Swarthmore, one of the nation’s finest institutions of higher learning, is a college like no other. Private, yet open to all regardless of financial need. Global in outlook, the College draws students from around the world and all 50 states. Small, yet with the financial strength to offer students and faculty the resources needed to push their own and the world’s understanding of disciplines from Arabic to plasma physics, from microbiology to dance, from engineering to art history.

Swarthmore celebrates the life of the mind. Since its founding in 1864, Swarthmore has given students the knowledge, insight, skills, and experience to become leaders for the common good. And they do. Swarthmoreans are CEO patent-holders who bring technology to underserved markets, investment bankers looking for alternative forms of energy, lawyers who become college presidents, doctors who serve in Congress, Nobel Prize winners, educators who establish schools in underserved parts of the world, and artists who use their talents to inspire and empower others.

So much of what Swarthmore stands for, from its commitment to curricular breadth and rigor to its demonstrated interest in facilitating discovery and fostering a sense of civic responsibility among exceptional young people, lies in the quality and passion of its faculty. Professors at Swarthmore are leading scholars and researchers in their fields, yet remain deeply committed to serving their students as outstanding teachers and mentors. A student/faculty ratio of 8:1 ensures that students have close, meaningful engagement with their professors, preparing them to translate the skills and understanding gained at Swarthmore into the mark they want to make on the world.

Located 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia, Swarthmore’s idyllic, 425-acre campus is an arboretum, complete with rolling lawns, creek, wooded hills, and hiking trails. From its state-of-the-art L.E.E.D. certified science center to its new residence halls with environmentally responsible design, Swarthmore’s buildings and architecture stand as national models of curricular and co-curricular undergraduate facilities.

Swarthmore’s endowment is the 14th-largest per student among U.S. colleges and universities. This enables the College to admit U.S. citizens and permanent residents without regard to their ability to pay for a Swarthmore education and to fully meet the demonstrated financial need of all admitted students with loan free financial aid awards.

Founded by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) as one of the nation’s first co-educational colleges, Swarthmore today is non-sectarian, but still reflects many Quaker traditions and values. Foremost among them is a commitment to the common good and to the preparation of future leaders who will influence favorably a changing and complex world.