 | |
| Motto | Mind the Light[1][2] |
|---|---|
| Type | Privateliberal arts college |
| Established | 1864; 161 years ago (1864) |
Academic affiliations | |
| Endowment | $2.7 billion (2022)[3] |
| President | Valerie Smith |
Academic staff | 207 (2019)[4] |
| Undergraduates | 1,730 (2025)[5] |
| Location | , Pennsylvania ,United States |
| Campus | Suburban, 425 acres (172 ha) |
| College newspaper | The Swarthmore Phoenix |
| Colors | Garnet and White |
| Nickname | The Garnet |
Sporting affiliations | NCAA Division III –Centennial Conference |
| Mascot | Phineas thePhoenix[6] |
| Website | swarthmore.edu |
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Swarthmore College (/ˈswɔːrθmɔːr/SWORTH-mor,locally/ˈswɑːθmɔːr/SWAHTH-mor)[7] is aprivateliberal arts college inSwarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States.[8] Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States.[9] It was established as a college under theReligious Society of Friends.[10] By 1906, Swarthmore had dropped its religious affiliation and officially becamenon-sectarian.[11]
Swarthmore is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution.[12] It is a member of the Tri-College Consortium, a cooperative academic arrangement withBryn Mawr College andHaverford College. Swarthmore is also affiliated with theUniversity of Pennsylvania through theQuaker Consortium, which allows students to cross-register for classes at all four institutions.[13]
Swarthmore's alumni include sixNobel Prize winners, 13MacArthur Foundation fellows, as well as winners of theTony Awards,Grammy Awards,Academy Awards,Emmy Awards, and theGuggenheim Fellowship.
The name "Swarthmore" has its roots in earlyQuaker history. In England,Swarthmoor Hall near the town ofUlverston, Cumbria, (previously inLancashire), was the home of Thomas andMargaret Fell in 1652 whenGeorge Fox, fresh from his epiphany atopPendle Hill in 1651, came to visit. The visitation turned into a long association, as Fox persuaded the couple of his views. Swarthmore was used for the first meetings of what became known as the Religious Society of Friends (later colloquially labeled "The Quakers").
The college was founded in 1864 byDeborah Fisher Wharton, along with herindustrialist son,Joseph Wharton, together with a committee of members of theHicksiteYearly Meetings ofPhiladelphia,New York andBaltimore. It is the only college founded by the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends: previous Quaker institutions, like nearbyHaverford College, were Orthodox in their founding history. Swarthmore held its first classes in 1869[10] andEdward Parrish (1822–1872) was the first president.Lucretia Mott (1793–1880) andMartha Ellicott Tyson (1795–1873)[15][16] were among those Friends who insisted that the new college of Swarthmore be coeducational. Edward Hicks Magill, the second president, served for 17 years.[17] His daughter,Helen Magill, (1853–1944), was in the first class to graduate in 1873; in 1877, she was the first woman in the United States to earn aPh.D.[18]
In the early 1900s, the college had a major collegiateAmerican football program during the formation period of the soon-to-be nationwide sport (playingNavy,Princeton,Columbia and other larger schools) and an active fraternity and sorority life.[19] The 1921 appointment ofFrank Aydelotte as president began the development of the school's current academic focus, particularly with his vision for the Honors program based on his experience as aRhodes Scholar.[20]
DuringWorld War II, Swarthmore was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in theV-12 Navy College Training Program, which offered students a path to aU.S. Navy commission.[21]
Wolfgang Köhler,Hans Wallach, andSolomon Asch were noted psychologists who became professors at Swarthmore, a center for Gestalt psychology. Both Wallach, who was Jewish, and Köhler, who was not, had leftNazi Germany because of its discriminatory policies. Köhler came to Swarthmore in 1935 and served until his retirement in 1958. Wallach came in 1936, first as a researcher, also teaching from 1942 until 1975. Asch joined the faculty in 1947 and served until 1966, conducting hisnoted conformity experiments at Swarthmore.[22]
The 1960s and 1970s saw the construction of new buildings: Sharples Dining Hall in 1964, Worth Health Center in 1965, the Dana/Hallowell Residence Halls in 1967, and Lang Music Building in 1973.[10] They also saw a 1967 review of the college initiated by President Courtney Smith, a black protest movement, in which African-American students conducted an eight-daysit-in in the admissions office in 1969 to demand increased black enrollment – the sit-in abruptly ended after Smith's death from a heart attack on January 16[23][24] – and the establishment of both a Black Cultural Center (1970) and Women's Resource Center (1974).[10][25][26] The Environmental Studies program and the Intercultural Center were established in 1992, and in 1993 theLang Performing Arts Center was opened; the Kohlberg Hall was then established in 1996.[10]
In 1999, the college began purchasingrenewable energy credits in the form ofwind power, and in the 2002–2003 academic year it constructed its firstgreen roof.[10] In 2008, Swarthmore's first mascot, Phineas thePhoenix, made its debut.[10]
