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<p>As nngmm has outlined, many of the disadvantages of Swat are generic disadvantages at all small liberal arts colleges and things that I discussed with my daughter from very early on in the college selection process as we toured big, medium, and large schools:</p>
<p>a) there aren’t going to be as many different classes (or EC activities or sports or music ensembles or…) as there will be at a large university. So, if your mindset is to do this one very specific thing to the exclusion of any equally-interesting, but somewhat different, thing, then a small LAC is not the place. You would probably be better off at a school that offers a much larger buffet table.</p>
<p>b) For the most part, colleges are isolating ivory towers and there comes a point when you just want to get away. This will happen at a small LAC. You wake up, you don’t want to see the same people, the same dining hall, and so on and so forth. I think it’s important to pace yourself, taking advantages from month one as a freshman to get your butt off campus and into the real world – be it a night out on in the city, a weekend in NY, an internship, summer jobs off campus, study abroad.</p>
<p>c) To me, one of the strengths of a large university is that there are usually every kind of people imaginable. If you are into some weird goth thing, you’ll probably find a clique of weird goths. if you are into bluegrass music, somewhere, someplace, they’ll probably be some bluegrass pickers. It won’t feel like the whole campus is getting a business degree or going to school. There is the danger, at an LAC, of an overly homogenous student body. I felt this was downside #1 of my LAC alma mater back in the day. From a purely pragmatic standpont, “quirky” is good at LACs because “quirky” is interesting. However, it is super important at an LAC that you are comfortable with the dominant culture of the place – either as a part of it or as a member of the loyal opposition.</p>
<p>d) As for Swarthmore specific weaknesses, I think the school is too “liberal”. But, remember, I’m a 50+ year old geezer who went through my radical phase and am now registered as an independent, consider myself a centrist (moderate democrats would be my prefered flavor, if there were any) and am constantly amazed at how out of touch the base of both political parties is with the centrist mood of the country. This is one of those “positive and negative” things. I don’t have any problem with the school being liberal or socially conscious because, by and large, I think young people today are too darn career-oriented from middle school on and that colleges. It kind of scares me thinking where they will end up as they get “more conservative” with age.</p>
<p>I also think our colleges and universities are doing an utterly dismal job of instilling some basic notions of social responsibility, especially in business leaders (see the nation’s airlines cancelling their flights out of New Orleans two days before Hurricane Katrina or record oil company profits after a summer of highway robbery at the gas pumps). I think our nation’s colleges need to get back to the notion that there is some responsibility beyond greed.</p>
<p>If there is ever a time for youthful idealism, it’s when you are a youth! Nothin’ worse than a 20 year old curmudgeon. I also don’t think much gets by Swarthmore kids. They know when a professor is workin’ an agenda and chuckle about it. Nine times out of ten, they can spot it ahead of time from the course description.</p>
<p>e) I think Swarthmore is a very demanding school academically. This can be a negative. As far as I have been able to discern, it’s more work than I wanted to do in my first two years of college, about the same amount of work I wanted to do my second two years. It’s not like it’s impossibly difficult or that the workload is overwhelming. But, there’s just no point in going there unless you are OK with college as a place to study.</p>
<p>f) The continued presence of two small fraternities is a negative. It’s amazing to see how much disruption less than 5% of the student body causes, year in and year out. I understand why they allow the two frats to continue in existence, but I view it as a black mark for the college.</p>