It can be helpful to think of colleges in terms of ‘fit’: some colleges have such a strong ethos or campus culture that the ‘fit’ between college & student materially shapes the student’s experience. IMO, Swat and Dartmouth are two examples of strong ‘fit’ schools. Other schools- with comparable academics- suit a much broader range of students (say, UPenn and Rice?).
The thing is there are genuinely many dozens of places where your son can get absolute top level academic preparation- what will make it the “best” will be that it is the best ‘fit’ for him. The purpose of college visits is to help the student get an idea as to how that environment will suit them, and it sounds as if the Swat visit was a success in those terms!
I don’t know a single kid who didn’t have a positive experience at U Michigan for example- something for everyone, academically, socially, religiously, artistically- everyone seems to find their “peeps”. I cannot say the same thing about Penn State for example- some miserable kids, some who grin and bear it, and of course, lots of students who love it. But the “fit” seems more important at Penn State than at Michigan…
When I think of Swat, I don’t think of kids going straight to work at Big 4 firms and the like. I actually associate that much more with Davidson and more conservative LACs/unis like Wake Forest and Lehigh. This post is still relevant. Best LAC's for a Career in Business
I don’t think Swat is mentioned.
Your child can have a life of the mind at Swat and many other LACs, and at big unis too. My kid 100% had life of the mind at Bates. It was plenty rigorous there but not intensely so. Her friends were more the nerdy studious types. While a couple have gone into IB, others are taking totally different paths. Many of her friends are working in research labs, doing grad programs, completing scholarship programs such as Fulbright, or working in career jobs.
If your child wants life of the mind, he can get that at Carleton too, or Reed, or Union, or Hamilton, or Allegheny. It’s about him finding others who are interested in that, and engaging with profs who encourage that kind of dialog. That’s why I say most LACs can offer the life of the mind.
Swat is an LAC and he will be able to study what interests him. No one is going to force him to get a job at Bain or KPMG.
As the parent of a recent Swat grad, it’s interesting to see the assumptions of pressure, effort, and drive that is assumed to come from such a rigorous school. @blossom is right…there are a ton of kids who leave Swat and do things that many would perceive as failure or underachievement. They do so because they can.
We live near the school, and hosted kids every Thanksgiving. It was amazing to get to know some of these kids for a few days. They weren’t wound tight and stressing about finals, they were engaged with their classes to a point where they didn’t fear finals or papers. They worked all the time…but they seemed to love it. They were at Swat because they wanted to focus like that, or because they wanted to challenge themselves. I can tell you that in the half dozen years I’ve been around the school, the one thing I never heard was anyone expressing concern about making money. Medical and graduate schools were a focus, but the idea that somehow a job on Wall Street would justify their experience at Swat would be humorous to them. The process was the goal, and everything after that would likely just take care of itself. As @Lindagaf suggests, I think most Swat kids don’t see the Big 4 as a goal.
Back to the OP’s concerns…there was a time during the second year that we worried that it was too much. Our engineering major child is bright and hard-working, but keeping up in one math class while playing a sport was proving impossible. At one point, one of her professors noticed something, and asked how she was doing. She mentioned the math class…and her engineering professor (Harvard/MIT/MIT) said that “she’d wanted to refresh on those topics for a while”, and tutored her several hours a week…in a class outside of her department. I’ve come to learn there is a lot of that support. After getting over that hump, it was downhill from there. Our daughter will tell you that she applied to college to study engineering, and if she’d have gone anywhere other than Swat she would have likely graduated with a psych degree.
It’s definitely not for everyone, but the goal for Swat students rarely focused on next steps…it’s about their time on campus. The post-Swat stuff just sorta works itself out.
It’s also worth noting that the number of students graduating with honors at Swarthmore has declined steadily over the past couple of decades, and the current rate is about half of what it was 20 years ago.
I am not entirely sure of the reasons for this, but I would be surprised if it were a phenomenon exclusive to Swat.
Interestingly, at Wesleyan - admittedly, a bigger LAC - there has been a big push for “capstone” projects of various kinds; about two-thirds of graduating seniors get involved. Not all of them are senior theses. You can also choose a one semester “senior essay”. And in contrast to Swarthmore, the Honors/High Honors designation is determined by each department. The one exception is University Honors which, if I understand it correctly, is the Wesleyan equivalent of a magna cum laude - only a few are awarded each year. The Wesleyan Argus | Thesis Why: Seniors Discuss Capstone Incentive
Fun Fact: I’m pretty sure the Broadway musical, “In The Heights” began as a senior thesis.
