<p>Not only that, you might get a free ride (depending on your financial situation). You certainly have nothing to lose by trying, and places like Swarthmore have a lot of money (although Colgate and Haverford were quite generous as well this last year – admittedly, with money that was budgeted before the stock market meltdown).</p>
<p>If I were you, I’d apply to at least 10 schools. The amount of money spent is modest compared to what you will spend or won’t spend later, depending on financial aid, etc. </p>
<p>I know someone with perfect SATs (2400) who applied to Harvard, MIT and Yale, and Franklin & Marshall as a safety. Franklin & Marshall is an extremely fine school, but they may have figured he was aiming higher on a high school student’s prestige ladder and would probably turn them down; at any rate, and for whatever reason, they turned him down. And then, as it happened, he was turned down by the other three as well, who knows why. So he had no place to go. Had he applied to a dozen schools of similar repute, he would have certainly been admitted to some place where he’d like to go. </p>
<p>Another friend applied to 6 Ivys and got turned down by all, except Yale. Go figure. Luckily, he didn’t apply to just 5.</p>
<p>Your acceptance may depend in part on the size of your high school. This is inevitably somewhat anecdotal, but last year I learned of several students from small high schools being accepted at every leading liberal arts college to which they applied, while they were turned down or wait-listed by every leading university. It was exactly the other way around for students from large high schools: they were accepted at most or all of the Ivy and similar universities to which they applied, while rejected or wait-listed by all or most of the leading liberal arts colleges. A surprisingly large number of students transfer out of their school at the end of their freshman year, and admissions offices may have found that students from small high schools tend to be happier at small colleges and vice versa. But as I say, this is anecdotal.</p>
<p>If you are applying to liberal arts colleges, as you are, please be aware that a lot rides on your essays – more, apparently, than with large universities. An essay that is ever so moving can obviously make a great deal of difference. But what is ever so moving to an admissions office reader at one school may leave somebody else cold. And the amount of time spent reading an essay is … 90 SECONDS. In other words, they are being skimmed. You never know what is going to click with whom, which is why you need to apply to a lot of places.</p>
<p>Haverford gives a lot of attention to your essay on their remarkable honor code. This is not an ordinary honor code typical of military academies (“I will not cheat or tolerate those who do,” etc., or something similar at places like Stanford). Rather, it is a code, written by the students and revised and voted on every year by the students (they can vote to drop it altogether, although they never have in 100 years). It focuses on academic integrity, yes, but especially on mutual respect. Professors respect students as fellow academics. We are not just talking about professors leaving the room during exams, or having students do their exams at home at a time of their choosing, although that is part of it (the idea being to learn something, not just to get a grade). The atmosphere of mutual respect affects everything in the relationship. It also affects social and political intercourse on campus. There is a serious effort to keep debates and differences honorable, avoiding the kind of scorched-earth campaigns of insults that have occurred at many schools, from both the political left and right.</p>
<p>If you apply to Haverford, as you plan to, by all means visit the school, learn about the honor code from your guide, read up on it from the internet (the minutes of Haverford’s honor code committee can be found on the internet), etc. It is time well spent, not just for your application to Haverford but for your own thinking on an important issue. (Incidentally, I am not and never have been affiliated with Haverford, or know anyone who currently is.)</p>
<p>The schools you are considering are all excellent, but quite different. Everyone I know who graduated from Colgate loved it, and remains intensely attached to it. These grads say, however, that it is not for everybody (a strikingly beautiful campus, in a village in upstate New York, with lots of snow). That environment is quite different from Haverford, in Philadelphia, with the opportunity to take courses at Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore and UPenn if you want. I do not know people who have gone to Lafayette; hopefully you do. You may be happy at any of these schools, or only some of them. Obviously, each of these schools has its academic strengths, professors you might like to study with, or not, etc. – it’s worth trying to learn as much as you can.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>