraduate degree from a LAC.
While it’s true that a person can get into any PhD programs from any undergraduate, it also isn’t. The more prestigious your undergraduate schools is, the less you have to do in order to be accepted. In regards to prestige, Berkeley and Swarthmore are equivalent, and USC is good enough for anywhere, and actually is top ranked in Comp Lit. So a degree from any of those three will pass the “prestige requirements” of any grad school, except, maybe HYP, because these three prefer taking their own. You still will be in the running, though.
In short:
At Swarthmore you will likely have more peers who are also interested in doing PhDs and it will likely be easier to create relationships with your professors, set up research projects, etc.
At Berkeley, you will have world-wide reputation, if you want to do a PhD outside the USA
At USC, you will have both huge savings, and weather. Weather is far more important than you realize, if you’re been in the South. Being able to spend times outside throughout the school year is an amazing thing. It is also in one of the most vibrant cities in the world.
At both Swarthmore and USC, you will have the advantages of being at a wealthy private college, so many academic opportunities will be available.
At Berkeley and USC, you will have the advantages of a large university with a large number of faculty in your field of interest.
All three are great places to start an academic career in your fields of interest.
The vibes are different, and the comparison of Swarthmore to U Chicago and USC to Northwestern is apt. Think of a small U Chicago, and a Northwestern in a warm climate. Berkeley is not really comparable to any of the colleges you looked at but has a very northern California vibe. All sorts of interesting people and weird things. Imagine a place in which they mixed the computer nerds and the artsy kids together, and then added the the class officers. The theatre kids all went to USC.
At all three you’ll find kindred spirits, and at all three you’ll find great faculty mentors. It all comes down to size, vide, climate, and area.
You’ll really need to visit all three is you want to make an informed decision.
Now, though, let’s talk about:
Can your parents support you for the next 10-15 years, or maybe 30? You may want to attend USC and bank those $250,000.
First you will spend 4 years as an undergrad. Then you will spend 6-10 years as a grad student (that’s how long it takes in Comparative Lit), which pays a stipend, but one that puts you in the bottom 20% by income (we qualified for food stamps when our daughter was born and we were on two such salaries). Then likely a post-doc at below median wage for 4-5 years.
THEN, most likely your first faculty job will not be in NYC, because few jobs open up there every year, and there are about 100-200 applicants for every single job. There are very few jobs opening in your fields of interests, and far fewer than there are applicants. The chances of there being a “next job” are also not high.
So, if you do well in any of those schools, you could get into a prestigious PhD program, and finish your PhD, you will have good chance at getting a faculty position. However, that faculty positions is almost certainly not going to be in NYC, not very well paying, and most likely not at a college similar to where you will do your undergraduate.
In the “Inside Higher Ed” job site, there are almost 500 jobs in Sociology, but only 60 are Tenure Track - the rest are adjuncts, lecturers, other teaching positions, post-docs and a handful of senior positions. Of those Tenure-Track jobs, not a single one is in NYC, and some 43 are at colleges that you likely never heard of, of them 5-6 are seriously religious (and would not hire you). There are also 550-600 new Sociology PhDs every year, so those jobs are what the “best qualified” 10% of sociology PhDs get.
Right now, Harvard’s Sociology department has 80 PhD students, and 15 finished their PhDs in 2022. Again, there were some 60 open TT positions in 2022.
For Comp Lit, the situation is even more grim.
All of this is for a highly qualified applicant, who attended great schools, did very well in grad school, and had a highly productive post doc.
As for being a writer? Not until you are a tenured associate professor, some 30 years from now. Until then there will be no time for you to write anything that is not professional literature, teaching plans, and grant proposals. Even tenured faculty are required to teach, mentor students, get grants, and do research, as well as be a member of a number of committees, which is extremely time-consuming. That is a full time job, and, when you are tenure-track, it is a full time and a half job.
My point is that your vision of living the life of a professor at, say, NYU, Columbia, or Manhattan College, writing on the side, is really really unlikely to happen.
What would be your alternative plans?
