Haverford College Reviews

The food at the DC is OK. It has...

The food at the DC is OK. It has options for everyone from vegans to omnivores, and there is always cereal and fruit. There is also the Coop which you can pay for with your student card. This always has pizza and other fast food items. Bryn Mawr has three dining centers, all of which are available to Haverford students on the meal plan. Go there for a change of pace. (They also host four different international food themes over the course of the year.)

The gym is brand new and is really...

The gym is brand new and is really nice. There are places to play basketball, run, work out, lift weights, dance, and do yoga and pilates. The campus center is under-utilized but is a good meeting space with a café and the bookstore. The new student center is great for watching tv, doing homework, or taking a nap. The libraries are beautiful and have every resource I have ever needed.

The are all pretty quirky and...

The are all pretty quirky and athletic. Everyone becomes more attractive as the year wears on.

Housing is guaranteed all four...

Housing is guaranteed all four years and housing in general is pretty great. I would never live off-campus.

Off campus in not even worth it...

Off campus in not even worth it because 99 percent of students live on campus, so there would be no point to live away from your friends.

The dorms are awesome; almost...

The dorms are awesome; almost everyone gets a single, and they're beautiful. Avoid the apartments as a freshman because they're very detached from the rest of campus. Choose Barclay or Gummere--they're both beautiful and very central.

The parking on campus is available...

The parking on campus is available to all sophomores, juniors, and seniors but is limited due to the many people who come on campus, who may not be apart of the school, and take up those parking spots.

Haverford is relatively diverse,...

Haverford is relatively diverse, but probably less so than other institutions. Most people are white, liberal, straight, very much upper-middle class, from the Northeast, and frequently Jewish. That said, Haverford does have a national profile, and there is plenty of diversity here. A good third of the student body are students of color, 46 states represented, and SAGA and other queer affinity groups are quite active on campus. Conservative political opinion is here; you just really have to hunt for it.

Off-campus dining is available,...

Off-campus dining is available, and yummy, but because campus is so self-contained, I feel like there are not many people who eat off campus often. There are a bunch of good restaurants within walking distance--Ruby's, Corner Bakery, and Primavera, to name a few.

Haverford has the standard varsity...

Haverford has the standard varsity sports, and though we're proud of them, we don't usually go to championships or play at an extremely competitive level. The new gym, fondly called the GIAC (Gardner Integrated Athletic Center), is big, shiny, and green (ecologically speaking). It has a great weight room with lots of free weights, weight machines, and cardio machines. It also has several large gymnasiums and squash courts, as well as a fencing salle and multipurpose rooms. Club sports are also pretty popular, like Rugby, Cricket, and Ultimate Frisbee.

Food on campus is...

Food on campus is tolerable--sometimes great, sometimes lackluster. Haverford has only one dining center, but we're a small enough college that it's never too crowded. There is also a smaller "Coop" place for cheesesteaks and pizza in the Campus Center that's pretty good, but it doesn't take your meal plan. The six-week rotating menus can get boring after a while. When that happens, it's time to go to neighboring Bryn Mawr College, which has three vastly superior dining halls, and the meal plans for each school are accepted at both without issue. The full meal plan is required if you live in any of the dorms (the Haverford College Apartments have kitchens and are thus exempt).

The parties are great here, and...

The parties are great here, and take part almost exclusively on campus. The college hosts a "dance" once every couple weeks, but every weekend students can listen to music in Lunt, or party in any of the dorms or down at the Apartments. Nightlife is good here, but it's also not invasive.

The freshman have three options...

The freshman have three options for housing at Haverford: Barclay, Gummere, or HCA. Barclay was one of the first buildings on campus, and has sets of triples, doubles, and singles. The triples are really a suite of three individual rooms, the middle (and largest) of which opens onto the hallway. The doubles are standard but very large doubles, and there are three or four singles on each hallway. Barclay has nice wide hallways with carpeted rooms, and the windows are large and let in lots of light. The ceilings in Barclay are also high, making the rooms seem larger. Gummere is made up entirely of singles, but the rooms and hallways are smaller, and the bathrooms are windowless. Gummere was built to be "riot proof," which explains its very confusing layout and winding hall/stair combinations. But having a single is a great thing, anyway. The third freshman option is HCA, or the Haverford College Apartments. These are also available for upperclassmen, and are really nice if you want to simulate "real life." The apartments each have a kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and one or two bedrooms, with anywhere from 2 to 4 people living in the apartment together. The upperclassmen dorms are nice options: the North dorms are usually peopled with sophomores and juniors, and are suites of 4 or 5 singles with a common room. Leeds is usually occupied by juniors or seniors (also suites of 5 with a common room), and Lloyd is reserved for seniors. There are also a few pseudo-off-campus residents.

