Swarthmore vs. Vassar vs. Fordham Lincoln Center (Honors) vs Brooklyn BA-MD

[coase]

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Reputations are hard to shake and Swarthmore has been carrying that “nerdy, socially awkward kids” one for a long time. Are there nerdy, socially awkward kids there? Sure, but don’t kid yourself, there are plenty of really, really bright “normal” kids, too, as well as a bunch of athletes about whom you wonder “how the h*ll were they accepted?” I think that the Admissions office has worked hard within the past decade to blunt that original image.

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<p>I agree completely (but I would add that many athletes do extremely well academically). From my recent experience, “bright ‘normal’ kids” are the rule, not the exception. </p>

<p>OP, you cannot go wrong with Swarthmore or Vassar. Regarding “grade deflation,” the first point is that, strictly speaking, there is not grade deflation at Swarthmore. There may be less than at many other privates, but there has been grade inflation for some time. The average GPA of the graduating class at Vassar in 2008 was 3.48. (See <a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/&lt;/a&gt;; the Swarthmore link is broken.) The median GPA of the graduating class at Swarthmore in 2010 was 3.53, according to interesteddad. (See <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/1133726-anywhere-else-it-would-have-been-an-a-comments-please-p1.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/swarthmore/1133726-anywhere-else-it-would-have-been-an-a-comments-please-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;.) Now average and median are not identical concepts, and you might expect the average to be below the median, but these numbers seem comparable. Of course, the workloads differ so a 3.50 from Swarthmore may be seen as different from a 3.50 from Vassar, all else equal. </p>