Swarthmore College Top Questions

What is the stereotype of students at your school?

Liz

That we're socially awkward, work all the time, incredibly liberal and very socially active.

Jonathan

Swatties are nerds who study too much. Swat is an overly intense academic-wise.

Brendan

Most all of them are negative--that we're elitist prep school grads and/or trustafarians, sexually repressed and socially uncomfortable, and that we're far out of touch with "the real world." Consistently placing in the top three among the nation's liberal arts schools confers a prestige that probably lays the foundation for elitism, but the incredible diversity of the students makes it hard to justify most of the generalizations.

Travis

We're anti-social nerds. People also think we're an all-girl school.

Jake

Incredibly nerdy & awkward. The typical Swarthmore student is very intelligent, intense, and driven, constantly over-worked and sleep-deprived.

Elizabeth

Athletic People are not as smart.

Jerry

Swarthmore students are largely viewed as VERY liberal hippies. When I was accepted into Swarthmore, not many people had actually heard of the school before. But those that had generally reacted like this: "You're going to SWARTHMORE?! I hear that place is freakishly hard. Be careful...I once knew a guy that decided to go there. He came back two year later, and you wouldn't believe how much he'd changed. He'd come out of the closet, he was suddenly some passionate tree-hugger, he'd gone from being a totally committed pre-med/engineering major to being 'undecided,' and declared that he was going to take a year off of school to go backpacking through Europe alone, in order to find himself. That place does weird stuff to you..."

Eliza

We're a school full of really smart kids who work too hard and never lighten up enough to have fun. We're really, really weird, always playing Dungeons and Dragons and pretending to be mythical sci-fi creatures.

Aaron

They are quirky, weird, and just outright crazy. They spend too much time doing homework. They have no social lives.

Dylan

I am not completely aware of all the stereotypes, but I do believe that there is an building stereotype, that Swarthmore and Swarthmore students are very open and welcoming. I also believe that there is a stereotype that believes we are very nerdy and work all of the time.

Terry

awkward, studious, intense, too intense, quaker matchbox, pyschedelic, worth the money, a good investment, nerdy, politically active

Jesse

Swarthmore students are very hard working.

Jerry

I guess we can split it up to three categories: The Good: We're very close-knit and we're known for having excellent professor-student relationships. We're quirky and kind of off-beat. The Bad: We're socially awkward, study all the time and there's nothing to do on campus. The Ugly: We're ugly.

Susie

People think we're a bunch of unattractive hippies who spend all of their time studying and have no social life whatsoever.

Shelby

Stereotypes--the students are intense, ugly, socially incompetent, genuinely enthusiastic about academics, intellectual, concerned about the societally disenfranchised, ultra-liberal, unbathed. About the school itself: that it's socially stifling and at a remove from the larger world.

Sandy

That this place is intense, that the students are weird, and that the students are involved in social justice.

Tristan

nerdy, geeks, spend all the time studying. rough school, lots of work

Nina

Work too much, A lot of work, getting good grades are difficult

Ed

over chiiled, mad hiped out, all down with their ebonics and such.

Peter

We are all really smart people that lack any form of social skills except being awkward. Instead of going out on the weekends, we stay in and study, for hours on end. The schools is looked at as one of most academically intense schools in the nation, but provides a true intellectual experience...knowledge is superficial, swarthmore provides the wisdom behind the knowledge.

Maryanne

don't know (DK)

Taylor

That we are nerds and do nothing but study.

Keith

Incredibly intellectually motivated, being nerds, being extremely involved and occasionally too busy (but having that be their own fault).

Andrew

It's hard.

Jeffrey

Most of them are socially inept. I find that in many situations people do not know how to express their emotions casually or comfortably. Swarthmore students tend to let loose at parties and then become just as tight and uncomfortable as always the minute the alcohol passes out of their systems.

Corey

Nerdy, weird, intelligent, passionate.

Andrew

Nerdy and weird

Torry

Swatties are: ugly, geeky, nerdy, hermity, condescending, scrawny, liberal, stinky, potheads

Robin

We all are horribly bad looking, serious nerds, smart, never get out, are never sketchy, are always nice, and are very, very bad at sports.

Kim

Swatties are typically seen as socially awkward and nerdy.

Allison

Swarthmore is known for being populated by students who are brilliant, awkward and unattractive with a limited attention to personal style, but added special attention to social activism and political issues. However, there is a small minority of well-rounded students who "have it all." Swarthmore itself is known for being an idyllic arboretum, with the feeling of being closed off from Chester and other surrounding areas. This is referred to as the Swarthmore "bubble."

