what makes swarthmore special

<p>About the "Anywhere else it would've been an 'A' " thing...you have to work darn hard to get an A here, but it's not impossible. It's not like teachers REFUSE to give out A's, it's that the standards are very, very high.
You don't have to do drugs or become psychotic. You might come thisclose to having a breakdown before finals, but in the end, god you'll feel good about it.</p>

<p>I know several straight-A students here. You'd better believe that they feel like they're getting their money's worth. All it takes is a TON of dedication and hard work, which will ultimately pay off (Hello, having ivy league grad schools in the palm of your hand. Hello, complete sense of accomplishment.).</p>

<p>I'm a senior, and a prospective Swattie. I visited Swat for their Discovery Weekend in the fall, and here are some of the things I found:</p>

<ol>
<li>An amazing music hall. The acoustics are fabulous, and the venue itself is as well.</li>
<li>The campus is really spread out, so be prepared to walk. A LOT.</li>
<li>Students who were really great conversationalists. Seriously.</li>
<li>Really caring administration. No lie. On the last day, I'd forgotten to get my sack lunch, and the dean (who already knew my name) brought me one. </li>
<li>Great efforts to increase diversity. Which is common to lots of colleges with small populations of minority students, but still.</li>
<li>Nerds. Really super cool nerds.</li>
<li>The shuttles back and forth to the airport really are helpful.</li>
<li>Sharples isn't the best. But it's edible, and the school is small enough that when you walk into the dining hall, everyone knows who you are. It's a nice community feel.</li>
<li>The big white chairs on the lawn really are fantastic. </li>
<li>Ultimate frisbee and kegs on the lawn. It's hysterical.</li>
</ol>

<p>Just my two cents. :)</p>

<p>Like Sopralto above me, I attended Discovery Weekend last fall as well, and I completely agree with her 10 points. Especially the last one. Hahaha that was pretty funny. </p>

<p>One of the things I've always liked about Swat is that the academic community is very collaborative. The work is known to be intense, but the students help one another versus being cutthroat and competitive. They're said to be "only competitive with themselves." At one of the workshops I went to during Discovery Weekend one of the visiting seniors asked if there was a lot of pressure at Swarthmore in academics or the party scene or whatnot. The Swat students basically said that there's very little pressure, and if there is, it's usually self-induced. Most students do what they want and their peers respect their decisions. And then one guy chimed in "The only pressure, really, is to change the world". That made everyone chuckle, mostly because it's very true to the underlying philosophies of Swarthmore.</p>

<p>Are any of you Discovery Weekend young people African-American or half-African American? I'm wondering because I'm the dad of a biracial student and Swat applicant who was NOT at Discovery Weekend.</p>

<p>I am African-American and I attended discovery weekend (I met you Sopralto86 - we are already friends on facebook I just changed my CC username). Anyway both of the comments above pretty much captured the experience I had when I visited Swat but I also wanted to add how nice the dorm community was. I stayed in Wharton in a freshman quad and not only were all 4 girls wonderful and adopted all the "specs" as their own but everyone in the hall was so welcoming! I ended up hanging out all night with some people down the hall who just wandered in to say hi! I still keep in contact with them, along with the girls in the quad, and it's even cooler that I will actually be attending school with them next year!! </p>

<p>I would definitely say that Discovery Weekend is the reason I ended up applying to Swat ED (or even applying at all). I must admit, initially, Swat was not on my short list but after that weekend I knew I belonged there!</p>

<p>ok, Bubblysoprano's post about cake made me think of one of my favorite Swat is cool stories that I thought I'd share. During senior week, my friend made a (very accurate) cake in the shape of Nazi-occupied Europe. She frosted it into two colors- blue for the sections that the US and UK conquered and red for the sections that the russians conquered. Berlin was a jellybean. Then we divided into two teams and had an eating contest; the team that ate all their cake and got to the jellybean first won. I think this amply demonstrates that Swatties are both very very nerdy and fun-loving. </p>

<p>Also, try to remember that at the prospective student weekends, the campus is trying really hard to impress you. While I really liked the administration almost all of the time, no dean ever brought me lunch. In addition, the airport shuttles operate a very limited time around breaks.</p>