Swarthmore'sOxbridge tutorial-inspired Honors Program, introduced in 1922,[27] allows students to take double-credit seminars from their third year, and they often write honorstheses.[28] Seminars are usually composed of four to eight students. Students in seminars will usually write at least three 10-page papers per seminar, and often one of these papers is expanded into a 20–30-page paper by the end of the seminar. At the end of their final year, Honors students take oral and written examinations conducted by outside experts in their field. Usually one student in each discipline is awarded "Highest Honors"; others are either awarded "High Honors" or "Honors"; rarely, a student is denied Honors altogether by the outside examiner. Each department usually has a grade threshold for admission to the Honors program.[29]
Uncommon for a liberal arts college, Swarthmore has anengineering program in which, at the completion of four years' work, students are granted a B.S. in engineering. Other notable programs include minors inpeace and conflict studies,cognitive science andinterpretation theory.[30]
Swarthmore has an undergraduate student enrollment of 1,620 (for the 2016–2017 year) and 187 faculty members (99% with a terminal degree), for a student-faculty ratio of 8:1. The small college offers more than 600 courses per year in over 40 courses of study.[31]
Its most popular majors, based on 2021 graduates, were:[32]
| Academic rankings | |
|---|---|
| Liberal arts | |
| U.S. News & World Report[33] | 3 |
| Washington Monthly[34] | 4 |
| National | |
| Forbes[35] | 27 |
| WSJ/College Pulse[36] | 11 |
Some sources, includingGreene's Guides,[37] have termed Swarthmore one of the "Little Ivies". In its 2025 college ranking,U.S. News & World Report ranked Swarthmore as the third-best liberal arts college in the nation, behindWilliams andAmherst.[38]
Forbes magazine ranked Swarthmore 27th in its 2024–25 ranking of the top 500 U.S. colleges, universities and service academies.[39]
Swarthmore ranked third among all institutions of higher education in the United States as measured by the percentage of graduates who went on to earn Ph.D.s between 2013 and 2022.[40]
| Admissions statistics | |
|---|---|
| Admit rate | 6.9% (  −3.8) |
| Yield rate | 42% (  +3) |
| Test scoresmiddle 50%[i] | |
| SATEBRW | 710–770 ( +20 median) |
| SAT Math | 730–790 ( +20 median) |
| ACT Composite | 32–35 ( +1 median) |
| High schoolGPA[ii] | |
| Top 10% | 89% (  −2) |
| Top 25% | 100% ( +1) |
| |
The college is considered byU.S. News & World Report as "most selective", with 10.7% of the 9,383 applicants accepted during the 2016–2017 admissions cycle.[42] The number of applicants was the highest in the college's history and among the highest overall of any liberal arts college.[43][44][45][46] The college saw increases in the number of underrepresented students, first-generation college students, and international students. The college reports that "Twenty-five percent of the admitted students are among the first generation in their family to attend college" and "Of the admitted students attending high schools reporting class rank, 94 percent are in the top decile".[47] The class of 2028 admissions statistics have been fully released, where 13,065 applicants resulted in 975 admits for an admit rate of 7.46%.[48]
As aneed-blind school, Swarthmore makes admission decisions and financial aid decisions independently.[49] The cost of tuition, student activity fees, room and board for the 2024–25 academic year was $85,802 (tuition fees were $65,058).[31] The college meets 100% of admitted student demonstrated need without use of student loans, an important distinction from the many schools that meet 100% of demonstrated need, but only through loans (which must be repaid) rather than institutional grant- and scholarship-based funding (which does not require repayment). Financial aid is accessed by 56% of the student body, and the average financial aid award was $50,361 during the 2017–18 year.[9]
Swarthmore has the eleventh largest endowment per undergraduate in the country.[12] Operating revenue for the 2016 fiscal year was $148,086,000, over 50% of which was provided by the endowment.[9] Swarthmore ended a $230 million capital campaign on October 6, 2006, when PresidentBloom declared the project completed, three months ahead of schedule. The campaign, christened the "Meaning of Swarthmore", had been underway officially since the fall of 2001. Out of the college's alumni, 87% participated in the effort. Swarthmore's endowment at the end of the 2019 fiscal year was $2.13 billion. Endowment per student was $1,370,157 for the same year, one of the highest rates in the country.[50]
At the end of 2007, the Swarthmore Board of Managers approved the decision for the college to eliminate student loans from all financial aid packages. Instead, additional aid scholarships are granted.[51]
The campus consists of 425 acres (1.72 km2), based on a north–south axis anchored by Parrish Hall, which houses numerous administrative offices and student lounges, as well as two floors of student housing. The fourth floor housescampus radio stationWSRN-FM as well as the weekly student newspaper,The Swarthmore Phoenix.
