Renowned for its rigorous academics, Swarthmore is consistently ranked as one of the top three liberal arts colleges in the country in the annual U.S. News & World Report rankings. The College offers two degrees: the BA in the arts and sciences and the BS in engineering. With a student/faculty ratio of approximately 9:1, Swarthmore ensures that its roughly 1,350 students have close and regular contact with their professors; the college, in fact, has no teaching assistants.

The Swarthmore alumni body is small (about 17,000 living alumni) but distinguished. Three Swarthmore graduates have won the Nobel Prize; 36 have earned membership in the National Academy of Sciences and nine in the National Academy of Engineering. Some prominent Swarthmore alumni are James Michener, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author; Michael Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts and the 1988 Democratic nominee for president; Eugene Lang, founder of the "I Have a Dream" program; Molly Yard, past president of the National Organization for Women; Neil Austrian, president of the National Football League; Carl Levin, U.S. Senator from Michigan; Peter Schickele, composer and creator of "P.D.Q. Bach"; and the late Alice Paul, suffragist and author of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Tarble Pavilion