<p>I've always thought Swarthmore was the best place for my daughter and she herself has at least at times been of that point of view but she's been accepted everywhere else she applied including Yale, Brown and Chicago but waitlisted at Swarthmore. She has to visit the schools immediately as she is heading back to boarding school next week. Would Swarthmore care that other schools found her desireable? Is she likely enough to get off the waitlist that it's worth visiting? Should she just forget about Swarthmore given that she has other good choices? Thanks for you thoughts (especially yours, interesteddad).</p>
<p>Obviously, she has some great choices! But if Swarthmore might be her first choice, yes, I would think it was worth visiting, if for no other reason than to make sure she really wants to go there rather than to the other wonderful schools she has been accepted at. I also think that yes, since Swarthmore is interested in students who really really want to go there, that a sentence in a letter that says, "Although I've been accepted to YB&C, here are the reasons I really want to go to Swarthmore...." couldn't possibly hurt. With that said, I also think your daughter would likely be very happy at any of these places.</p>
<p>Sascha:</p>
<p>I can't really give specific advice, because we are into the realm of decisions that are so personal, only a parent could really get a "read" on what a kid is feeling. For example, if my kid had gotten acceptances from those three and a waitlist from Swat, her attititude might be "to heck with 'em" and I would support that. Or, she might be so head over heels about Swat that she feels differently.</p>
<p>But, I can offer some general observations:</p>
<p>a) From her other acceptances, your D is obviously qualified academically to be accepted by Swarthmore.</p>
<p>b) I can only think that the waitlist must have resulted from something like the "Why Swat" essay that didn't quite light their fire.</p>
<p>c) Swat will probably accept quite a few kids of the waitlist and there's no reason your D couldn't be one of them. Visiting the school and communicating an interest might very well make the difference.</p>
<p>I would probably visit, if only because the overall Swat/LAC experience is so different than the other schools on her list that it would probably be worthwhile to visit just to experience it. She might find that she likes one of her other schools better, or not.</p>
<p>Just to amplify. With the other acceptances in hand and a conversation (or letter or both) with the admissions office expressing a desire to attend Swarthmore over those other schools, I believe that getting in off the waitlist could probably be turned into a likely. </p>
<p>Getting accepted at both Harvard and Yale, but waitlisted at Swat is pretty unusual, unless there is a missing part of the equation like recruited athlete, legacy, or something that would be a factor at the other schools.</p>
<p>If it's not anything like that, I would strongly suspect that Swat just missed the degree of interest or "Swattiness". It probably most critical for super high-stat prep school applicants to present some kind of "identity" that makes them stand out above and beyond the stats. That can result in some incredibly qualified kids getting waitlisted.</p>
<p>If I wanted to turn the situation around, I would communicate with my adcom directly and take the position that I must have somehow failed to really express my desire to attend Swarthmore. I think that just flat out saying that I want to attend over these other schools where I have been accepted would be very effective. At this point, it really becomes a person-to-person conversation. </p>
<p>Of course, all of this is predicated on whether or not D really feels that way, hence the value of the visit. Otherwise, just accept one of the other great choices and take the attitude, "Swat's loss!" That's where a mom's intuition is worth more than any amount of College Confidential advice.</p>
<p>IF it becomes clear that your D. would prefer Swat to the others (and money isn't in play), I'd have her call up, and tell them flat out the situation. I wouldn't write a letter, and I wouldn't e-mail. She should call. Make it person-to-person.</p>
<p>I think it would be easy to choose Swat over Yale or Chicago - I know I would - though Brown would likely give me pause. </p>
<p>It's quite possible that if this is a prep school with which Swat and the others is "wired", the Swat adcom called the school GC to discuss candidates, and the GC already had an indication from Yale, etc., and Swat was doing the "Tufts Syndrome" thing (WL-ing a candidate because they assumed she wouldn't accept.) If your D. become clear that this is something she wants to do, DO NOT ASK THE GC FOR HELP. The GC will already be paying a professional price for having wired a candidate to Yale/Brown, only to have her turn around and decline it.</p>
<p>But if it isn't a clear first choice, above all others, I'd throw the WL status away and get on with life!</p>
<p>Agree with calling as the prefered option...or setting up a visit and a face to face meeting with the regional adcom and/or Jim Bock.</p>
<p>Agree with only pursuing it if Swat is a potential first choice, confirmed by a visit.</p>
<p>Disagree with a simple "Tufts Syndrome" explanation. Swat's acceptances overlap so strongly with Havard and Yale that I think they are willing to take their chances. They lose most in that matchup, but they get a few and the ones they get are probably ideal matches for Swat. </p>
<p>I definitely agree that there is the potential for some kind of "beneath the visible surface" guidance counselar/prep school politics as a factor. For example, you never know when there is some history between a prep school and a college. Or, you never know when a GC might have had some other student a little further down the pecking order he/she was pimping for Swat. The "arranged marriage" guidance counselor approach at elite boarding schools can cut both directions.</p>
<p>I don't think Brown would necessarily be my biggest dilemna of those on the table. It would be from the standpoint of focus on undergrad experience at a midsize university. However, of the choices on the table, it trails the field by a healthy margin in terms of per student endowment. I think Harvard, Yale, Swat, and UChicago would all be in, or very near, the top 10 in terms of per student endowment. Endowment is not the end all/be all, but it does impact just about every aspect of a college's operations.</p>