From the SEPTASwarthmore commuter train station and the borough of Swarthmore to the south, the oak-lined Magill Walk leads north up a hill to Parrish. The campus is coterminous with the grounds of theScott Arboretum.[52]
The majority of the buildings housing classrooms and department offices are located to the north of Parrish, as are Kyle and Woolman dormitories. McCabe Library is to the east of Parrish, as are the dorms Willets, Mertz, Worth, The Lodges, Alice Paul and David Kemp. To the west are the dorms Wharton, Dana, Hallowell and Danawell, along with the Scott Amphitheater, an open wooded outdoor amphitheater, in which graduations and college collections (meetings) are held. The Crum Woods extend westward from the main campus, and many buildings on the forest side of the campus incorporate views of the woods. South of Parrish is the Dining Center, attached to the former Sharples dining hall, and other smaller buildings. Dormitories Palmer, Pittenger, Roberts, and the NPPR Apartments are south of the railroad station,[53] as are the athletic facilities, while the Mary Lyon dorm is off-campus to the southwest.[54]
The college has three main libraries (McCabe Library, the Cornell Library of Science and Engineering, and the Underhill Music and Dance Library) and seven other specialized collections.[55]
Friends Historical Library was established in 1871 to collect, preserve and make available archival,manuscript, printed and visual records concerning the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) from their origins mid-seventeenth century to the present. Besides the focus on Quaker history, the holdings are a significant research collection for the regional and local history of themiddle-Atlantic region of the United States and the history of American social reform. Quakers played prominent roles in almost every major reform movement in American history, includingabolition,African-American history,Indian rights,women's rights,prison reform,humane treatment of the mentally ill, andtemperance. The collections also reflect the significant role Friends played in the development of science, technology, education and business in Britain and America. The library also maintains the Swarthmore College Archives and the papers of the Swarthmore Historical Society.[56][57]
Within thearchives is what was formerly known as the Jane Addams Peace Collection and later called the Swarthmore College Peace Collection (SCPC).[58] The SCPC includes papers fromJane Addams' collection and material from over 59 countries.[59] TheNobel Peace Prize, awarded to Addams, is part of the collection.[59] The SCPC states that "Well over fifty percent of all the holdings in the Peace Collection concern women's activism around the world."[60] The SCPC was started whenLucy Biddle Lewis, a member of the board of managers, discovered that Addams was burning her old papers, and convinced her to donate them instead to the Friends Historical Library.[61][62] AfterWorld War II, the librarian atPrinceton University,Julian P. Boyd, appraised the papers in the SCPC's collection and found that they were of "rare historic value".[63]
One thousand six hundred and forty-seven students (colloquially referred to as "Swatties") attend Swarthmore as of 2018[update]. The median family income of undergraduates is $165,500, with 53% of students coming from the top 10% highest-earning families and 18.2% from the bottom 60%.[64]
