<p>Just to clarify on the Quaker Consortium (Bryn Mawr-Haverford-Swarthmore-Penn): Bryn Mawr and Haverford are about a mile apart, and they have a completely integrated course registration system, so when you go to register for Bryn Mawr classes the same system also shows you Haverford classes and it’s exactly the same simple keystrokes that allow you to register for classes on either campus. There’s no limit on how many classes you can take on the other campus, and you can even take your major at the other school, even if your own school also offers it. In some areas the schools specialize; so, for example, theater is at Bryn Mawr and music is at Haverford. In some disciplines the faculty at the two schools coordinate curricular offerings to eliminate duplication and to maximize course availability. They also stagger class starting times to allow for transit between the two campuses; on one campus classes start on the hour and at the other campus on the half hour. Your student i.d. at one school will even buy you meals at the other school, and many extracurriculars are joint (“BiCo”). I would say most students at either of these two schools end up taking some classes at the other school, though not necessarily every semester. It’s all pretty seamless, almost more like two halves of a single school than separate schools.</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr and Haverford students can also take classes at Swarthmore and vice versa, but there’s less of that because it’s a longer commute, about 25 minutes or so. There’s a shuttle, but it eats up a lot of time getting back and forth. Still, some students every semester decide it’s worth it, usually because there’s a class on the other campus that they can’t get on their home campus, or sometimes because they want to take a class with a particular professor. There’s a little more paperwork involved for Haverford or Bryn Mawr students registering for classes at Swarthmore (and I assume vice versa), but ultimately it gets done, and again there’s no cap on the number of classes you can take. Not the same dining hall privileges, either. This somewhat looser affiliation is sometimes known as the 'TriCo."</p>
<p>I believe Haverford and Bryn Mawr have the same policy with respect to taking classes at Penn, which is that Haverford/Bryn Mawr students can take any class at Penn that is not offered in the BiCo. I don’t think there’s a numerical limit. Only a few Haverford and Bryn Mawr students avail themselves of this option. It’s about a 20-minute train ride from either Bryn Mawr or Haverford (each has its own station) to 30th Street Station, Philadelphia’s main train station; from there it’s about a 10 or 15 minute walk, depending where you’re going on Penn’s campus. Because the trains only run about once an hour except during morning and evening rush, it requires careful coordination of class schedules to fit in a class at Penn. In a typical semester probably only a handful of Haverford and Bryn Mawr students are taking classes at Penn, but in some majors advanced classes will be available at Penn that aren’t available at the BiCo, and Penn offers classes in some disciplines that just aren’t offered at the LACs (including a wider variety of foreign languages). I believe it’s even rarer for Penn students to take classes at Haverford or Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>In investigating these consortia, I think it’s important to get clarity on how many students actually avail themselves of these opportunities. If the number is small, there’s usually a reason for it, and you want to know what that reason is. In the case of Bryn Mawr and Haverford, there are thousands of cross-registrations every year. Bryn Mawr/Haverford-Swarthmore, less so; Bryn Mawr/Haverford-Penn, even less. My sense is it doesn’t really happen all that much within the 5-college consortium in Western Mass, either, except possibly Amherst-UMass because they’re in the same town just a few blocks apart.</p>