9 wk grades for ED 1

<p>Yesterday I was called to the guidance office to approve of sending my 1st 9 week grades to Swarthmore. I guess Swat. requested that they be sent. Has anyone else had their grades sent?</p>

<p>This didn't happen to me...at least not to my knowledge. Maybe my GC did it on her own, but I wasn't notified.</p>

<p>I requested to have mine sent. I called Swat before sending them to ask if the grades were wanted or if they would just be superfluous. They said absolutely, that they wanted the application package to be as up-to-date as possible. So, yeah, I sent mine as well.</p>

<p>yeah your GC may have already sent them. At my school the student has to be notified and approve before their file can be sent.</p>

<p>Oh I should definitely send mine then. Dammit, I hope they don't get there too late.</p>

<p>yeah, my GC asked me if i wanted to or not, i actually asked her to not send them. from what my GC said, i guess they were optional?</p>

<p>I asked my GC, and she received no call from Swat. She said they'd call if it were going to make a difference in my app one way or another, so they either haven't gotten to mine, or my decision is clear-cut enough I guess. It does mean they've gotten to MoonGirl's application already.</p>

<p>oh okay, i hope thats a good thing for my application cause my 9 weeks grades were kind of lacking</p>

<p>I went to see my GC about something else today and he said he had just faxed in my 9 weeks grades to Swat, which I hadn't known he was doing (it was not an issue, mind you, just a note). It seems to me they would want them for everyone, since ED I kids don't send in a mid-year report.</p>

<p>Meg, they probably called your GC. Mine said they'd ask if it would make a difference, or maybe they ask everyone and they just haven't gotten to mine yet.</p>

<p>Not to start a panic stampede for anyone whose GC has not been contacted, but...</p>

<p>I think it is quite likely that Moongirl and Megblum were "auto-admits" after the initial readings of their applications. Both have very strong hooks coupled with very strong transcripts. I'm just an armchair QB and lord knows I could be way off base, but both seem like pretty easy ED acceptances.</p>

<p>Wow, i just went back and looked at MegBlum's post with her stats, and I now agree with ID...man, whatever happens to her is probably the indication of acceptance. Ah well. 9 days and change until mail on thursday.</p>

<p>It feels pretty close from here. Any word one whether they've decided to do it electronically this year? Hah, that sort of rhymed. God, all of my friends are going to know by the end of this week...</p>

<p>has anyone else besides megblum and moongirl gotten calls? could it be possible that they were on the "bubble," so to speak and the 9 week grades were needed to further evaluate their applications?</p>

<p>If megblum and MoonGirl were "on the bubble", then everything I think I know about Swarthmore's admissions is wrong.</p>

<p>I really wouldn't read anything into a request for mid-term grades, one way or another. I think that's pretty much a standard request.</p>

<p>Yea, Meg and Moon certainly aren't on the bubble. I'd just guess that they won't ask until they get to your application.</p>

<p>interesteddad: if you have the time, could you tell me what you see in megblum and moongirls profiles that lead you to your conclusions? moongirl is a urm, but the sat's are, at best and i am not trying to hurt anyone here, pedestrian for swat. i'm not sure megblum even lists sat's, but she appears to be a legacy. can you elaborate? thanks.</p>

<p>Well I don't know about Moon, although she does have great GPA/geographic/URM. Meg on the other hand is virtually ideal, if her SATs turned out like her PSATs: here's her stuff ( <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=79954%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=79954&lt;/a> ).</p>

<p>I'd bet they just call your GC when they get around to your app.</p>

<p>My daughter's guidance counselor sent the first quarter grades automatically. If they can improve your profile why not just send them?</p>

<p>megblum has the whole package. High class rank, high test scores, governor's program in her state, several solid ECs, and an unusually interesting experience - several years of sitting on a teen court for juvenile offenders. Demonstrating strong preference for Swarthmore with an ED application. Stop right there and I figure she's probably in. Now factor in third-generation, quadruple-legacy at a school that is defined by its long-standing "culture". How would Jim Bock explain not accepting her to a bunch of justifiably furious alumni? "Sorry, she just wasn't qualified?" "We just had too many strong early decision applicants from Kentucky this year?"</p>

<hr>

<p>In Moongirl's case, start with the premise that enrolling very highly qualified African-American students is the most difficult challenge for elite colleges. The applicant pool is small and the competition for those applicants is fierce. 12% of the acceptances Swarthmore mailed for this year's class went to Af-Am applicants, but by the time the competition all settled out in June and they'd lost some to Harvard and others to big merit aid bidding wars, they had only enrolled 6.7% of the class. Early decision is guaranteed yield. So, anytime you can fill a hard-to-fill slot ED, you bend over backwards to do it.</p>

<p>Moongirl has a strong application. She is in the top 4% class rank of large public high school in Georgia (I'm guessing something along the lines of N. Druid Hills, etc. with a pretty competitive student body) and a 4.0 unweighted GPA. That's strong. Her test scores are also high -- in the top 1% of all Af-Am SAT takers nationally. Remember, test scores are evaluated in context. If you are a white kid with two MIT parents, you will be expected to have higher test scores than a first generation college applicant and so and so forth. Even without that, Moongirl's SATS are higher than about a third of the students who will end up in Swat's freshman class next year.</p>

<p>ECs are OK, including political involvement and mentoring in an elementary school. Invited to and attended Discovery Weekend. I'm guessing that as Jim Bock looks forward to the work involved in yielding applicants from this group come April, the opportunity to fill a slot ED will carry the day. Remember, from Bock's perspective, the operative question in ED is, "when all is said and done June 1st, can I fill all my slots with stronger applicants from the RD round than this one?"</p>

<p>That's how I see it. Again, I'm just an armchair QB and I could be dead wrong. But, I like both Moongirl's and megblum's chances. Strong transcript and a hook is a good combo.</p>