<p>superlax09: Thanks. I still find it amazing that 17-18 year olds who such great HS accomplishments that would enable them to go to almost any college/university in America can actually narrow them all down to the ONE they are sure of enough to apply ED. I don't get how anyone of any age who has so many options can narrow it down to one. I'm mystified by that. My D is also mystified by it. It's the reason she applied RD to 11 different schools. </p>

<p>Anyway, congrats Superlax09. I'm glad you found what you wanted and are sure of it.</p>

<p>Can someone elaborate on how the students possess a "culture of social responsibility"?
What are the advantages of being part of Swarthmore's Honors Program?</p>

<p>mikecerang,
Participating in Swarthmore's Honors Program is somewhat akin to going to graduate school two years early. The Honors Seminars are small, 8-12 students generally, the workload is particularly intense, and the reward of having outside professors who are expert in their field write and evaluate your final exam and papers is exhilarating. It isn't for everyone.</p>

<p>Plainsman, I would also like to reply to your comment. My S looked at "all the usual suspects," HYP, AWS, etc. He was truly extremely competitive at all of them. However, when he visited Swarthmore, it just clicked with him more than any of the other schools he had seen. When we sat in on the information session with him, I remember at one point leaning over and exclaiming to my H, "They are describing him!" I didn't hear any other school's info session which sounded quite like Swarthmore's as it applied to my child. He applied ED and never looked back.</p>

<p>Plainsman:</p>

<p>There was almost no debate in my daughter's mind about applying early decision to Swarthmore. She did her homework on school sizes and locations. She had spent time in other types of colleges, taking summer courses and doing other things. She knew Swarthmore was the place, pretty much from the time she set foot on campus.</p>

<p>There were two devil's advocate discussions. One was whether she was a good solid applicant at Swarthmore so she wouldn't be wasting ED or whether she should go for the automatic ED at a equally strong peer college with a double legacy. She felt strongly enough about Swarthmore to roll the dice. The other was to confirm, in her own mind, that she could handle playing a championship course from the back tees. She attended several classes during her fall overnight and came away confident that she would do OK with Swarthmore's academics.</p>

<p>mike:</p>

<p>To amplify on Swarthmore's Honors program. The time to make up your mind is when you are already a sophmore and have already seen seniors on your hall go thru the honors preparations. Some Swatties want to do Honors; others don't. There are a lot of pluses and minuses that get hard to discuss without the context of a specific department. As an overall observation, the Honors program was started in the 1920's by President Frank Adylotte, who actually agreed to come to Swarthmore specifically to experiment with a new Honors Program. He was the US agent for the Rhodes Scholarship committee and wanted to model the program after the tutorials at Oxford. The Honors Program is the reason Swarthmore is an academic powerhouse. Not only did Honors examiners visit Swarthmore and take good impressions (and future PhD students) home, but the whole small seminar approach of students and faculty learning together spread throughout the entire school in both honors and non-honors classes. It became the culture of the place.</p>

<hr>

<p>As for social responsibility, I think you will find that Swatties have an above average interest in current affairs, both in the US and around the globe. There are a LOT of Swattie alums in Washington DC. There are a lot working for various NGO agencies -- the guess the most famous right now being the head of the World Bank. You see it on campus with activities like War New Radio (weekly syndicated radio and podcasts on Iraq -- kind of a student NPR type thing) and the Darfur Genocide Intervention Fund (started by several Swarthmore students, now in Washington). The school attracts a lot of kids who are interested in stuff like that.</p>

<p>I'm African-American as well, and everyone was super friendly. The admins were definitely trying to impress us-- apparently, students were told to try to keep parties and the like to a minimum, so that things wouldn't get too crazy while we underagers were around. Apparently, Swat students work hard--but play hard, too. :D
Haha, yeah, I do know you, Superlax09! The new username threw me, lol.
I stayed in Willets dorm, and it's known to be the least nice of all. But all the students were fantastically welcoming, busy as they were-- and I, like superlax09, stayed up late just talking to people in the common room. It was fantastic.
Plainsman, I was unable to decide on one school that was absolutely the best for me. I applied to five schools, one Ivy, and the rest, top tier LACs. Swat is definitely on that list, also due to Discovery Weekend. It wasn't on my short list before then, but that weekend absolutely made it.</p>