The Tri-College Consortium is a group of three liberal arts colleges located near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It comprises Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, and Swarthmore College.
Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr are all schools named after their respective towns. The three are located within 20-25 minutes of each other and students can easily access each of the three campuses via a free hourly shuttle.
The three colleges operate both as independent schools as well as mutually dependent institutions. As a result, students of any one institution are allowed to take courses and participate in activities at the other two. While Bryn Mawr is a women’s college, Swarthmore College and Haverford College are co-ed. Here, we guide you through what distinguishes the schools from each other, and how the consortium functions as a whole.
Academics
When students enroll at one of the three colleges in the Consortium, they automatically become a member of the consortium community and gain access to the other two colleges in a variety of ways. Undergraduates can take courses on the other campuses, at no additional cost, for full course credit. The Tri-College consortium also shares an integrated library system of more than three million volumes.
Through a program known as Bi-Co cooperation, all undergraduate courses and all major programs at Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College are open to students from both schools. Students from each school may complete a major at the other school. While Bryn Mawr undergraduates can’t major at Swarthmore, there are several Tri-College majors (e.g. Linguistics) that are jointly offered. In some cases, Haverford students may also pursue a major at Swarthmore.
Beyond their association through the Consortium, these three colleges differ in academic structure, and each of them brings a unique approach to college education.
Students at Bryn Mawr can choose from 37 majors that include unique offerings such as “Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology,” “Growth and Structure of Cities,” and “Peace, Conflict, and Social Justice Studies.” Bryn Mawr has distribution requirements that encourage breadth of learning. Other than requiring courses in fields such as languages, social sciences, and natural sciences, Bryn Mawr also expects students to take a one-unit course at Bryn Mawr or Haverford that focuses on issues of power, inequity, and justice. First-years also take an Emily Balch seminar, which are courses taught by scholars across academic disciplines. Some example seminars include “The Lives of Mathematicians: The Creative Individuals Behind The Mathematics,” “Fantastic Fiction and the Environment,” and “The Modern City of Paris.”
At Haverford, students must complete General Education courses across three “Domains of Knowledge”: “Meaning, Interpretation and Creative Expression,” “Analysis of the Social World: Individuals, Institutions, and Cultures,” and “Physical and Natural Processes, Mathematical and Computational Constructs.” Three research centers at Haverford—the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship, the Hurford Center for the Arts and Humanities, and the Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center—provide funding and support for students who wish to engage more directly with what they are studying. Majors include niche and interdisciplinary offerings such as “Child and Family Studies,” “Mathematical Economics,” and “Scientific Computing.”
With a student-faculty ratio of 8:1, Swarthmore prides itself on an intimate, personal learning environment. Undergraduates have the option to choose from 40 major offerings or design their own curriculum. Swarthmore has an arboretum campus, surrounded by world-renowned gardens and untamed forests. Biology students are able to conduct fieldwork in the Crum Woods, while those studying the environment have direct access to a system of green roofs that reduces energy costs. The college also has an Honors Program, which accepts students at the end of their sophomore year that looks for intellectual risk-taking, self-direction, and originality in its candidates.
Campus and Student Life
Students at any of the three colleges can join organizations at other member schools. There are shuttle buses to each of the Tri-Co campuses that also go to community service sites, local cafés, shops, and more. Local trains also provide students of all three schools with access to Philadelphia CIty Center just 20 minutes away. As a result, student life is integrated across the schools—from participating in clubs to attending lectures at the different campuses.
The opportunity for students to live and learn together is considered an integral part of the Bryn Mawr educational experience. Students are expected to live in campus housing and participate fully in the College meal plan for all four years. Like other Seven Sisters colleges, Bryn Mawr prides itself on its traditions, which have bound women across generations. These range from making offerings to the statue of Athena for her gifts of wisdom and strength when taking finals to Lantern Night, when first-year students gather and sophomores present them with their lanterns in their class color. Bryn Mawrters also have access to over a 100 organizations on campus, such as Healthcare Transportation Club, Gluten Free Club, and Poker Club.
98% of students and 40% of faculty live on campus at Haverford. First-years start off their college experience with a tradition known as “Customs,” a unique orientation program. The first week of college is spent bonding with one’s Customs Group—and group members continue to support each other throughout the first year of college and beyond. Haverford prides itself on being a student-run campus. Students serve on hiring committees, manage budgets, and run more than 150 clubs and organizations. Students also govern the Honor Code, which allows for unproctored exams, the absence of RAs in dorms, 24-hour lab access, and the lack of an admission enrollment deposit. Haverford offers 23 Varsity teams including the only Varsity cricket team in the country. Club and intramural options include badminton, crew, golf, soccer, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, and rugby.
Dorm life is an integral part of the Swarthmore experience, with 95 percent of students living in College housing each semester. Alongside the usual Resident Assistants (RAs), each dorm also houses Student Academic Mentors, who are trained to work with students on the development of skills necessary for academic success, and Green Advisors, who are student workers of the Office of Sustainability who work to encourage sustainable lifestyles among all community members. From Boy Meets Tractor sketch comedy troupe to women’s rugby, there are more than 100 student-run clubs and organizations to choose from. Swarthmore’s campus is also home of the Scott Arboretum, which boasts robust gardens and more than 4,000 plant varieties. The arboretum hosts interactive workshops for students, and is also open for students to explore on their own.
Students attending any of the Tri-College Consortium meet each other through cross registration, integrated student organizations or one of the five majors whose departments are shared across the three colleges (Africana Studies, Arabic, Environmental Studies, Linguistics, and Middle Eastern, Central Asian, and North African Studies.) Attending any of the schools allows undergraduates to take advantage of the combined resources—while succeeding both academically and socially thanks to the opportunities each individual college offers.
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