Founded in 2000,[65] the Swarthmoremock trial team placed tenth at the 2000American Mock Trial Association (AMTA) National Championship Tournament and was awarded "Best New School".Dennis Cheng '01 was awarded the prestigious "Spirit of AMTA" award in 2000.[66][67] Swarthmore's team placed second at the 2001 AMTA National Championship Tournament.[67] The Swarthmore Mock Trial program has also won numerous accolades and boasted a team of over 25 members for the 2013–2014 season. The 2010–2011 competitive season resulted in all three teams competing at Regional Championships, two teams going on to Opening Round Championships, and one team qualifying and competing at the 2011 National Championships held inDes Moines, Iowa, where the team placed 15th in their division. Other successes included placing first at the Philadelphia Regional competition in February 2011, and winning the University of Massachusetts Amherst's invitational tournament in February 2014.[68]
Until 2019, two Greek organizations existed on the campus in the form offraternities:Delta Upsilon and local Phi Psi, a former chapter ofPhi Kappa Psi. A third,Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity, maintained a chapter on campus from 1906 to 1991 and continues strong alumni involvement.[69][70]
Sororities were abandoned in the 1930s following student outrage about discrimination within the sorority system, and leading to a 79-year ban.[71][72] However, in September 2012, the college announced that the ban on sororities would be reversed as of the 2013 term, citingTitle IX regulations.[73] The four women who helped overturn the ban subsequently spearheaded the reestablishment of aKappa Alpha Theta chapter the following spring.[74][75] The announcement sparked controversy on campus; a petition seeking a referendum to continue the ban was dismissed, again citing a legal opinion that to disallow the sorority chapter would be a violation of Title IX regulations. The sorority admitted its first pledge class in the Spring of 2013. A further non-binding referendum was later distributed, but by then the controversy had cooled: Of the six items on the referendum, only one passed, which asked "Do you support admitting students of all genders to sororities and fraternities?" No action was taken on the referendum.[76]
In April 2019, two student publications,Voices andThe Swarthmore Phoenix, published leaked minutes from Swarthmore's chapter of Phi Psi dating from 2013 to 2016. The 116-page document contained a plethora ofmisogynistic,racist, andhomophobic jokes andslurs as well as pornographic images and evidence ofhazing.[77][78] Students responded by calling for the college's administration to immediately terminate all fraternity leases on campus, staging a sit-in at the Phi Psi house until the demands were met.[79] Both Delta Upsilon and Phi Psi announced their voluntary disbandment on April 30, 2019.[70] President Valerie Smith subsequently announced on May 10, 2019, that Greek letter organizations were no longer allowed at Swarthmore.[80]
The Swarthmore Phoenix has been the independentcampus newspaper of Swarthmore College since 1881 or 1882.[81][82][83] Thephoenix has deep roots in Swarthmore lore. When the college's iconic Parrish Hall was gutted by fire in 1881, it was immediately rebuilt, rising, some noted, from the ashes like the bird found inEgyptian andGreek mythology. Thereafter,The Phoenix became the name of the campus newspaper.[84][85]
With an early staff that often numbered fewer than ten people,The Phoenix was first published monthly, then moved to a bi-weekly schedule in 1894. It is now published weekly.The Phoenix first appearedonline in September 1995.[83] The newspaper is printed by Hocking News in Lancaster County.[86]
Voices was founded in 2017 as "an online news publication solely dedicated to centering marginalized voices and creating space for them to tell their own stories", in response to controversial articles about African-American protests in the already-existing online publicationThe Daily Gazette.[87] In May 2018,The Daily Gazette, which had been published since 1996, merged withThe Phoenix.[88]
There are a number of magazines at Swarthmore, most of which are published semi-annually at the end of each semester.
