A milestone in admissions

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
1

<p>I believe that a milestone was passed in admissions last week at Swarthmore. For what may have been the first time ever, Caucasians made up a minority of the accepted class. "Americans of color" received 49 percent of the acceptance letters, up 3% from last year: </p>

<p>21% Asian American
16% Latino/a
12% African American
1% Native American</p>

<p>The remaining 51% were white/unknown American students and internationals (predominanty Asian, Latin American, and African).</p>

<p>The sad thing is that the diversity of the enrolled class will drop dramatically from these accepted numbers as yield among African-American and Latino/a students is horrible, but you can't blame 'em for trying.</p>

<p>Public school admits were also up sharply, to 60% from last year's 57%. 26% from private schools, 5% from parochial schools, 7% from overseas schools.</p>

<p>The number of valedictorians/salutatorians was up 4% and the percentage in the top 2% of their senior classes increased 3 points to 53%. </p>

<p>Most popular state was New York (15%), followed by California (12%), then Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Florida, Massachusetts, and Texas -- all the same as last year.</p>

<p>Applications were up from 3700 to 4085. They accepted 15 more students than last year, most of that coming from an increase in ED acceptances as they look to enroll 15 more than last year. Acceptance rate fell from 24% to 22%.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/releases/05/class09.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/releases/05/class09.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>I feel privileged.</p>

3

<p>I was waiting to see the results this year. Interesting to say the least. Hope andi's son gets in, though. It is sad to see someone so talented waitlisted. Everyone from my son's high school was denied or waitlisted this year including one who will probably be the salutorian. She got into Yale, other ivies and also Amherst. My son's school is competitive (I know people are sick of hearing that), they send quite a few to top 10 schools, almost 40-50 students.</p>

4

<p>Thanks ACHAT, we're really going to try, despite the odds! GC is calling today and then we've got an entire list of actions in place!! If nothing else it will help keep us from feeling totally powerless! And in the meantime we'll look into gap years so there will be some other sort of positive thing to do and he won't be left feeling totally defeated. He's gotten accepted to the Tanglewood Institute this summer for 3 weeks and he's really looking forward to that.<br>
That's interesting that most of the kids at your phs didn't have good results. I think one of the depressing things for my s is that all of his friends at our hs DID get into the top schools, some with multiple acceptances. That's why he's been left scratching his head. As a matter of fact everyone at school is too, including those other kids. I think he would have felt that his plight was more comprehensible if most of the others had gotten rej or wl also.</p>

5

<p>Andi, I really feel bad for you...but hope your family is getting over this. Wow Tanglewood for the summer!! He sounds so incredibly talented! But a gap year might be wonderful, and he may have the same results as nonpoisonivy's son next year. I actually did not think it was a lottery at Swat last year - scratching my head over this. But I'm not as knowledgeable as ID..</p>

<p>The results at our HS is not that great this year....40-50 at top 50 (the 10 was a typo, 10 to HYPSM probably) schools for sure but the HS is large as well, over 850 students this year. 12 students applied to Swat and no one got in.</p>

6

<p>Wow, I totally commend the admissions officers for that. And 22% is pretty good. I predict that Swat will be increasingly selective.</p>