Jody

Swarthmore students work all the time, are extremely passionate about what they do, are incredibly socially awkward, highly stressed and incredibly talented. Swarthmore is known for its diversity, smart students, beautiful campus, and small student body.

ali

students are extremely nerdy and introverted generally unattractive student body all work, no play

Parker

The stereotype is that Swarthmore students study all time and have time for little else besides playing "misery poker"--a game of bragging to your hallmates about the ridiculous level of work you have to complete within the next few days. (Example: "Tomorrow I have to turn in an 8-page paper in Russian, complete a research paper on ancient Christians, read half my chemistry textbook, and do a 10-hour weightlifting marathon in the gym to make up for all the phys ed classes I skipped. I am so dead." Response: "Oh yeah? In the next hour I've got a 300-page thesis due and I haven't even figured out what I want to write about yet.") This can go on for hours.

BillyBob

there are those who are overly studious, others who you wonder how they get any work done with all the drinking/late nights, and others who are just plain weird. nerd/obnoxious athlete/party frat girl/science nerd/earth health nut

Alex

that we're socially awkward but very smart, passionate about political issues, extremely liberal, unattractive.

Kris

The stereotype about Swat is that its students' and teachers' commitment to academics is impressive bordering on masochistic, its beautiful but claustrophobic campus is filled with nerdy weirdos, who are lacking in social skills, and who are not the most physically attractive grapes in the bunch.

Kathryn

When I was starting to look at colleges, I heard that Swarthmore students were really weird. I thought they were all a bunch of extremely liberal tree-huggers.

Ruth

We joke a lot about how awkward we can be. It stems from another stereotype that everyone here is brilliant, may so much so that we cannot function. You'll also hear that we are over dedicated and extremely motivated. Additionally, we have the reputation of being very liberal.

Robin

Swatties are nerdy and boring.

Gene

Swatties are supposed to be academic, liberal, oriented towards social change/action, and diverse.

Angela

Really intelligent. Nose perpetually to the grindstone. Beyond liberal. Also: hideously unattractive.

Bill

They are really "diverse." They are really fun and open-minded. They are really creative.

Torry

The stereotypes about Swarthmore that I heard before coming here are different than those I hear now that I go here. My initial impressions of Swarthmore was that it's full of super idealistic kids who are active and passionate about saving the world. I still feel that this is true about a lot of students here. However, because it's such a small school, it's very easy to get bored of things here after a while. Things that were at first exciting become the norm, and eventually, kind of annoying. Swarthmore is just such a unique place, one cannot help but make fun of everything while here. It's certainly not a typical college experience. As far as I'm aware, people love to make fun of everything we lack--lightly, almost in a self-deprecating manner. For example, people often joke about the abnormally low attractiveness levels on our campus. Stereotypical Swarthmore students also like to consider themselves intellectuals and engage in discussions about topics such as postmodernism and appear fancy with large words such as "heteronormative" and "...". While this is true to an extent, and possibly what attracted many students here in the first place, being constantly surrounded by students like that can be tiresome. Students here are also pretty elitist, it's sickening.

Eddy

There are two big Swarthmore stereotypes. We Swatties like to think of ourselves as a) idealistic and always looking to change the world for the better and b) nerdy in that we always have academics on our mind.

Jo

Swarthmore is believed to be a pressure cooker full of mild misanthropes who like to suffer and play misery poker. Though it's true that we like to play misery poker while having dinner in our one dining hall (e.g. "I have a 15 page paper due tomorrow and I haven't even read one of my sources" "Tell me about it; I have to write a film paper on Andy Warhol's 5-hour long film of his friend sleeping, which I haven't seen either." "That doesn't sound so bad, at least it's a movie." "The paper is due in two hours."), we play misery poker together because Swarthmore students like to collaborate and share. The sharing is a part of our Quaker tradition. Swarthmore students are supposed to be huge nerds who like to reference Foucault in casual conversation and get excited about racing homespun cardboard boats down the Crum Creek. We are also wannabe world-changers who really care about living in a socially conscious way and go on to either grad school or non-profit employment.

Andy

People say that Swatties are weird and quirky and a combination of the two. Also my neighbors in rural PA thought that Swarthmore was full of stuck up people who had a lot of money.

Harper

that they're "freaks and geeks"-- weird, really nerdy kids that, despite being almost uniformly geniuses, are complete losers when it comes to social interaction.

Harper

Swarthmore students work so much they have no time to socialize. Swarthmore students are uglier than other colleges. At Swarthmore it's impossible to get an A.

mel

we work too hard, obsess over minor things, and can be extremely awkward in social situations