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There are a lot of reasons to go ahead and finish what you started when it comes to college, and plenty of people who found that Swarthmore did not live up to its reputation and hype have gone ahead and finished.
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There are also a lot of reasons to switch colleges if you are dissatisfied -- especially if you go to a school like Swarthmore, which makes it convenient to explore possible alternatives through cross-registration at several other highly-ranked schools nearby (Penn, Haverford, Bryn Mawr). Yet Swat still has one of the highest "graduation and retention" ranks around. It's hard to put a negative spin on this fact (though you seem to be trying).
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you'll note that I only ever compared Swarthmore to other top liberal arts schools. How does it compare to those schools listed in the original post? I can see at the US News site that Amherst and Williams are both ahead of Swarthmore in this category, having giving rates of 58% and 61%, respectively.
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Here are the "Top 10" USN&WR LACs (for 2008), ranked by alumni giving rate:
64 % Carleton
61 % Amherst
58 % Williams
57 % Middlebury
55 % Bowdoin
54 % Davidson
51 % Swarthmore
50 % Wellesley
47 % Pomona
47 % Haverford
Swat's rate is indeed slightly lower than those of Amherst or Williams, but it nonetheless appears to be within the overall "top LAC" range.