<p>Hey everyone. Just got the Swarthmore letter - waitlisted.
I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I was pretty confident in my chances at Swarthmore.
Here is a quick rundown of my stats:
2340 SAT
2340 combined SAT subject tests
12/747
4.0UW, 4.84W GPA</p>
<p>I've been accepted to Stanford, UChicago (w/ merit scholarship), and Pomona so far.</p>
<p>Am I arrogant for thinking this is slightly anomalous? Does Swat look for a certain type of student?
I was never all that serious about attending - maybe they could tell.</p>
<p>Anyway, CONGRATULATIONS to all accepted. Just wondering about this, mostly because it makes me re-nervous for ivies (Stanford got me all confident...).</p>
<p>I think HarrietMWelsch is on the mark. Swarthmore’s admit %s are comparable to the Ivies, but it also has a bigger focus on essays/recommendations/interest due to smaller size, and thus a smaller number of applicants. So stats will never get you in all on their own.</p>
<p>I’ve got rejected by Swarthmore too. Now I am beginning to think that Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore are harder to get into than Ivies (except HYP):(</p>
<p>obsessed with maximizing their yield. so like if an applicant hasn’t shown demonstrated interest then they don’t get accepted cause admissions thinks they won’t come.</p>
<p>i’m not sure to what extent it’s true that schools like Tufts and WUSTL practice that methodology but… yeah. at least i think that’s what the op’s talking about.</p>
<p>Sorry Elanorci, but remember not to take it personally. It seems like sooo many kids have the same stats so a lot of it begins to come down to whether or not the admissions person thinks ur a good fit. (Maybe they thought u were more of a So Cali :))</p>
<p>Swarthmore isn’t the kind of school where students just appy on a whim because they’ve heard the name. Virtually all of Swarthmore’s applicants are academically qualified. So, the test scores and stuff end up being pretty useless in admissions. Not that they aren’t important, but there are more high scorers that Swarthmore could possibly accept.</p>
<p>Dean of Admissions Jim Bock has written on at least three different occasions that I can recall that the “Why Swarthmore?” essay is very important, often make or break. As he has said, it’s great when a student writes about strong academics and so forth, but most impressive when a student writes about specific things that communicate “Swattiness” – something they’ve read about on the website or seen during a campus visit or whatever.</p>
<p>There are obviously exceptions that prove the rule, but from what I have seen, the odds of getting accepted to Swarthmore if it’s “just another college rounding out the list” are quite low. This is particularly true for caucasian applicants. More than half of Swarthmore’s acceptance letters go to U.S. minority students or international students. The odds are especially unfavorable for Caucasian female applicants.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the feedback. After an acceptance from Duke today I’m feeling a little better about my chances elsewhere… And I can at least hope that part of this decision was the fact that I pretty much did apply to “round out” my list.
(That part about white females made me chuckle - certainly describes me pretty well. )
Again, congrats to all who got in. I’m sure the experience will be amazing for whoever was selected to go there.</p>
<p>I told my D that Swarthmore was the the one college on her list that defied predictability. OP’s app is a near twin of my D’s with the same result: waitlisted. That’s OK with her and me. If they don’t think she will fit in with the rest of the cast at Swarthmore, then I will defer to their judgment.</p>
<p>As for Tuft’s syndrome, I’m inclined to say no. However, this curious sentence was included in Swarthmore’s decision letter: “With your strong credentials, I am sure you have other excellent options to pursue.”</p>
<p>That’s not “arrogant”. It’s a true statement. In my time watching the admissions at Swarthmore here, I’ve only heard of one person (the infamous Andison) who was waitlisted at Swarthmore and didn’t get a single acceptance from another school. He took a gap year and was accepted at MIT (after being denied by Swarthmore a second time!). Heck, Barack Obama was rejected by Swarthmore and he ended up at OK schools (Occidental and Columbia).</p>
<p>All of the other kids who didn’t get accepted to Swarthmore ended up at great schools, bar none. Admissions deans know that better than any of us. They are full-time admissions professionals. They know where their applicant pool is getting accepted. I suspect they can probably look at an application and guess, more often than not, what other schools will accept.</p>
<p>The thing that is so hard to comprehend at a school like Swarthmore is how small the numbers are. Swarthmore gets 5,000 to 6,000 applications with white females being the largest category. They accept (back of the napkin numbers) 900 applicants, less than 600 in regular decision.</p>
<p>Of those, less than half are U.S. white students. Of the US white students, less than half are females. So bottom line: Swarthmore only accepts between 160 and 200 white US female applicants. Think about how small that number is. Now subtract the early decisions, the women basketball recruits, the womens tennis recruits, the McCabe scholars from the DelMarVa peninsuala, the legacy kids (who win a tie with other equally qualified applicants), the daughter of the US Congressman, the girl with national recognition for community service, the girl who made headlines leading a protest rally on the State House steps against mandatory high school testing, and so on and so forth…</p>
<p>Honestly, you can’t take it personally or try to read much into it one way or another. The numbers are just so small and they are trying to put together a puzzle with pieces that have to fill certain needs on campus. They need some theater kids. They need some music kids. They need some War News Radio kids. They need some community service kids. They need some… 200 or fewer US white female acceptance letters. You get the picture. They have to waitlist a lot of fantastic applicants.</p>
<p>ID–DMOC was responding to the OP’s question of whether or not her assumption of admission to Swarthmore was arrogant, not the “other excellent options” statement.</p>
<p>InterestedDAD…I will miss your posts most of all.
