<p>Did anyone else receive a mailer with a poem that their application fee had been waived and that the new deadline was January 26th?</p>
<p>Just wondering if it was true, and what it means, like was it everyone/demographic/geographic/random type of thing... It really came out of the blue for me so I was curious.</p>
<p>They've been doing that for the past few years. I believe there's a demographic targeted aspect to the mailing.</p>
<p>Or, it could be students who have requested info, but not yet applied.</p>
<p>It does not mean much. My son got one too - but we paid the app. fee when my son applied in 2004. We felt we did not need the waiver...</p>
<p>"They've been doing that for the past few years. I believe there's a demographic targeted aspect to the mailing." - Interesteddad</p>
<p>Could you explain? You seem to be saying something without saying it. My D got one of these. I don't know what it means. She also got a letter from Dickinson saying they are extending their deadline and asking if my D would like to change her RD application to ED2. I'm really puzzled by all this. I thought deadlines were deadlines? Why would they want her to switch from RD to ED2?</p>
<p>And the Swarthmore thing came too late. My D had already applied and I had already paid their expensive app fee. Granted, she only completed her app about a week ago...still. This would've been a lot more helpful three weeks ago instead of yesterday. </p>
<p>What is really going on, Interesteddad? I thought schools like Swarthmore and Dickinson were swimming in applications.</p>
<p>Plainsman:</p>
<p>You tell me. Do you fall into any of the desired demographic groups? First generation college? Minority? Etc.?</p>
<p>If not, then I would say this is a general mailing to everyone on the "contacted Swarthmore" list who has not yet submitted an app. In all likelihood, your D's app was in the mail at the time this communication was being prepared.</p>
<p>My D is a URM, I suppose. She's like Obama. She's half-white, but half black too. Do you think that has something to do with it? Still, I assumed Swarthmore receives more apps than they know what to do with from every demo group. I rate my D's chances to get into Swat at 2%. I only helped her apply because she wanted to. She's got a better shot (but still low) at Oberlin but a good shot at Dickinson, I think.</p>
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Do you think that has something to do with it?
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<p>Yes. Absolutley. </p>
<p>I'm not saying that this isn't a general mailing (it could be, I don't know), but it would be impossible to overstate the recruiting efforts it takes for Swarthmore to be among the most diverse elite schools in the country.</p>
<p>The pool of URM applicants with Swarthmore-level academic qualifications is very small. For one thing, African American (and to a lesser extent Latino) males graduate from high school at incredibly low rates, so the pool of high school grads is small. There are impediments to reaching this target customer base. And, the recruiting competition among elite colleges for these students is fierce.</p>
<p>At this point, they want the pool of URM applicants to be large as possible. Whether that mailing went to all students or just to minority students, it's still a large mailing. They are trying to make sure that an African American female graduating 1st in her class doesn't skip applying to Swarthmore because of the $60 application fee.</p>
<p>Your daughter's chances of admission may be better than you are estimating. In my years of "chances" threads here, I've only given the Interesteddad guarantee to two Swarthmore applicants. One was an African American female, top 5 students in her large, good inside the beltway near-suburban Atlanta high school, outstanding extracurriculars, decent SATs, good essays. Applying Early Decisison. Short of a felony arrest record popping up, I couldn't see any way she missed getting into Swarthmore. (BTW, the other was a class valedictorian, 1500+ SATs, perfect ECs including two years on a juvenile court bench, outstanding essays, and third generation Swarthmore legacy, applying Early Decision).</p>
<p>BTW, Swarthmore is still very selective for URM applicants. The last acceptance rate I saw published for African American applicants to Swarthmore was about 36%. So only one out of three are being accepted. They get an unbelievably talented cohort of URM students. Part of that comes from constantly working to increase the size of the pool. For example, x percent of all Swarthmore high school visits must be to heavy minority high schools.</p>
<p>Well, my D doesn't attend a heavy minority high school. It's a public school, about 96% white, and most of the minorities are Asian. My D is the only "black" kid in a school of 3,000 who is on the National Honor Society. But she's not first in her class. Only Top 10 - 12%. I don't think she has a snowballs chance in hell of getting into Swarthmore. I hope these elite schools aren't trying to pad their numbers of applicants so they can have a lot of kids to reject and lower their acceptance rate. That would be awful. Schools should tell kids when they have no chance of getting in and offer to refund those expensive fees. That would be more honest. </p>
<p>Thanks for the info.</p>
<p>Well, I don't think there are really any students for whom they can say that they have no chance of getting in, and if a student thought that they had no chance of getting in, they wouldn't have applied. To get a sense of the chances of getting in, there are statistics on the Swarthmore website. There's also no need to be first in the class to have a good shot of getting into Swarthmore. I was somewhere in the top 15% and I got in. And since many people find Swarthmore a good school, a lot of students will apply there, but only a certain number can get in. I don't think Swarthmore's trying to be dishonest.</p>
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I hope these elite schools aren't trying to pad their numbers of applicants so they can have a lot of kids to reject and lower their acceptance rate.
