Swarthmore v. Williams

Ephman
Fri, 27 Apr 2012 07:49:39 +0000

Frumens, your stats on Williams in terms of diversity are way, WAY off. Williams’ most recent entering class (2015) is 37 percent domestic students of color, plus 8 percent international students, so 45 percent (the over 50 number at Swarthmore certainly counts internationals; Swarthmore has 42 percent domestic students of color in its frosh class) are non domestic white students. Swarthmore typically has a similar percentage of underrepresented minority students on campus (and since it is much smaller, a smaller number, total) as Williams (although a significantly higher asian percentage, which accounts for the slight overall difference, but I wouldn’t say makes Swarthmore more “diverse” since asian students are hugely overrepresented at both schools, as well as all top schools). Williams also has a higher percentage of students who are first generation college students and/or Pell Grant recipients than Swarthmore, signaling more economic diversity. So overall, the campus diversity is roughly even.

I’ll note that math (Williams clearly has the best math department of any liberal arts college, including three national professors of the year in the department), biology, physics (most Apker awards by far of any college or university, and the school President is a physicist), and econ are four of Williams’ best departments, although of course there is no engineering offered on campus. I believe Swarthmore is also very strong in these areas.

Really, you can’t go wrong here, I imagine you’ll have a great experience at either.