Dartmouth vs. Swarthmore

cameliasinensis
Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:54:18 +0000

Crumpledpaper:

Cameliasinensis -

Great Post… I think my daughter will find it helpful. I see that you are from the greater DC area, so you may have a different perspective. Living in MA and surrounded by IVYs, we hear little of the excellent schools along the mid-atlanic coast. We came to know Swarthmore through the college search process, but have no “ingrained” sense of it’s reputation relative to the IVYs. If you could touch on a few points for us, it would be very interesting…

Why did you apply to Swarthmore… what drew you there. I was hoping you could speculate for us… if you had been admitted to Swarthmore, would it have affected your decision to go to Dartmouth… and why or why not ? They are clearly excellent schools, both… ?

Thanks !

It’s funny, because in many ways I am the stereotypical Swarthmore student-- the kind of person who gets more excited talking about some obscure 600-page novel than about what happened at that party. Unlike many here, though, I don’t believe that the right college is necessarily where one feels most “comfortable” socially. I believe that college is about growth, and that is true socially as well as academically (and intellectual growth will take place at either, so let’s not split hairs). I would rather attend a college where I’ll have to stretch to fit in the first few months than one I’ll grow out of in three years; I grew out of my small, intimate private high school and had a miserable experience there, however comfortable I felt initially. I also have a feeling that going to school with 1,500 other shy, perfectionistic, analytical, self-consciously intellectual people would do strange and terrible things to my mind and general sense of well-being. ;)

Aside from that, I love skiing and outdoorsy things and can occasionally be quite silly… and I really wanted to get out of the Mid-Atlantic area. Finally, this is going to sound idealistic and quite possibly insane, but I spent large parts of high school being extremely unhappy (various family issues combined with attending a high school that was a terrible fit for me), and at Dartmouth I felt peaceful and exuberant and more alive than I have in quite a while. I guess that’s what they call finding your people? :)