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<p>Of course they are. Common app. On-line applications. Fee waivers. Extended deadlines.</p>
<p>I already got into Swarthmore EDI and I got that postcard in the mail with the fee waiver yesterday. I think it is a diversity-recruiting thing (I am an URM and I went to Discovery Weekend) and they didn't bother to take me off the list even though I am in already. :)</p>
<p>Congrats Superlax09. I know you must be very happy. My D just could not narrow down the schools she visited to one and only one, to take a stab at ED. I really don't know how any student is able to pick one elite school out of several and say "that's the one." I don't understand how someone who has never attended a school and doesn't have a sibling or parent who has can say with certainty: "this is it" and apply ED. I'm amazed by the ability to do that. There is so much that is unknown. It looks like a total leap of faith to me.</p>
<p>Superlax09, maybe you had people who previously attended Swarthmore, but I'm betting most EDs at every school have no previous familial ties or inside knowledge of a school and take a giant leap of faith. It seems crazy to me when the only thing to gain is a slight advantage in the admission process. </p>
<p>My D has applied to Swarthmore, Amherst, Brown, Wesleyan, Oberlin, Cornell and others. Let's imagine for the sake of it that she/you were admitted to every one of those impressive schools. How could you possibly know which of those schools is THE ONE and pick it for ED? Even after visiting all of them, how could you be sure? A campus visit doesn't reveal very much.</p>
<p>I don't know how kids do it. More power to you, I guess.</p>
<p>Plainsman:</p>
<p>In our case, we had enough family experience at liberal arts colleges to know the generic benefits. We also knew the downsides and that there were specific rare attributes of Swarthmore (specifically the location in a major urban area with easy rail access to DC, Philly, and NYC) that addressed those.</p>
<p>My daughter had enough time hanging out at a fairly large private university in the Boston area to know what she didn't want. She visited Swarthmore twice, including an overnight with appointments set up to meet with two professors, sit in on a class (the prof had given her the novel to read ahead of time), and other meetings. She had spent a dinner and evening with a Swarthmore alum. She knew, beyond a doubt, with no reservations, that it was her first choice, ideal school if she could get in. Her experience over four years (and now as an alum) confirmed that. She would do it the same way again in a heartbeat -- which is not to say that she wouldn't have been happy at other schools, too.</p>
<p>As to the specific schools you mentioned, she considered all of those except I don't think Cornell was ever on her list. Amherst didn't get a lot of love because half her senior class was going to UMass and because, strategically, Williams made more sense with a double-legacy.</p>
<p>Plainsman,
As with interestddad's daughter, my S also chose to apply to Swarthmore ED. He had visited many other "elite" schools (all within a 3 1/2 hour drive) but knew that Swarthmore was the one for him. He visited more than once and sat in on more than one class. He ate in the dining hall, wandered around the library and stayed overnight. He found "his people" at Swarthmore. :) He was looking for the most academically intense place he could find for an undergraduate education. He found it at Swarthmore. No one else in our family has attended Swat. You will be surprised what your daughter will be able to decide after visiting the different schools she is admitted to. Many schools have different "vibes." I always used to ask my son, "Could you see yourself here?" With Swarthmore, the answer was a definite "yes." Good luck to your daughter. She will have wonderful choices.</p>
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Superlax09, maybe you had people who previously attended Swarthmore, but I'm betting most EDs at every school have no previous familial ties or inside knowledge of a school and take a giant leap of faith.
