Decision input: UChicago vs. Swarthmore vs. Pomona

zakuropanda
Fri, 01 Apr 2011 22:11:58 +0000

I was making a similar decision last year (Chicago v. Swat), and I ended up picking Chicago over Swat after visiting both. I would say the main reasons were the Core, the fact that it’s a medium-sized college, and the city, because for me the vibes at the two schools were fairly similar and the academics were also somewhat similar (although I felt as though there was more interdisciplinary research at Chicago - but I could be totally wrong about this). I really like the philosophy behind the Core, especially coming out of an IB program, and I wanted a little bit of that kind of structure in college. I originally thought I would prefer a smaller school, but after visiting both, I realized that Chicago was not actually as huge as I thought it would be and I seemed to like that size better. As for the city, from some of the students I talked to at Swat, it’s easy to get to Philly, but many students don’t take the initiative and are stuck in a campus bubble. I really wanted to use opportunities available in a big city. Granted, in Hyde Park you have to take initiative too, but here I got the vibe that more students just did that (And I started getting involved off-campus like my 3rd week here). In the end, it might have just come down to the fact that my gut told me “Chicago”, but don’t ever fear that you’ve picked wrong. There are plenty of people on the Swarthmore board who chose between the two and are perfectly happy with their pick as well. Hope this helped; good luck!