Just wanted to point out, Reed is typically mentioned as providing a fairly rigorous education. IE, if you wanted to take it easy for four years, you would not choose Reed. (I’ve generally thought of Reed being in the same boat as schools like Swat, Columbia, and UChicago in terms of academic rigor)
Reed is plenty rigorous but there are plenty of “chill intellectuals” there (similar to Mac, Carleton in that regard) instead of “intense intellectuals” like at Swat or Chicago. Of course, all of these fine colleges have some overlap in the student body- I was just making suggestions for a place that would feed a kid’s “life of the mind” with less intensity…
Whether or not it is indeed more rigorous than other comparable schools it seems like the Swarthmore community takes particular pride in the reputation, and that may go a long way toward shaping the culture of the place.
As a fellow parent of a recent Swat grad, I just wanted to say that EyeVeee’s comments are spot on. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Swat is not (according to my kid) competitive. Or rather, students are competing primarily with themselves rather than with their fellow students. (i.e., they’re self-driven). So while Swat is intense, it’s also quite collaborative.
But clearly not for everyone. For at least a year I worried that my kid might have been better off at a slightly more relaxed peer school (e.g., Haverford). But he turned out to be more resilient – and indeed more self-driven – than I realized, and all turned out well for him and his friends.
I know this is late, but just a quick note. The OP has misrepresented honors at Swarthmore (no fault of the OP – the program is complicated and takes a bit to figure out). It’s not like honors at any other college that I know of. It involves bringing in outside examiners to give exams on particular topics within the major (and one minor), or to evaluate theses (or creative projects like plays, music, etc.). This happens at the very end of the students’ senior year.
The benefit is the interaction with outside experts and concentrated work in areas of interest. It is not competitive at all – any number of students can achieve honors (not a zero sum game). Only a relatively small percentage do it because some students see value in the experience and some don’t.
Just because a student chooses not to do honors does not mean they can’t have the experiences they value at Swat. Every major (honors or not) requires a senior capstone. In many disciplines, this is the equivalent of a BA thesis.
But only one can achieve “highest honors”, and “high honors” is presumably more selective than “honors”. I do question why Swarthmore chooses to maintain these distinctions. There is no question that Swarthmore provides an outstanding education, but I saw lots of signs of pressure and competition there. It may have been more friendly competition than any kind of negative, but I think that Swarthmore is suitable for personalities that are compatible with their special environment.
I know Swarthmore pretty well. I would not describe the environment as competitive at all – students are very collaborative, and they actually love helping each other.
And (again) any number of students can achieve “highest honors”. Any number can receive “high honors.” And any number can receive “honors.” It’s not a curve, and not based on “selectivity.” It’s based on whether the outside examiners determine that the student has achieved a level of knowledge/proficiency/expertise that would qualify for that level of honorific. In fact, there is very little consultation between the faculty and the examiners in order to allow the examiners leeway to award the honorifics as they see fit without bias or inside access.
It’s sort of a separate question as to whether these distinctions should be maintained. I think you’re right – they do seem kind of dated.
All of this begin said, there is definitely pressure at Swarthmore. It’s mostly self-inflicted by the students, though it’s obviously related to the environment. So you are right – it’s not for everybody.
I appreciate all of the information and perspective. I would like to gain some more clarity on one thing. I have read in several places (which I now realize are all sites with college profiles describing things second-hand), that only one student is selected in each discipline for “highest honors”. When I look at Swarthmore’s own descriptive materials, it is not clear to me one way or the other whether multiple students can receive “highest honors”. Your testimony has certainly opened my mind towards thinking that multiple students could. But I am wondering if you, or any others, can point to something official by Swarthmore on this issue?
Regardless of the answer (is “highest” for one, or many), why would you care?
Edit: It’s for many. The determination is made by the visiting examiners, who may or may not participate in all of the departmental examinations, making a single determination impossible.
As several posters have noted, multiple students can be awarded highest honors in any department. For example, in the Class of 2021, nine students in the English department received “highest honors.” See this:
I believe that list proves the opposite point. It is a list of all students receiving honors across the entire class. Only nine students in total, across all departments, were awarded “highest honors”.
As to why I would care, I am trying to understand what goes on at Swarthmore, although at this point it is more of a question of getting to the bottom of things rather than related to my son’s college decision. Just as many high schools no longer report class rank because it leads to unhealthy competition, I don’t think that slicing a high-achieving elite body of students into wafer thin gradations is positive. Choosing just a handful of students to place at the top serves no purpose, in my view. I also don’t think that it makes much sense given that the honors work overall involves delving into specialized, individual interests that each probably have their own unique value. Why put them into a ranking at that point?
Personally, I vastly prefer the more plebeian model of Princeton, where every student completes a substantial honors thesis.
