Brown v. Swarthmore

dcircle
Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:43:06 +0000

i love swarthmore, but in the interest of objectivity


swarthmore does have a large per student endowment, but it also has very few students and a mission that requires more endowment draw (they have less grant funding, direct-use gifts, etc).
the PhD data is likely true but one has to be careful interpreting it because of the obvious self-selection bias. one (unverified) way to interpret it might be that brown political science concentrators are more diverse–pursuing doctoral programs as well as medical school, law school, immediate public service, and other options. another, is that those who to pursue PhD’s at Brown, on average, get into better schools.


if you are interested in an academic career (getting a PhD) after college, there will be little difference in opportunity between swarthmore and brown. at the top programs, brown may have an edge because the presence of graduate students allows their political science department to maintain a more robust research enterprise and retain more reknown faculty.


neither school is necessary more challenging. it will be what you make of it