You have been a fountain of information, just so helpful. My D applied to Swat at my urging, and although i liked the school and all it stands for, it was not high on her list. You answered a ton of my questions though, and I really appreciate that; it helped me focus those same questions to other schools. So thanks!</p>
<p>My D got some great offers already, and still awaits a few…We will see. Even if she gets no other offer, the big-one she already has is fantastic. So when she opened the Waitlist letter from Swat, she was almost happy. She was not planning on going there, and an accpetance would just mean she took a spot from someone else. The wait-list letter was very, very nice. </p>
<p>Mostly, I agree with you. The whole process, they do the best they can. Are they hard, demanding? Yes, but they are the #1 LAC in the country. Do they have Tufts Syndrome? No way! They are the “Harvard” of LAC’s…</p>
<p>Anyway, thanks for all the helpful information. Sorry we won’t meet at parents day! :)</p>
<p>^^^^#1 in respects to Williams and Amherst as well? D got admitted to both Williams and Swarthmore. I didn’t know it was such a feat as an American white female. How does one decide for Swat over Williams?</p>
<p>Isn’t it ultimately your daughter’s decision? </p>
<p>A student should attend where it feels right, a decisison that should be made based on knowledge of the institution and not on meaningless rankings. - - Williams and Swarthmore are similar in many ways but quite different in others and how the general feel of the campus differs may answer your question.</p>
<p>Pretty easy in our family. Both my wife and I are Williams grads. Daughter applied early decision to Swarthmore.</p>
<p>It just depends what you are looking for:</p>
<p>Swarthmore is in suburbs of a major city, with train access from campus to Philly (20 minutes) and New York City (2 hours). Williams is in the remote rural mountains. Do you like cross country skiing or city life?</p>
<p>Swarthmore has been co-ed since its founding, the board must be split equally male/female, and Swarthmore women (Lucretia Mott and Alice Paul) are perhaps the two most famous leaders in the women’s movement. Williams is an historically male college that began accepting women a generation ago. There’s a difference.</p>
<p>Both have excellent academics, but Swarthmore is a much more academically focused college – arguably the top undergrad academic school in the United States. On average, the Swarthmore student body is simply more academically engaged.</p>
<p>Swarthmore’s defining “brand” is academic strength combined with a strong emphasis on community service and “making the world a better place”, so it’s strongest extra curriculars are things like War News Radio. Williams brand is academic strength combined with the biggest emphasis on varsity sports of any Division III school in the country. It has won the national cup for Division III sports every year but one since the prize’s inception. It is a very athletic culture.</p>
<p>Williams is a high “binge drinking rate” school. Swarthmore is a low “binge drinking rate” school.</p>
<hr>
<p>That’s sort of the thumbnail capsule. They are both excellent schools with massive financial resources. But, they are very, very different in campus culture and student experiences.</p>
<p>Yes dramatica, of course it is her decision Though we’re footing the bill and I’m trying to help her make the best decision possible. It seems to be clear that one top LAC is not like another and it looks like we’ll do another round of visits. Thanks interesteddad for your well-informed perspective.</p>
<p>I am glad to see that you are doing another round of visits. I think such visits are crucial if your D does not have a well defined preference. </p>
<p>We visited Williams, Vassar, Brandeis and Skidmore, once. These were schools at the top of her list because of offerings in her intended major. One visit was enough to remove them from her list; so she never even applied to any of them. In addition to the usual tours and sitting in classes, she spent time going up to students, at random, and asking all sorts of questions that were important to her. She also sat down and watched students coming and going. In the end, she did not apply to these schools because she could not see herself either on the campuses or in the department of her intended major.</p>
<p>She visited Swarthmore three times. And although she was not entirely sure whether she had made the right choice when she left to start college, she was absolutely sure about the department and faculty. From all the visits she also knew that she would probably fit and the doubts that she harbored were fueled by “stories” that she had heard and not so much by her personal reactions at the campus. </p>
<p>Now on her second year, surrounded by students whose values are similar to hers, she is very happy and cannot see herself anywhere else but there. Good luck, you have some wonderful choices!</p>
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