<p>haverunik: i just want to see if i am understanding the gist of your post. excuse me for being a bit dense here. i have heard from a lot of different sources that swat is non competitive, but your perception is that it is very competitive? how does that competitiveness manifest itself? is there any type of overt or covert sabotage of lab experiments or non cooperation between students? i didn’t see that on visiting, but you were actually there, in the trenches so to speak. can you elaborate on this. one of the attractive aspects of swat is that, although rigorous, there is an atmosphere of cooperation at the school. is swat trying to sell us a bill of goods here? i also visited haverford and found the environment there totally different from that of swarthmore. walking through the science center at swat, i saw a ton of students working, walking around campus at haverford, i saw almost noone working. yes i saw some kids reading in the library, but not that many. maybe this has to do with what interesteddad calls academic intensity. i really hope you can delve more deeply into the “competitiveness” aspect of the schools. that could change ones perspective about a school, especially this one. thanks</p>