<p>SAT: 2320
SAT II: 740, 790, 800
GPA: 4.0 UW
Rank: school does not rank. probably 1st out of 400
AP: by graduation 13 APs.
EC: Captain/President in 5 clubs/teams.
Community: 100+ hours.
Hook: none.
Domestic international applicant needing full aid.</p>
<p>Please rate chances: 10%? 50%? 80%?</p>
<p>Your numbers are good enough to apply to any school in the US, but numbers alone will not get you into any top institution (LAC or not), so no one will be able to estimate your chances based on the information you provided. </p>
<p>If you are not US citizen or permanent resident, needing full fin aid will significantly decrease your chances at most schools (including Swarthmore).</p>
<p>so i take it that swarthmore is not need blind for internationals?</p>
<p>if so, i guess i'll have to cross it out from my list</p>
<p>I believe they give more financial aid to internationals than most colleges;
your paper qualifications are a good match. Good luck.</p>
<p>There is a limited amount of money available at Swarthmore for financial aid for non-U.S. national students. From the Swarthmore financial aid web page:</p>
<p>Q: Does Swarthmore College offer financial aid to students who are neither U.S. citizens nor U.S. permanent residents?
A: Yes. Although the College's funds for foreign national students are limited to about $1.5 million, we are able to offer financial aid to 20 prospective students each year.</p>
<p>Admissions may still be need blind for all students, regardless of nationality. But Swarthmore only promises to meet the demonstrated need of U.S. applicants. As the cut-and-paste from their website says, above, there is a limit to the amount of aid they have available for non-U.S. students. But as the previous poster said, I believe Swarthmore is more generous with financial aid for non-U.S. students than many other colleges.</p>
<p>A slightly higher percentage of Swarthmore's international students receive financial aid than do US citizens. So I would not let arbitrary labels like "need blind" dissuade you from applying.</p>
<p>I concur with nnggmm. Your "stats" certainly qualify you for the pool, but predicting odds would be impossible.</p>
<p>The strongest thing you list is your class rank. That is a big deal at Swarthmore. Your stats are quite strong, obviously.</p>
<p>As you start thinking about your application, try to move away from listing clubs and offices. Instead, try to think about how those activities or groups of activities can be tied together to communicate real, 3-dimensional interests.</p>
<p>One of the reasons that assessing odds is difficult is that we are not seeing a picture of what really interests you and/or what a Swarthmore might find interesting. The reasons one qualified applicant is accepted over another usually lies in those areas.</p>
<p>Would you say that I should aim to prove that
1) I am unique and will help to contribute to the diversity of the school, or
2) I LOVE SWARTHMORE!!! I WILL ATTEND IF ACCEPTED!!!</p>
<p>Personally, I think it is a mistake to "aim to prove" anything in your application. You should just present yourself as a real person instead of a set of stats. Make sure your application lets your personality, interests, passions and quirks show. </p>
<p>Trying to mold your application into something you think the college is looking for is usually a bad idea - it creates a boring cookie-cutter type document that will put you admissions officer to sleep.</p>
<p>Apply ED; if the money is not offered, they will let you off the hook!
Swat has an ED acceptance rate that is almost twice the regular ad rate.</p>
<p>can someone explain the second ED? why do they have it since it's on the same date as the RD.</p>
<p>The second ED is as binding as the first and is to get students who applied ED elsewhere (at more "desirable" colleges, Ivies etc) and were rejected and are now newly interested in Swarthmore after taking a second look. Swat does not have as high a yield as Ivies in the RD round and this is a way to fill the class. Just my opinion and I could be wrong....</p>
<p>p.s My son goes to Swat and is a rising junior and very happy with his choice.</p>
<p>I agree with nngmm's first comment: it appears you have a good chance of being accepted at most any school, based on these statistics alone. However, if you are looking to have fun anytime during your four years here, I caution you away from applying to Swarthmore. Notice that most of these responses are from parents, albeit <i>well-read</i> parents who have done their newsweek and admissions tour research. I wish I had been so thorough when researching schools, but there is still so much about a school that no article will ever be able to describe. It sounds like you're kind of feeling around for what schools you should look into...If you truly are class valedictorian and president of five clubs/orgs, I encourage you to look at other schools such as Stanford, Yale, Dartmouth, UPenn, UChicago. If you want a small LAC, try Amherst. This is my honest advide: it sounds like any school anywhere would be lucky to have you. You should take advantage of this, and not apply to a miserable, oppressive school.</p>
<p>swat rox. hes just a rising senior two who wants to minimize competition.</p>
<p>Yeah. He's a rising senior for sure.</p>
<p>it's not like UChicago is much better than Swarthmore (and yes, I did my research on Chicago, I visited, it was my 1st choice school for a while). my cousin goes to UPenn and I wouldn't recommend it.</p>
<p>but anyway, your standardized test scores are <em>very</em> similar to mine (only 10 point difference in SAT 1...), similar GPA... but you have a lot more ECs and community involvement. I'd say you definitely have a great chance, judging from my limited experience and knowledge...</p>
<p>international admissions aren't need-blind (it's all here - <a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/FAQintl.xml%5B/url%5D">http://www.swarthmore.edu/FAQintl.xml</a>) but evidently they still meet 100% of your need, if you are accepted. I think you have a good chance.</p>
<p>commenting on rorrr's statements, i visited uchicago, upenn, amherst and williams and these were my own thoughts on each.</p>
<p>upenn was ok but too large for me and it really didn't feel right for me. uchicago was a nightmare. when i was there all i heard from students were that they could have gotten into a higher ranked school, but that they chose chicago because they were interested in the "life of the mind." it seemed that they all had chips on their shoulder about schools like harvard and yale. amherst and williams were almost the same school but on other sides of massachusetts. both schools had large jock populations and each place seethed with competition in sports and academics. </p>
<p>in addition, i also visited haverford and hated that place as well. the honor code is rammed down your throat and it seems to have been mixed into the kool aid because that's all those kids talked about. haverford, to me, is really the place to go if you're bright and motivated but couldn't get into swarthmore or is unwilling to put in the work hours required to graduate from swarthmore. </p>
<p>before anyone starts speculating about my bitterness towards all those schools, let me say that i am not bitter, nor was i rejected at any of the aforementioned schools. in fact, i am pretty confident that i would have been accepted by all of them.</p>
<p>There are too many ways I can respond to this and dispose of your comments, but I'll leave it at this...</p>
<p>It says a great deal that your comments are so disturbingly immature that it even silenced the most active and veteran members of the Swarthmore CC community. Hopefully you won't alienate your classmates as well because SC is very small and can be a lonely place if people don't like you. You may indeed be very smart, but on many levels, not a wise person.</p>
<p>I think applying to college is stressful and painful for many people, and doesn't bring out the best in anyone... I am sure that thats not what duhvinci is like irl.</p>
<p>"and not apply to a miserable, oppressive school [like Swat]"</p>
<p>Hey rorrr: Maybe we should fix you up with kellymegreener. You two would get along great! What year at Swarthmore are you, by the way?</p>
<p>HCAlum: I agree that the statements were harsh about Haverford, a place which I think has a lot going for it, but he's entitled to one man or woman's opinion!</p>
<p>By the way, for what it's worth, my son is a rising sophomore at Swarthmore, and loves the place! He would have had a lot of choices, I am sure, but chose to do Swat ED. </p>
<p>We did see a lot of positives in all of the above mentioned schools, but he decided that Swarthmore was the right fit, and it appears that he was right!</p>