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Summary:

Listen to some current Haverford students talk about why they chose to attend Haverford College. The great interactions with professors, the strong honor code, the friendly people, the beautiful campus. And of course – the delicious ice cream!
It is a beautiful fall day here at Haverford College where I just had the chance to talk to a few current students.

It was really interesting to hear them talk about the importance of the honor code on campus which has a strong history and adds great value to the campus classroom and outside classroom experiences. The campus also has a strong Quaker tradition which allows for consensus of decisions. The ability for students to have a big voice on campus, ask good questions and build a strong community.

This is a great campus right outside of city center Philadelphia with some new buildings, new residence halls in the works, great fall foliage, and a favorite-the  duck pond where numerous families were out feeding the ducks. Definitely worth a visit!

*Fun fact: Haverford is home to the ONLY varsity collegiate cricket team in the U.S. Don’t worry though there are still plenty of club teams to play as competition!

The post Haverford College – A Small College With A Big Student Voice first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

1. The Quaker heritage really gives it a very unique flavor.  This is a place where social justice peace studies; the idea of bringing some sort of equity to humanity.  So, there’s a lot of community service going on here, and a lot of connection; very international student body, even though it’s in a relatively isolated location, it’s not that far actually from Columbus and Dayton or even from Indianapolis, but it’s not in an urban center, but it certainly a place that is international/global in its orientation.
2. It’s very strong in biology, psychology, but it’s really well known for Japanese studies; that’s one of its biggest claims to fame in the country, is the excellent Undergraduate Japanese Studies Program.
3. The final thing I want to say about Earlham is that when you walk around this campus, and you notice that the facilities, the landscaping, is perhaps, not the most manicured of some of the colleges.  Some places you go and every blade of grass is perfectly in place.  That’s not the case here at Earlham.  It’s clearly a place where people are what matter.  Our tour guide, a wonderful, young woman who originally is from Beirut; all she was talking about the whole time is the people and the relationships with the different professors, with her peers, that this is definitely a strong community.

So, think about that as you are looking at a college.  Look beyond the landscaping, look beyond the fancy woodwork and all the interior decorating going on.  A college is about learning and that is a human endeavor.  That is a thing that people engage in together.  Clearly at Earlham, that is the focus; learning and community.  So, keep that in mind as you are looking around for a college that fits you.
 

The post Earlham College – It's the People That Matter first appeared on College Admission Counseling.

If you prefer,  you may read the transcript below.
Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant
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You know whenever I’m visiting a college campus one of the things I do is I pick up a copy of the school newspaper just to take a look and a quick flip through to see what’s going on on campus. And of course this is the end of April/ beginning of May and the cover story is all about admissions and I’m on the campus now of Haverford College which is a selective liberal arts school outside of Philadelphia and it’s a great little place, a beautiful campus.

It’s a Quaker school traditionally so a more liberal student body in some ways. The Quakers are known for their commitment to social justice so that’s sort of a hallmark of this campus. But a very nice liberal arts school with a very selective admissions policy. But the cover story here is about the acceptance rates are down and diversity is up.

So there are two things that colleges like to do when they are doing their admissions; one is to make it more selective, make it harder to get in so it will have more applications than there are actual spots; and then the other thing is to increase their diversity. One of the things that they’ve said here is that for the first time accepted students from California outnumber students from New York.

You know a small liberal arts college like this there are lots and lots of people from the mid-Atlantic states and surrounding regions that will apply to a school like Haverford where they have a tougher time finding people from other parts of the country—the South, the middle West, the far West, the mountain states where I’m from. So diversity is a goal that every college has in its admissions process. They want to have a student body that is largely representative of the country and of the planet. They try to get as many international students as they possibly can too.

So thinking about admissions many times students forget that if they’re applying to a college and if they are denied, they forget that colleges have agendas. And one of the agendas clearly at Haverford is the desire to have a more representative, more diverse student body—not just in terms of the colors of students and the socioeconomic backgrounds, but also just the place where they came from. So California is up, New York is down. Different colleges have different formulas. It pays to pay attention to these as you’re applying and as you’re deciding where it is you want to go.

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