The Economist this month mentioned two NESCACs in an article on the demise of the swim test: “Dartmouth joins a handful of other elite institutions that have abandoned their swimming requirements in recent years, including Williams (2022), Hamilton (2023) and Washington and Lee (2024).”
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Controversial, but always more to the story. Seems like a great safety move to require it, then you realize it is patronizing and potentially culturally insensitive.
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In two rounds of college searches with my kids, I was surprised at how many colleges still had swim test requirements as of pretty recently. I can see the cultural insensitivity, and I would think drowning is probably not a hazard at most colleges, for most students, so it seemed like a relic of another time. I was surprised, too, at how many colleges still have PE requirements. I think that’s fine (and potentially a good thing – promoting health and also social interaction,with lots of options to appeal widely), but I just didn’t realize how widespread it is among LACs. My D23 didn’t like the idea, but my S26 thought it was a bonus for the schools he was considering.
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In that these schools have available PE classes, the window to complete the swim test extended across nearly four years, swimming has broad benefits, and there’s been a lamentable erosion in collegiate traditions, I’m against the dropping of the requirement.
You’d be surprised by the number of people who mark a college off a list because of it. You can read about the rationale at lots of schools who have dropped the requirement including Smith. I was always in favor it until I read about how traumatic the thought of having to swim can be for some people. I took a swim test at Wesleyan my first day there is 1991.
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I’d support a “showing up” exemption, then. Attend a certain number of elementary swim classes, then receive the credit with or without full success.
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March Madness is underway in D3. On the women’s side, Bates is the lone NESCAC in the Sweet Sixteen after a ridiculous comeback win over Smith. I watched that game, and it felt like Smith was gonna crush the Bobcats. Smith has been in the NCAA title game the last two seasons, they’re really good. They built an 18 point lead over Bates. Then Bates snapped to life. They patiently stuck to their game, tightened their defense, and came all the way back to tie it at 60 at the end of regulation. They then won in overtime, 74-70.
On the men’s side, three NESCACs advance to the Sweet Sixteen: Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan. Tufts and Wesleyan face off in the next round, guaranteeing a NESCAC in the Elite Eight.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVn-uxMkcp3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
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Full coverage in the Bates Student: Hicks, Spolter Lead Women’s Basketball in Thunderous Comeback to Defeat Smith, Advance to Sweet Sixteen – The Bates Student
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What is the value of this particular tradition from a collegiate perspective? Certainly not academic. Not clear to me why some prep schools have maintained this requirement (many have not), but as much as I’m against it, I can at least understand it at this level. “All graduates of Groton must be adequate swimmers” reads less ridiculous than “All graduates of (insert undergrad college here).”
Traditions may have no practical value. In this can found their beauty.
You’re arguing for doing this because people before have done it? Because everyone should be able to do it? This gets uncomfortable really quickly when we consider by whom these traditions were formed and look at the demographics of the people who have to take the swim class to meet it. Not so beautiful to them.
What other Phys ed requirements do you support? Hitting a driver within bounds? Proper serving technique? Not getting why a swim test should be a badge of commonality for graduates of school X, but…
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I frankly never knew anything about a swimming test. This is news to me, as this thread continues to deliver value.
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I hated PE in h/s and was very pleased to learn Wesleyan had just previously eliminated it as a graduation requirement the year before I was admitted. I did not know how to swim and the prospect of having to compete with a bunch of other students did not appeal to me at all. I did, however, see it as a challenge and eventually taught myself how to do a decent breast stroke. As a city kid, having a swimming pool available virtually all hours of the day was a real enrichment.
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A Dartmouth student tragically drowned as recently as summer 2024.
Who’s to say how well that student (and the others connected to the incident) could swim and whether that played any role?
Regardless, for schools located so close to water, it seems reasonable to require either a swim test or completion of a water safety course.
Dropping the swim test without substituting in a water safety course is the phys-ed equivalent of skirting controversial discussions on campus because some kids get “triggered”.
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Could not agree more. We are an Aussie/American family. Swimming is part of every school curriculum near us in Sydney.
The idea that swimming is not a life skill is just crazy.
It should not be avoided. It should be embraced and supported.
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Feels also like a bit of recency bias since Wes’ turnover number matched its ten-year high in 2025. Their worst years are losing 6 people, twice, a misfortune they share with Bates. Williams has had it happen once. Bowdoin and Colby have each lost 7 in one year and Colby stands alone as the champ with losing 8 in one year. Everyone has had peaks and valleys. About the only thing I can conclude is that the admissions people in Clinton, NY seem relatively happy humming along at a mostly 3 to 4 annual attrition count. I’d lump Amherst in with them except that their data doesn’t seem to go back all the way so I’ll leave them as inconclusive though relatively steady in the last 5 or 6 years.
I am guessing these are low-paying jobs and nobody - not even flush Williams College - is throwing a lot of money at the positions and so turnover is probably just a fact of life.
I agree with you and others, though. It’s nicely written piece and you like to see the kids digging into things. It’s one of things they ought to be doing with their time in school on a newspaper. Also agree with @merc81 that the graph title is wrong.
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This is the case. The information for Amherst begins in 2019. For greater clarity for any school, viewers can click on the individual lines.
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Wesleyan alumnus and well known figure in the running world, Jeff Galloway, passed away recently. Others have posted and discussed this in the RIP and Wesleyan threads but I thought it was appropriate here too. I also learned that legendary runner Bill Rodgers also graduated from Wes.
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Funny story about Bill Rodgers. We shared Sociology 101-102 my frosh year. I was taking it as a prospective major; he was a graduating senior and obviously taking it as a way to round out his schedule. Looking back, it was a remarkably small class, maybe 10 people, possibly because it was a brand-new department (several tenured professors had been recruited from a riot-torn Columbia in 1968.) Wesleyan itself was in the midst of a growth spurt which may have explained why the class was meeting in the lounge of my dormitory spring semester of 1970.
We were practically done with class when President Nixon escalated the Vietnam War by invading Cambodia and virtually every elite college in the United States cancelled final exams in protest. Bill had left his notes lying on a lounge ottoman and after passing by them for days and so sure that I would bump into him, that I decided to gather them up just in case the janitors mistook them for trash. Well, I never did and the notes got packed up along with every other piece of paper in my dorm room once I left campus.
Ten years later, Macy’s department store ran a full-page ad in the Times announcing that Bill would be at their flagship store on 34th Street, introducing his line of running gear. You guessed it: I retrieved the notes which had been stashed away in a corner of my Mom’s attic (along with every other scrap of paper from my academic career) and marched them over to Macy’s where in front of a small crowd of admirers, I announced, “Bill, I’ve been meaning to return your Sociology notes” and walked away. It was the equivalent of a mic drop.
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