<p>PS to MINI: Check your private messages. I sent you some additional info on the incident we were discussing.</p>
<p>Hard to really offer advice with such a plethora of choices. Too many individual, personal criteria will be the deciding factor.</p>
<p>The endowment is only worth something if you are spending it. Colleges publish their annual budgets, and it's easy to divide by the number of students. Of course, a higher percentage at the smaller schools goes into capital maintenance, so even there the numbers are suspect. Endowment comes most into play when starting an expensive new program or school, or in financial aid. (But even there - those with the highest aid per student attending are Mt. Holyoke, Macalester, Occidental, Oberlin - hardly those with the highest endowment.)</p>
<p>The matchup comparisons are true at virtually every one of the top 25 LACs, but fail to tell the story -- the odds of middle-class financial aid candidates getting multiple offers gets extremely slim - If you begin with Yale at around 5 to 1 (that is, admission candidates with no aid being admitted versus those who do), and multiply that by each school in the comparison, (5 x 1 x 5 x 1 = 25, and on) one quickly finds that the the matchups only work for wealthy candidates. (Hey, that's what prestige is about!)</p>
<p>Anyhow, I don't see any a priori reason why Swat (or any other school) would want to "take chances" when they have so many able candidates for whom they don't have to. It flies in the face of their training in yield management, and getting the best possible class to attend.</p>
<p>Still, I think Sascha's daughter should call if she's really committed, and shake the tree. That's how I got into Williams off the waiting list in 1967 (a long story.)</p>
<p>On endowments: The annual returns on endowment investments make up a sizeable chunk of the schools' annual operating revenues:</p>
<p>For example, of Swarthmore's $92 million operating budget for 2004/2005, $38 million is tuition plus room and board fees (net of finanical aid discounts) and $44 million is from the endowment income. The rest is annual gifts, interest on operating cash, grants, and misc. So the endowment income is a huge chunk of the $64,000 per student operating budget.</p>
<p>With more than 5 times the enrollment, Brown's operating budget (net of financial aid discounts) is also just over 5 times larger at $482 million. But, of that, only $70 million comes from endowment income. One of the two biggest chunks of the operating revenue, second only to tuition and fees, comes from grad school research contracts. They don't call 'em research universities for nothin'! However, the fulfillment of those research contracts generates an $80 million expense line in the budget. So the real budget for the education part of their business is about $400 million or $53,000 per student. I would guess that somewhat less than that is spent on each of the 5750 undergrads and somewhat more on each of the 1900 grad school and medical school students.</p>
<p>I agree that there are some big operating inefficiencies in maintaining a very small enrollment of only 1450 students. It's much more expensive to offer such small class sizes. For example, 3 of my daughter's first semester classes at Swat were under 20 students. According to Brown's Institutional Research charts, only 2.7% of Brown's freshmen have 3 first semester classes under 20. 41% of Brown freshmen don't have a single class under 20 first semester. And that's with my D taking courses in nothing but big mainstream departments: Physics, Math, Psych, Art History, English, and Sociology. 5 of her 8 courses so far have had 12 or fewer students. Since the professors are the same at all of these schools, those class sizes are definitely expensive.</p>
<p>That's why there are so few LACs that are fiscally healthy enough to offer a premium product with such a small enrollment. Without the endowment, no way a college the size of Swarthmore could add five new undergrad buildings (performing arts center, new academic building, new science center, new dorm, and new indoor tennis/fitness building) plus major renovations to two more in the last 15 years. No question that the premium LACs are like shopping in a boutique store. The personal attention and small scale definitely has some heavy cost structure associated with it, which is why our buddy Morty has written so many essays about the financial challenges facing all but a dozen or so of the most heavily-endowed LACs. It's also why you see most schools try to grow to the 5000+ undergrad mark and use slave-wage TAs to help handle the large class sizes.</p>
<p>IDad,</p>
<p>Thanks for this info comparing Swat and Brown. I plan to email it to my son to help him think realistically about his choices re LAC's and mid-sized unis.</p>
<p>I would definitely urge her to visit Swarthmore--to see if she really would prefer it to the others, and if so, to convey her passion for the school in person. I assume from the other acceptances that she is an excellent candidate, and if Swarthmore really is her first choice, this personal approach could very well get her off the waitlist. And I certainly wouldn't hesitate to let them know that she would choose them over Yale, Brown, and Chicago. (Congratulations, by the way. Any of those choices should be terrific.)</p>
<p>Thanks to all for your thoughts re: Swarthmore. My daughter elected not to visit it but I was pleased and surprised that she does want to visit Carleton. After visiting Brown, Yale, and Chicago and electing to skip Wesleyan, she's ruled out everything except Yale and Carleton (and possibly Macalester which she will also visit when she's in Minnesota). By the way, the "boarding school" she attends is nothing like what some of you have assumed, it's an art school in the midwest and she loves it dearly; Carleton would certainly have more in common with her current school than Yale. Plus Carleton is a great liberal arts college (I went there myself), if not quite equal to Swarthmore, certainly close. My best guess is she'd get just as good if not a better class room eduction at Carleton as at Yale and would benefit from being surrounded by all those wholesome Minnesotans (I did) but that the extracurriculars at Yale would far surpass those at Carleton. Anyone have thoughts on Yale v. Carleton? My daughter doesn't require the small nurturing aspect of Carleton so that should not be a factor. Nor does she care about the prestige factor (to the contrary she's a reverse snob if anything).</p>