Chances at Williams and Swarthmore?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Hello! Posting this because I would like to know what you think my chances may be at either one of these top LACs. Assume I decide on applying ED to either one (as that is what I’m thinking of doing).

Demographics:

White male, currently living in VA. I am homeschooled, so I don’t know if that will play favorably or not to either of these schools.

Test scores/grades:

SAT: 1460 (690R/W, 770M) with a 16 on the essay
ACT: 30 composite (probably won’t submit since the SAT correlates to a high ACT score) with an 8 on the essay.
GPA: currently have a 3.97 unweighted gpa and a 4.23 weighted gpa (unfortunately haven’t been able to have lots of AP classes due to being homeschooled).

I also have a total of 14 college credits atm due to being dual enrolled and will have 21 by the end of this upcoming semester.

ECs:

Varsity debate/speech (10,11,12) 6hr/week 40week/year Placed 8th in the state of NC and missed qualifying for nationals by one round.

Church youth group (9,10,11,12) 2hr/week 52week/year

Math tutor for high school/middle school kids (10,11,12) 3hr/week 36week/year

Geography camp helper (9,10,11,12) 30hr/week 1 week/yr

AWANA (basically just a church-related group that meets outside church) (10,11,12) 2hr/week 30week/year

Library internship (10) Haven’t calculated the hours/weeks but basically I helped lead a bookclub for 3rd-5th grades during the summer

Youth medical mentor ship: (9,10,11) (had to stop due to moving) 2hr/week 9week/year

Red Cross volunteer at naval hospital (9) 8hr/week 7week/year

Recs:

Soooo I’m homeschooled so technically my “counselor” one is just coming from my mom which probably won’t be considered

Teacher recs: I know one teacher that I will be asking for a letter and she knows me super well and she loves me so it will be really good; haven’t decided on the second teacher

Optional rec: having the lady that hired me to tutor her kids for math write one for me. I helped raise her son’s D in geometry to an A by the end of the year.

What do y’all truly think? I’m afraid being homeschooled is going to end up putting me at a disadvantage compared to the traditional applicants they receive.

2

fwiw, Swarthmore doesn’t give credit for dual enrollment work. Also, they specify that they prefer the LoRs be from people who have seen you as a student, in an academic environment; ones like the parent you mention they see as ‘supplemental’.

Homeschooled is not a negative. My question about you & Swarthmore (I don’t have any experience with Williams) is: what are you about academically? you haven’t given any clues, and for Swarthmore that is important.

This links to the question of time and depth: I really see only 1 EC of substance (debate). You have several summer volunteer jobs, which is fine- but they are fairly light in terms of time. You have two church groups (again, not heavy time commitments), and term time tutoring. Homeschooled students typically have comparatively more time available to work with, but even allowing for the DE classes it is hard to see where your time goes, much less where the depth is (sometimes demonstrated through leadership roles, other times by levels of achievement). Your debate hours are considerably less than a team sport requires, for example, and a lot of applicants will have a team sport level of an EC plus a debate level activity, etc. So, where does your time go? do you have family obligations? Is there an interest in something that doesn’t show here? For the Swat students I know, it is usually an intellectual interest- is that true for you?

3

Actually, if you were to read on swat’s website, they understand that a homeschooler’s guidance counselor is usually a parent. They don’t view them as “supplemental.” After that, however, they require two additional teacher reqs (which i will get). Just sayin’

4

I didn’t say that your parent’s LoR- where they are serving as the GC- would be seen as supplemental. I was referring to the proposed LoR from the parent of the child you tutored- and I am pretty sure that would be considered ‘supplemental’ by Swat. Just sayin’ :slight_smile: