<p>FYI, Swarthmore’s Educational Studies major is required to be a “special major” with another academic department, so it is not considered less rigorous (in fact, it requires more credits/commitment) than normal majors.</p>
<p>You know my bias already, but I will add that you shouldn’t consider anywhere near 200k in debt for law school EXCEPT for Yale and Harvard (I believe those are the two with generous loan-forgiveness public interest programs). And if you want to work in government education policy anyway, I don’t think that law school is the best way to go. For more concrete advice, try emailing some of the Swarthmore Ed professors.</p>
<p>Also: one of the McCabes from my year was not admitted to any other school of Swarthmore’s caliber except for Northwestern (they applied to several Ivies and was waitlisted). Due to the geographic limitations, the scholarship often goes to “normal” rather than “super-amazing” people. You never know, the stars might line up.</p>