Hello! I’m currently planning on applying to Swarthmore RD (if I get rejected/deferred from my ED school, Columbia), and my “Why Swarthmore” supplement is very slow going.
I’m struggling how to figure out how to write about Swarthmore without it sounding like every other school. The one thing I would like to write about is the Honors program—especially since I LOVE comparative literature (i.e. particularly Russian Lit) and I could talk about it endlessly. Other than the Honors program, I’m struggling to figure out what else is distinctly unique to Swarthmore. I was going to talk about how it’s a LAC near a major city (unlike Williams, Amherst, etc.) but there’s other LACs like that, obviously (Haverford, Claremonts, etc.). I thought about writing about the small class sizes and accessibility to professors (but that’s like every LAC). I thought about writing about Quaker values (again, Haverford, Bryn Mawr). If I write about the consortium, couldn’t I be talking about any school in the consortium?—or another consortium like the Claremonts or that MA one with Amherst, Holyoke, etc… I struggle to write about Swarthmore because I think part of the reason it stands out is because like all LACs it has small classes, accessibility, etc., but I think Swarthmore stands out among this and they do it better than many top LACs.
I’m definitely overthinking this, but 250 words is hard to fit everything in!
Definitely one of my top choices, and I’m incredibly excited about it. I’m still waiting to receive my Ivy decisions before I deposit, but given that those are obviously going to be quite difficult to get into, there’s a pretty big shot I’ll end up at Swat next year! Are you going to Swatstruck in April? Would love to meet a fellow lover of Russian Lit considering there’s not too many of us out there!