Haverford is on the rich and...

Haverford is on the rich and suburban Main Line outside Philadelphia, so bars and clubs are few and far between, unless you take the train into the city--then you have everything. That said, nightlife on campus is tons better, but since we are a very academically focused school, the weekend is really limited to Friday and Saturday, sometimes Thursdays. Parties usually consist of beer pong, dance parties at Drinker House or Gummere Basement, or hanging out with friends in someone's dorm room. There's no Greek life, which is a plus. Everything is very chill. People drink and get trashed, and people stay in and watch movies, frequently both in the same night. You want it, you can find it on campus.

For a Division III liberal arts...

For a Division III liberal arts college, varsity sports at Haverford are actually relatively important. A lot of students play, and many students come watch, especially at basketball games versus Swarthmore College, our rival! The track and cross-country teams are nationally recognized. The athletic center and facilities are brand new and excellent. Intramural sports are also big, especially basketball and Frisbee.

The facilities at Haverford are...

The facilities at Haverford are both beautiful and efficient. Haverford students have a lot of school pride, and to that end, we have a lot of control over what happens on campus. So if there is anything to improve on, students speak up and discuss what can be done. The athletic center is completely new, with a spacious weight and cardio room. There are multi-functional rooms that are used for a variety of activities, including fencing, yoga, and martial arts. There are new squash courts, new gyms for volleyball and basketball, and new turf fields for the outdoor sports. There are two student centers, both new with TVs and comfortable chairs. One sells different foods off the grill and drinks; the other is more of a study/nap space. The library is beautiful and has a statue and soothing water sounds in the lobby. There are many study nooks in the library, depending on how much privacy you need. My favorite place in the library is the third floor indoor balcony that overlooks the second floor of the library and has huge windows looking out onto Founder's green.

At this point, the food at...

At this point, the food at Haverford is definitely its weakest spot. There is only one dining center on campus and because of the economy the food is barely edible at best some nights. There are two places on campus to buy food, The Coop and Lunt Café. The food there is good for things like pizza, burgers, cheese steaks, paninis, and milkshakes.

There is no Greek life at...

There is no Greek life at Haverford. We don't have any frats or sororities, but there are still plenty of parties on campus on the weekends. The baseball and lacrosse teams, which both have their own dorms/apartments, host many frat-like parties. It's nice not having any frats or sororities because everyone is allowed to go to every party. It is much more inclusive.

I've always been able to find a...

I've always been able to find a computer in the computer labs when I need one. However, I have my own computer, as do most people here, so I don't go to the computer labs all that often. There is a wireless connection in almost all academic buildings, in some dorms, and on many of the greens. I think they are working on expanding the wireless network still.

Every sorority and frat is...

Every sorority and frat is different, some more serious than others. However, I am glad that Haverford College does not have the option of joining because it is an unnecessary pressure.

The professors are great. The...

The professors are great. The workload is fairly heavy but manageable if you budget your time. If you do get behind on assignments or just don't understand something, the professors are, for the most part, very good about working with you until you're back on track. There is a great level of trust and respect between professor and student at Haverford.

There's one dining hall and two...

There's one dining hall and two student cafés. Recently, the dining hall has experienced food budget cuts due to the economy, which has resulted in less-than-thrilling food, but the person in charge of the food is constantly in contact with the students (via online threads) about their opinions of the food, and he does everything in his power (really--everything!) to make us happy. Sometimes he has to say no to our requests because the cost is just too much (i.e. organic milk), but he has also respected our wishes to continue not using styrofoam, even though it is six-times cheaper. The student cafés are very good, but they are sometimes more trouble than they're worth. They're not part of the meal plan, so you have to use your own money, and often things are a bit overpriced.

I read somewhere that something...

I read somewhere that something like 40 percent of students have a car on campus, but people rarely use them because the campus is easily manageable on foot. It's easy to find someone to borrow their car if you want to quickly run up to Chipotle when it's 5 degrees and snowing outside, but for the most part everyone walks or rides a bike.

Haverford is relatively diverse...

Haverford is relatively diverse compared to other schools. But as far as ideology/politics go, it's very heavily liberal. People here are open to everyone for the most part and accepting of many different beliefs, which is great. It's that great "Quaker values" thing that is ingrained into the atmosphere of the campus that makes it such a tolerant place.

The parties on campus are pretty...

The parties on campus are pretty good, but they're usually just low-key parties with a group of friends. There are good concerts at our concert venue, and occasionally there's a dance. Overall, the Haverford party scene is pretty quiet, but usually fun. You don't have to party if you don't want to. There are definitely a lot of people who prefer just hanging out and watching movies or just having a jam session, so you don't always feel the need to get wasted every weekend.