Chances, Please

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
1

<p>Your comments are appreciated, so long as they're thoughtful. I know that these threads are numerous and exhaustive, so your critique is greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>White/Jewish (not sure whether Swarthmore makes the distinction) male
Terrible, failed, and extremely congested public high school in SW Washington, though I don't really attend the school but rather attend the local community college through the Running Start program.</p>

<p>SAT: 2130; W:730, M:600, CR: 800 (single sitting, and taken as a junior).
SAT Subject Tests: scores for the literature and US history tests will be available when I apply, and should be high.
GPA: 3.76uw, though it should be approx. 3.8 when I apply. My schools doesn't calculate weighted GPAs which is fine because, as I've heard, most schools disregard them.
At the community college in which I'm enrolled, I have a 4.0 with 67 credits (quarter system).
I've shown a tremendous upward trend in my grades, from 3.4 cum. freshman and sophomore years to a solid 4.0 at Clark College.</p>

<p>My school is disastrous. It has a graduation rate of approx. 60% and less than 20% of graduating seniors actually pursue higher education, at least immediately after high school. The district is woefully underfunded, and sports are deified to the extent that academic distinctions awarded to students basically go unrecognized.</p>

<p>Anyway, because of all the aforementioned problems, the school offers a very limited number of AP and honors classes, many of which are exclusively for seniors. Owing to this, I participate in the state's Running Start program (dual-enrollment) and will receive my AA by graduation. So basically, I have taken more than a full load of college classes and currently have a 4.0, which probably won't change within the next few months.
Oh, and I just became a National Merit Commended Scholar.</p>

<p>ECs:
-23+ regional, national, and international distinctions for music (I'm a pretty accomplished saxophonist, and have been playing with the high school's jazz band since 6th grade).
-Was a member of the Pacific Crest Jazz Orchestra.
-Was a member of the Washington All-State Jazz Band last year.
-Founded and served as president of the BGHS Junior State of America chapter (JSA).
-Founded and served as president of Students for Political Activism Now at my CC.
-Was Pacific Northwest Regional Director of Expansion for JSA.
-Was editor of the opinion section of my high school newspaper.
-Attended both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions recently as a student correspondent for the local newspaper and for JSA.
-Am currently media director for the Portland, OR Amnesty International chapter.
-Am currently a Sunday-school teacher at my local synagogue.
-Am working with the Columbia Land Trust to defend SW Washington from rapid urbanization.
-Studied government at Georgetown University during the summer of 2007.
-Studied music at the Berklee conservatory, Northern Illinois University, and Western Oregon University during the summer of 2006.
-Am currently a member of the debate team at Clark College, which, despite lacking national recognition, is pretty well regarded in forensic circles in the PNW. I also just recently won some awards at my first debate competition, including 10/62 best debate speaker, 2nd in parliamentary debate, and 2nd in persuasive speaking.
-Was a member of MUN.
-Many more things that I cannot remember right now.</p>

<p>My recommendation should be great; they're being written by a former Columbia University admissions officer (and MFA student) who was my English teacher, and one of my history teachers who's published several articles in history periodicals and has authored textbooks.</p>

<p>Thanks for taking the time to look and, hopefully, to comment.</p>

2

<p>You're certainly in the running. Beyond that, it's hard to say. Make sure to highlight the connections between your ECs, such that there are a few common themes running through them (saxophone and political work seem to be the two big themes, if I'm reading correctly). And spend time on your Why Swarthmore essay--really articulate what makes the school attractive to you, and what you would bring to the school community. </p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

3

<p>90% plus possibility you have...</p>

4

<p>fryd:</p>

<p>Your application will have to be an atypical application and therefore it's impossible for any of us to give you a "typical" chances guess.</p>

<p>There are several things on your list of ECs that would be interesting to Swarthmore, if properly developed in an essay and/or related to Swarthmore in a "Why Swat?" essay. Attending both political conventions as a teenager. Debate team. Jazz band. Conservancy. And so forth.</p>

<p>I think it will all depend on how well you can focus and present your atypical academic experience and a couple of your EC interests. Swarthmore is definitely receptive to those sorts of applicants, but it would be really difficult to give you any kind of odds without seeing a fleshed-out application.</p>

<p>My advice would be to try to distill all that into something a big more focused. Which activities are really you? Which are fluff? Concentrate on your key stuff and, specifically, research how it might fit with what makes Swarthmore tick in those areas.</p>

