Haverford College

Photo: Haverford College. Retrieved from: www.scholaradvisor.com

Haverford College is a residential, private liberal arts college with extremely high standards, and is always included in lists of the best colleges all over the US. The admission process is highly selective.

Haverford is a member of the Tri-College Consortium as well as the Quaker Consortium. These relationships with other schools give students at Haverford the option of registering for courses in Bryn Mawr College and Swarthmore College (Tri-College Consortium), and College of General Studies and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania (Quaker Consortium). The college offers Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees. A student can choose from 31 majors in the social sciences, natural sciences and humanities.

Students of Haverford College take pride in their ability to discipline themselves and each other. There is an honor code that students uphold, and each student signs a pledge to uphold this code before enrollment. This honor code system is not imposed by the school itself, but by the student body.

School History

In 1833, several New York and Philadelphia Quakers aimed to set up a school that would train deserving students according to Quaker principles, and Haverford was established. While the college is now non-sectarian, the core principles of its Quaker heritage are still there, including the long-established honor code that continues to point each accepted student’s innate moral compass in the right direction.

The school started with seven faculty members and twenty-one Quaker boys. The subjects included moral and natural philosophy, mathematics and literature, as well as Greek and Latin languages. Founders Hall, which now houses the administration and faculty offices, used to house the dormitories and the classrooms. The college turned co-educational in 1980.

The grounds surrounding Haverford remind students, faculty members and visitors of what it must have been like to live in 1834. The nineteenth century architecture is still evident in most of the buildings in the college. The Magill Library houses the Quaker and Special Collections.

Campus Life

The campus is ideally located near the Main Line of Philadelphia. It’s not so far from the city that students feel cut off from civilization, but it’s far enough for a student to enjoy the beauty of the natural surroundings. Buses are available for the students that are cross-registered in other colleges, for instance, Bryn Mawr College.

Residential life in Haverford College is ideal for a busy student. The campus housing scheme is organized in such a way that each student gets the best accommodations, ranging from two-person suites to multi-person apartments. Four persons can share one apartment, which is equipped with its own kitchen and bath. These kinds of living arrangements encourage independence and self-reliance.

While students can prepare their own food, many still prefer to eat in one of the campus dining halls. The food served in these halls is freshly prepared and healthy. The school makes it a point to maintain sustainable sources of ingredients, which are better for the body and the environment.

Financial Aid

Help is given to students that apply for financial aid after admission. The amount awarded to a student depends on the financial need of the student and the financial capacity of his or her family. The college has opted to offer more grants instead of loans. Qualified students are accepted without regard for their ability to pay for tuition and board, and the issue of financial aid is tackled only after the admission process. As long as the parents of the students and the students themselves submit the necessary documents, computing the financial aid is easy and fast. The school considers family assets, size of the family, the number of college-bound children (including those already attending college), income, taxes and medical expenses allowed by IRS.