Sort By:
[Date]
[Major]
[Rating]
| Bright | If you are looking for a highly academic small liberal arts coed college located on a beautiful campus close to a major city, check out Swarthmore. I never thought I would choose Swarthmore when I first started my college search based on its reputation of excessive academic rigor, but I was pleasantly surprised when I visited the campus and met some of the students. I am now a sophomore, and I love it here. Students are serious and work hard, but there is plenty of socializing and partying, and no shortage of non-academic activities to take up your time, if so inclined. The students are NOT arrogant or preppy, and in general, I have found the students here to be really smart, but very down to earth. Philadelphia is easily accessible, and we head into the city regularly. This school is worth a look! | Scholastic Success: A+, Faculty Accessibility: A- |  | | |
| | Dec 14 2009 | 2nd Year Female --
Class 2012 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
Just copy and paste!
<script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=63069&uid=1205'></script>
<a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a>
|
|
|
|
| Quite Bright |
Oh man, where to begin. Swarthmore is a terrible, terrible place. Let me address the school in the order the headings were presented.
My department (psychology) was sort of the fallback department of the campus. Don't know what you want to do with your life? Haven't found anything better to do? Come to Psychology! With no grade requirements and no real personal attention given up to that point (you could apply to the major having taken the intro class and 2 others), this was the major for you if you'd been treading water up until that point. It's important to note this because you'll be spending a lot of time with these frat boys, frat girls, and other assorted mental giants over the next 2 years. I was assigned an advisor who was head of the department. Impressive, right? Well. As it turns out, professor's are not great at budgeting their time. My advising experience with him was punctuated by missed appointments, and a lot of shit being thrown my way about dealing with issues on my own. From my ADVISOR. To quote him once, "Matt, you're a nice guy, but you're not very smart". Thank you for that advice. Another incident that sticks out in my mind came about when I wanted to discuss with another professor an idea I had for an experiment. It quickly degraded into a "there's nothing new under the sun" conversation, and my creativity was effectively staunched. That semester went so poorly I was forced to take a semester's leave (thank goodness for APs) just to regain my sanity. The one thing I will say to psychology's credit is the large class sizes keep the other students from ruining the experience. You see, nearly everyone you run into on campus has some sort of agenda in the form of some social cause or another. I made the mistake of taking a literature class, and all anyone could talk about was how the work related to spousal abuse, or animals, or some other crap that was clearly important to them, but not to me, and certainly not to the work being discussed. I often got the impression that the professors were using the students as a crutch. If you're looking for a school where people with PhD's speak at length about a relevant topic, go somewhere else. At swarthmore you will instead hear about some girl from Bethesda, Maryland and what she thinks might possibly be relevant to the topic. For this reason, among others, I spent the majority of my time avoiding the small classes swarthmore loves to brag about. The campus itself is beautiful and fairly well maintained, because it's also an arboretum, so it receives funding from elsewhere, which is something to feel good about. The dorms are sort of hit or miss, same as any campus. The rooms are of a decent size and they're reasonably well maintained. No complaints. The social life at swarthmore is extremely nuclear. You'll have a group of about 5-7 friends who you will spend all your time with. The entire school social life is dorm based. I myself hung out almost exclusively with the kids who lived upstairs from me my freshman year for my entire duration at swarthmore. The small community SUCKS if you're looking for a bit of anonymity. Saturday and sunday morning all of the one dining hall is abuzz with who cheated on who with whom, who decided to try girls/guys this week, who hooked up with who and its so awkward now etc etc. The extra-curriculars are just as cliquey as you'd expect, with all of the clubs being dominated by one or two people. I myself was involved in drama, and since I was not lucky to be one of the 2 blessed ones, I was lucky to get 500 dollars to put on a full length show. and the club was none-too-friendly about it, since their power structure was heavily involved in another show.
I really must urge you, if you consider yourself normal, to stay away from this school, and I welcome you, if you have any doubts about going here, to please contact me before you rush into anything. I've counseled many people against going here, and welcome the chance to continue. | Campus Aesthetics: A, Extracurricular Activities: F | | | |
| | Oct 30 2009 | 4th Year Male --
Class 2007 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
Just copy and paste!
<script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=61887&uid=1205'></script>
<a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a>
|
|
|
|
| Quite Bright | I love Swarthmore! The campus is beautiful, the students are smart/diverse/friendly/interesting/cool, the classes are small with great professors, and Philadelphia is just a short train ride away (station is on campus) with tons of neat things to do when you need a break from campus life. The work load can be excessive at times, but students are NOT competitive with each other, and there is a lot of peer support and assistance. Some of the dorms could use an upgrade. | Education Quality: A+, Campus Maintenance: B | | | |
| | May 16 2009 | 1st Year Female --
Class 2012 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
Just copy and paste!
<script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=60351&uid=1205'></script>
<a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a>
|
|
|
|
| Bright | Swarthmore was absolutely the best college for me. The school is beautiful and the town is quaint (great late-night pizza too). If you want to go out to have a good time (as many do), Philly is only a 20-minute trip. The social scene does not revolve around Frat parties as it does at many places but there was always a good sponsored event every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. Sports were not supported all the time, but as an athlete myself I didn't think it was too bad. When we won, people came. The students are bright and motivated but know how to have a good time too. All of my friends are now very successful now that we have been out of school for almost two years. All of my friends have good jobs/are in graduate school. I go to a top law school and my roommate was just admitted to Harvard Business School. Because the school is small, the alumni base is tight-knit, which can be great for job hunters. I highly recommend Swarthmore to anyone. | Useful Schoolwork: A+, Innovation: B+ | | | |
| | Jan 23 2009 | 4th Year Male --
Class 2007 | | Blog it!Blog about this comment from your webpage or Blog, or MySpace account:
Just copy and paste!
<script src='http://www.studentsreview.com/active/shared/sr_comment.js?sckey=57175&uid=1205'></script>
<a href='http://www.studentsreview.com' style='font-size:8pt;'>Data Source: StudentsReview!</a>
|
|
|
|
 |
Articles