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<p>We had no inside knowledge of Swarthmore, except for a distant cousin of some sort who we didn't even know went to Swarthmore. My daughter and wife were staying with his parents during a visit to Emory. They found out my daughter was interested in Swarthmore and invited their son over for a long dinner and evening of discussion about Swarthmore. As much as they wanted to sell Emory, the whole family was just glowing about Swarthmore. Ran into that at every turn during the two years or so of striking up conversations about the place.</p>
<p>I suppose you are correct. There is a leap of faith. Although our experience was that what you see with Swarthmore is what you get. I really can't think of a single surprise comparing the reality to the sales pitch. If anything, I think Swarthmore undersells itself.</p>
<p>My D made a brief comparison of Swarthmore versus Cornell. The former was "intimidating." The latter was "hot and cold." Class was either "boring" or "extremely interesting" but neither class was described as "intimidating." Only Swarthmore was "intimidating." My D is shy and tends not to eagerly speak up in class.</p>
<p>Swarthmore would probably be a tough place to avoid participating in class. However, what high school students may not be able to understand is that they won't be the same students after a year at Swarthmore as they are as seniors in high school. The entire purpose of Swarthmore is to take 18 year old teenagers from Point A to Point B and beyond. The school is really good at it. </p>
<p>My daughter had seniors on her dorm hall first semester walk the newbies thru some practical tips for being prepared to participate at least once in every class session. She had two seminars (actually probably more) her first year where students were required to make presentations to the class -- a physics seminar where the students presented a problem set and, I think, a Sociology seminar where students presented their off-site fieldwork interviews to the class. Part of what Swarthmore does is teach students how to handle that stuff. It's a great skill to have. In both cases, the students worked one-on-one with the professors to develop their presentations (these were first year seminars). </p>
<p>I know this kind of stuff continued throughout her four years, including presenting her Senior Thesis to the professors in her department. Students who do the Honors Program have oral exams on four different topics with panels of professors from other colleges.</p>
<p>I'm guessing that some of the other parents here would agree with me at being amazed by how "smart" our kids got at Swarthmore. The educational model really does work and it works for a lifetime. As an alum, my daughter and a bunch of Swattie friends in DC, have started an informal monthly book discussion group. They pick an interesting new book, read it, and get together once a month just to talk about it. Not as often as the weekend parties, but still an indication of how much they grow to appreciate stimulating discussion.</p>
<p>I do know that my daughter and her friends were in awe of some of their classmates and professors because I've heard them talk about it. I never got the sense that they found it "intimidating".</p>
<p>Speaking of learning lifelong skills. I thought the coolest assignment my daughter had was in Ratzman's Modern Relgious Ethics course. The entire course was studying contempory religious writers and theologians (from all religions and perspectives) on hot button topics like abortion, death penalty, war, and so on and so forth. </p>
<p>The weekly writing assignment was a "letter to the editor" advocating a position on that week's issue. The big written assignment was an Op-Ed column on one of the issues, with theological support, written for publication in the New York Times.</p>
<p>I also received one of these cards offering a fee waiver and application deadline. Swarthmore was definitely on my list earlier in my college search, but I have since then taken it off because of its reputation for intense academics. The fact that the graduation rate in 4 years is about 86% did not help either. However, I still think I will give it a shot.</p>
<p>Good grief. In this year's USNEWS lists, Swarthmore is tied with Pomona for the third highest 6-year grad rate among all LACs.</p>
<p>Amherst 96%
Williams 95%
Swarthmore 94%
Pomona 94%</p>
<p>Willliams and Swarthmore both had 91% Four year grad rates. Amherst had 84% according to USNEWS.</p>