Swarthmore, PA is only 11 miles southwest of Philadelphia, to which it is connected by regional rail and weekend shuttles. It is a suburb of quiet streets, large lovely houses, and almost no social life. The town center—called “the Ville”—is dry, which means no bars or clubs; the best it offers Swarthmore students is a couple places to get cheap food or a haircut. For anything more elaborate, students must branch out either on foot to Baltimore Pike, a typical suburban drag, by car to nearby diners, or by train to Philly.

Every guide about Swarthmore will tell you that its 350-acre campus is an arboretum. Functionally, that means that if you like nature to any degree you will be satisfied: there are different varieties of trees, plants, and flowers everywhere with helpful little identifying plaques, all well-maintained. A rose garden supplies a bud for every graduate, and both the graduation and first-year orientation ceremonies take place outdoors in the Roman-style amphitheater. If you prefer your surroundings to be a bit wilder, the rambling Crum woods offer a creek for swimming, a meadow for performance art, and an ancient-seeming stone circle for bonfires. Many of the classy stone buildings on Swarthmore’s campus were put up in the 1920s, but even new buildings tend to conform to the standard so that the school has a unified look. Dorms are only a few stories tall, since even the largest ones only sleep a couple hundred students. The most recognizable building, Parrish, which combines administration with housing, is also the tallest at five stories high, and it sits picturesquely at the top of a hill.

PARRISH: the main administrative building on campus has dorms—mostly singles and doubles—on its upper floors. It is single-sex: the East wing is all-female, while the West wing is all-male. MERTZ and ALICE PAUL: relatively new, well-maintained, spacious mid-campus dorms for under- and upper-classmen WILLETS: the least well-maintained and rowdiest of the dorms, home to freshmen and sophomores DANAWELL: a two-building complex of doubles by the woods, shaped like accordions in order to be riot-proof. One of the buildings, Dana, is smoke-free; the third floor is all-female. PPR (Palmer, Pittinger, Roberts): a three-building complex slightly farther from campus with spacious singles, doubles, and suites for upper-classmen MARY LYONS (ML): a sizable off-campus dorm serving freshmen and the Psi Phi community, which used to be called the Swarthmore Wardens of Imaginative Literature. A kitchen on the premises serves breakfast.

Swarthmore is Division III and offer twenty varsity teams, including badminton, baseball, basketball, cross country, field hockey, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track and field and volleyball, plus about 15 intramurals and clubs, including men’s and women’s rugby, volleyball, and ultimate Frisbee. Until recently, the campus lacked a concrete mascot. Even as Swarthmore decided to vote one in, it considered only mythical creatures and finally settled on the Phoenix.