<p>So I went to visit Swarthmore and FELL IN LOVE with it!!! But I really want to know what it's like to be a student there - the good AND bad things. I heard there was a lot of competition there, like to the point of "sabotage." Is that true, or to what extent is it competitive? And, on a lighter note, how is the food?</p>
<p>I don’t know where you heard there’s a lot of competition there. There isn’t, at all. Students are generally very willing to help other classmates with work, and often meet up to discuss homework. Other classmates provide a great support group when it comes to homework. The food is more of a concern. I think there was a thread on the food here a while ago.</p>
<p>As far as I have heard from my Swat grad as well as my current Swat student, you heard the opposite of what is true. Not a lot of competition. And sabotage? No way. Kids are always getting together to study. Some of the science classes have sessions set up for everyone to work on the problem sets and ask questions. As for the food? Eh, not great and not horrible.</p>
<p>Daughter just graduated. Four years= zero sabotage. She loved the study groups and found that Swat students are incredibly supportive of each other. They are not driven to compete but instead are passionate about learning. There is a profound difference in those two things. Daughter’s take on Sharples’ (Swat dining hall) food has completely changed. She has a one-year fellowship and after a day of working in a lab, she now has to go back to an apartment and fix her own dinner. She tells me that, while standing in her kitchen trying to throw something together to eat, she has apologized profusely to Sharples multiple times for ever complaining about the food . She now realizes that the food was a lot better than she thought and what it lacked in gourmet excitement was more than made up for by the fact that it was there for the taking.</p>
<p>Thank you all so much!! I just heard the competition thing from my aunt who used to be a college admissions interviewer…I guess she was wrong…and I’m glad, too :)</p>
<p>There is a big difference between Swat being very competitive in admissions (as in it is tough to get in) and a competitive atmosphere between Swat students. As a Swat alumni interviewer I always try to make the distinction. As others have posted, above, Swarthmore is probably the opposite of competitive between students. But you could easily call Swarthmore highly competitive in admissions, if what you mean by that is that even among a self selecting pool of applicants the acceptance rate is low and has been dropping lower in recent years.</p>
<p>I have very little insight to offer here, but let me state upfront that as a Quaker, I am very favorably disposed to Swarthmore. My son, two years ago, was selected for DiscoSwat and he spent three nights there. He told me he was very put off by the student interviewer, who seemed to want to show how smart he was. He asked my son, “What do you think about diversity?”. My son asked him to define what he meant by diversity as it has many different connotations. The student declined to do so and the interview was quite tense. He had a great weekend there,but because of that one interaction, he declined to apply.</p>
<p>Current Swattie chiming in here: As a pre-med (with a double major in a Natural Science program and a Humanities program), in a field with students very often mocked for their competitiveness, I would say Swat has some of the least intrastudent-body competition of any of the top colleges/universities out there. Sure, many students put a lot of pressure on themselves to do well, but for the premed classes, especially the traditionally tougher ones like Orgo, students take advantage of the problem set help sessions, working collaboratively there, and then staying afterwards, too, to continue working in informal study groups. </p>
<p>Coming from an ultra-competitive high school, lack of competitiveness within the student body was one of the top reasons I chose Swat (or at least that’s what I say now because it is what I appreciate most about the school), and I can say definitively that it has not disappointed me. Hope this helps to alleviate some of your concerns.</p>
<p>It definitely does 
Swat’s my top choice anyway, I just wanted to hear other people’s input.</p>
<p>Swarthmore is not competitive at all. At least the people that I have interacted with have all been incredibly genuine, passionate and down-to-earth. In those aspects, I’m SO glad that I came here rather than the Ivy League. Swarthmore is as ideal an environment as is humanly possible.</p>
<p>I absolutely love there too! I hear more about cooperation though, instead of competition, which is somethings i am really looling forward to.</p>