One isSpike, Swarthmore's humor magazine, founded in 1993. The others are literary magazines, includingNacht, which publishes long-form non-fiction, fiction, poetry and artwork;Small Craft Warnings, which publishes poetry, fiction and artwork;Scarlet Letters, which publishes women's literature;Enie, for Spanish literature;Visibility Zine, for literature and art by historically marginalized groups;[89]OURstory, for literature relating to diversity issues;Bug-Eyed Magazine, a very limited-run science fiction/fantasy magazine published by Psi Phi, formerly known as Swarthmore Warders of Imaginative Literature (SWIL);Remappings (formerly "CelebrASIAN"), published by the Swarthmore Asian Organization;Alchemy, a collection of academic writings published by the Swarthmore Writing Associates;Mjumbe, published by the Swarthmore African-American Student Society; and a magazine for French literature. Anerotica magazine,! (pronounced "bang") was briefly published in 2005 in homage to an earlier publication,Untouchables. Most of the literary magazines print approximately 500 copies, with around 100 pages. There is also a photography magazine,Pun/ctum, which features work from students and alumni.[90]
WSRN 91.5 FM is the college radio station. It has a mix ofindie,rock,hip-hop,electronic dance,folk,world,jazz andclassical music, as well as a number of radiotalk shows. At one time, WSRN had a significant news department, and covered events such as the 1969 black protest movement extensively.[91]
Thecollegiate a cappella groups include Sixteen Feet, the college's oldest group (founded in 1981), as well as its first and only all-male group. Grapevine is its corresponding all-female group (founded in 1983), and Mixed Company is a co-ed group. Essence of Soul is the college's all-black group. The youngest group, OffBeat was founded in the fall of 2013 as a group open to all genders and identities. In addition, Chaverim is a co-ed group that includes students from the Tri-College Consortium and draws on music from cultures around the world for its repertoire. The groups, self-run as volunteer clubs with college support, travel to other schools to participate in concerts. Once every semester, all of the school's a cappella groups collaborate for a joint concert called Jamboree, which includes visiting groups from other colleges and universities.[92]
Swarthmore College students are eligible to participate in the localemergency department, the Swarthmore Fire and Protective Association. They are trained as firefighters and asemergency medical technicians (EMTs) and are qualified on both the state and national level. The fire department responds to over 200 fire calls and almost 800 EMS calls a year.[93] A fire horn, colloquially deemed the "fire moose", is located within the Swarthmore campus and its sound has become a fixture of campus life.[94][95]
Swarthmore College Computer Society (SCCS) is a student-run volunteer organization independent of the official ITS department of the college.[96] SCCS operates a set of servers that provide web applications for the Swarthmore College community, e-mail accounts,Unix shell login accounts, server storage space and webspace to students, professors, alumni and other student-run organizations. SCCS hosts over 100 mailing lists used by various student groups, and over 130 organizational websites.[97]
Swarthmore's athletic department has 22 varsity intercollegiate sports teams includingbadminton,baseball,basketball,cross country,field hockey,golf,lacrosse,soccer,softball,swimming,tennis,track and field, andvolleyball. Thefootball team was controversially eliminated in 2000,[98] along withwrestling and, initially,badminton. The Board of Managers cited lack of athletes on campus and difficulty of recruiting as reasons for terminating the programs.[99][100][101]
The department also offers a number of club sport options, including men's and women'srugby,ultimate frisbee,volleyball,fencing andsquash.[102] The participation rate of students in intercollegiate or club sports is 40 percent.[103]
Swarthmore is a charter member of theCentennial Conference, a group of private colleges in Pennsylvania and Maryland and is a member ofNCAA Division III.[104]
The men's basketball team is currently coached byLandry Kosmalski who was named Division III's National Coach of the Year in 2020.[105] In the 2018–19 season, the Garnet reached theNCAA Division III Championship Game for the first time but lost to theUniversity of Wisconsin–Oshkosh 96–82.[106] The 2019–20 team began the season 26–0 and were the last unbeaten team remaining out of all of Division I, II and III.[107] The Garnet were ranked No. 1 in the nation by D3hoops.com for the entirety of the season, becoming the first team to be ranked at the top of that poll from start to finish.[108]
Swarthmore has won 26 Centennial Conference team championships and claims four national championships in men's lacrosse in 1900, 1904, 1905 and 1910, four national championships in men's tennis in 1977, 1981, 1985 and 1990, two men's tennis doubles national championships in 1976 and 1985, and two individual championships in women's track and field in 2016 and 2023.[109][110]
Swarthmore's alumni include sixNobel Prize winners, namely the 2024 Physics laureateJohn Hopfield (1954),[111] the 2006 Physics laureateJohn C. Mather (1968), the 2004 Economics laureateEdward Prescott (1962), the 1975 Physiology or Medicine laureatesDavid Baltimore (1960) andHoward Martin Temin (1955), and the 1972 Chemistry laureateChristian B. Anfinsen (1937). It is surpassed only by theCalifornia Institute of Technology andHarvard University in per capita production of Nobel laureates in the United States.[112] Alumni also include 13MacArthur Fellows and hundreds of other prominent figures in law, art, science, business, politics and other fields
As of spring 2022, Swarthmore employs nearly 200 faculty members.
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39°54′18″N75°21′14″W / 39.90500°N 75.35389°W /39.90500; -75.35389
