<p>Hi everyone, I'm a rising college senior with pretty good stats (I have a chance thread somewhere if you want to look).
I recently visited Swarthmore just to verify that indeed, I do not like the idea of a small liberal arts colleges. However, I absolutely loved it. The campus was beautiful, I loved the emphasis on small classes with discussion, equal opportunity, proximity to the city, interesting traditions, study abroad and exchange opportunities, etc.</p>
<p>I'm still concerned that I will feel too insulated and trapped with a student body of just 1500. I am interested in a school that has a strong community and discussion based classes, but also a decent amount of people to meet and resources to draw on. I understand that Swarthmore is part of a consortium, but does this really make a difference?</p>
<p>I think the fact that swat is near a major city made more of a difference for me than how many students there were… if I ever wanted to go somewhere where I didn’t know anyone, it’s an easy Septa ride away.</p>
<p>About the actual size of swat… I kept meeting new people every year, it felt ok to me. You can choose to, or choose not to take advantage of trico… for example, I never took a course outside of swat but I went to parties and lectures (to be honest, more often parties) at Haverford and Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>I think students tend to compare the size of a school like Swat with the size of their high school. Their high school seemed small, so they think that Swat will be small. However, in high school most of your classes were with the 20% of students who were in Honors/AP classes. You did not have much contact with the students in the Auto Shop class. Also, in high school you are largely limited to students in your own year – the seniors don’t socialize with the freshmen, for example. </p>
<p>So your high school may have had 1500 students, but the only ones you ever talked to were maybe 150 – the rest were strangers. At Swat, you will have a much larger pool of potential acquaintances – maybe not 1500, but certainly a lot more than 150.</p>
<p>OP: Swarthmore may be a small school, but its influence is far-reaching. Many alumni are located all around the world, and this opens many opportunities for you as both a student or a graduate of the school. You will only be spending 4 years at Swat, but the doors it opens last for a lifetime.</p>
<p>Haha when I asked my senior she said it might be difficult to avoid ex’s…LOL Anyways it is really not that small I would think, and you can still meet new people every day! I would rather really get to kknow some of them than just nod-when-meet friends you see.</p>