Swarthmore College Top Questions

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."

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Swatties are nerdy and boring.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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