5

<p>interesteddad: Why do you say this would have to be an atypical application? What makes it atypical?</p>

6

<p>Atypical because the student didn't really attend high school, but has been taking classes at the local community college. </p>

<p>This is not that unusual at Swarthmore, but it's not the typical application ("here's what I did in high school") and the application will require figuring out how to present all that. For starters, GPA and class rank get all blurry in those situations.</p>

<p>In some ways, it's not that different than a homeschooler's application.</p>

<p>It's also atypical because there is some very strong stuff to work with, but also some red flags (low GPA early in high school and very low MATH, very high VERBAL SATs)</p>

<p>All in all, I just find this "chances" exercise to be unusually challenging, more so than the average lists posted here.</p>

7

<p>Wow... did you say very low SAT math scores? I didn't realize a 2130 (total) was low. Are SAT scores slightly lower than that a Swarthmore killer? Just wondering.</p>

8

<p>Based on Swarthmore's latest Common Data Set stats, only 9% of entering first year students have Math SAT scores of less than 600. So a Math 600 score is quite low in the distribution of entering students, and probably lower still in the distribution of applicants offered admission. By itself this is not determinative, but should be viewed in context of the overall application.</p>

9

<p>
[quote]
Wow... did you say very low SAT math scores? I didn't realize a 2130 (total) was low. Are SAT scores slightly lower than that a Swarthmore killer? Just wondering.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No. 2100 SATs aren't a killer for Swarthmore.</p>

<p>The specfic case given was:</p>

<p>600 Math
800 Critical Reading</p>

<p>That is one of the most extreme lopsided SATs I've seen. I am really gun shy about making predictions when you get that kind of atypical stats.</p>

10

<p>Ok I see, it is funny because my son is kind of like that but with very high math sat's and math sat II's and lower cr scores. Thank you so much Interesteddad. I love reading your responces and use them when I talk to my son. As I have said before, he has gotten somewhat quiet (which is not him) and I asked him today if it was the wait for the ED decision. He said no, then changed his mind that he was a little nervous. I can assure you that if he gets in, there will be both a tear in my eye and a huge celebration. These last few days are killing me.</p>

11

<p>My daughter had lopsided SATs as well, in the same direction as your son's.</p>

<p>The wait is brutal, isn't it? The year my daughter applied, there was a big article interviewing jim Bock in the Daily Gazette right after Thanksgiving, where he talked about reading all the ED apps over the past week. That really hit home!</p>

12

<p>I think brutal doesn't begin to scratch the surface. When we finally hear, I will be able to say more as I am very reluctant to say much on here as people put two and two together pretty quickly. I can honestly say my stomach is in knots this morning. Thank you so much for your kind words and please keep writing on here. I anticipate reading your responces everyday!</p>

13

<p>I think the best way to deal with the ED wait is to press on with other applications. That turns the focus to other great schools on the list and the reasons for liking those schools.</p>

<p>If the apps are anything like my daughter's, the only real change moving to the next app is writing a new "Why Acme U?" essay.</p>

14

<p>My daughter's SAT was not too much higher on the math. She did get a 800 and 780 on the other two sections with a SAT total around 2200. I think that Swat looks at the total picture. Math is her weakness, but she is an amazing writer.</p>

15

<p>The worst part of it is that my math score is not at all refelctive of my mathematical ability; I ran out of time on one of the math sections and had to skip approx. seven questions.</p>

16

<p>Well that would be what he would be doing, but he has been done with many applications for a while now. In fact, Swarthmore was never on his list, but he fell in love with it when he spent the night there. I have said it before and I will say it again, there is just something special about Swarthmore. There is a feel there that is special. If you can feel how excited I am, well, I just am. December 13 feels so far away.</p>

17

<p>
[quote]
I have said it before and I will say it again, there is just something special about Swarthmore.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's the way we felt, too. It was my daughter's first choice from the moment she set foot on campus. We just had to temper that because it was anything but a sure bet. By the time she actually submitted her application, I felt pretty good about her chances. Nothing on her app was going to blow her out of the water and she had a strong extracurricular, with obvious appeal to Swarthmore, highlighted effectively on her app. But, you really never know.</p>

<p>As you say, Dec 15th can't come fast enough.</p>