<p>
</p>
<p>Of course Swarthmore is an outlier. With one of the highest per student endowments in the country, it is one of just a dozen or so colleges and universities that can afford to intentionally enroll fewer full-pay students in favor of increased diversity.</p>
<p>Princeton is also known for great financial aid but eliminated ED citing the same issue. Whether or not its actions were due to competition, the same reason was given – ED obviously favors the wealthy:</p>
<p>"Shirley M. Tilghman, Princeton’s president, noted the argument made by critics of early admissions that the system favors wealthier applicants, who are savvy about anything that will give them an edge and who don’t need to worry about comparing the aid packages institutions offer. “We agree that early admission ‘advantages the advantaged,’ " Tilghman said.” [News:</a> Princeton Ends Early Decision - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/19/princeton]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/19/princeton)</p>
<p>Whether Swarthmore is an outlier is both irrelevant and unsubstantiated. A student depending on financial aid would be foolish to apply there ED and make a decision without having any other FA offers to compare. Need-based financial aid varies enormously from school to school and Swarthmore does not always offer the best package to everyone.</p>
<p>Admissions Dean Bock from coverage of a fireside chat with students about Early Decision at Swarthmore:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Bock</a> backs ED policy at fireside chat - The Phoenix](<a href=“http://www.swarthmorephoenix.com/2006/11/02/news/bock-backs-ed-policy-at-fireside-chat]Bock”>http://www.swarthmorephoenix.com/2006/11/02/news/bock-backs-ed-policy-at-fireside-chat)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Princeton took Harvard’s bait. Funny, though…ending ED at Princeton hasn’t helped them match Swarthmore’s percentage of low income students receiving Federal Pell Grant or state grants or Swarthmore’s ethnic diversity. Hmmmm, maybe it was just a red herring?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>All of the ED applicants I know who needed essentially full-ride fianancial aid discounts to attend Swarthmore were very pleased with their aid packages. The reality is that early decision mostly shuts out affluent families who want to shop merit aid deals.</p>
<p>Well, you left out an important sentence from that Swarthmore article:
He is confirming that most ED applicants can afford to attend Swarthmore without comparing financial aid offers from other schools.
Then the need of both groups is not very high overall.</p>
<p>It is well-documented that ED applicants are whiter and richer than RD applicants. And this makes sense! It could be viewed as a fair trade by some.
I’m sure that Swarthmore offers generous financial aid to some low income students. However, there are all levels of need and what one school determines to be need may end up being more or less generous than another school. It’s great that you know some kids who received nearly full-rides, but that does not change the fact that it would be unwise for a student who needs financial aid to apply ED anywhere, including Swarthmore. And apparently every student is not happy with their financial aid:
</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It’s not? How are kids supposed to know their class rank if the school itself doesn’t even know?</p>
<p>I don’t think quoting a Swarthmore sophmore is really quoting an expert on financial aid. He neglects to consider that Swarthmore’s median SAT range all but guarantees half the class won’t qualify for financial aid. </p>
<p>BTW, the student who was “not happy” with her fiancial aid had a package freshman year based on her father being unemployed. All of the family’s expenses were factored from the mother’s income and the student was very happy with her aid package. In year two, the father was employed with a signficant income compared to zero the year before. The family’s expenses had not othewise changed. Swarthmore expected a significant percentage of the father’s new income to be available for tution payments since the expenses were covered by the mother’s income just as the previous year. The student thought the contribution should only go up by the total percentage increase in the family income. Swarthmore told the family that they wouldn’t negotiate the aid package because that would be unfair to the students whose family’s were paying based on the same formula. They offered to help the student transfer if that’s what she and her family decided to do. Of course, the girl never mentioned in her “protests” that all the loan portion of her aid package had also been converted to grants.</p>
<p>I don’t find it all that surprising that ED’s financial aid demographics are not that different than the overall applicant pools. We are only talking about 450 ED applications out of a total pool of over 6000 last year. These are not people applying on a whim; they have done their homework and that includes understanding how they will probably fit in the scheme of Swarthmore’s need-based aid. For example, my daughter’s roommate was an ED applicant – hardly wealthy, her dad drove a city bus, mother was a school teacher. The entire Questbridge cohort along with other similarly recruited low-income applicants are part of the ED pool. Meanwhile the RD pool has large numbers of affluent applicants making their college lists by tearing a page out of the USNEWS ranking magazine – applicants who tend to fare horribly in Swarthmore RD admissions.</p>
<p>Bottom line. If a school budgets for 50% full-pay, they are probably going to get 50% full pay, regardless of ED or no ED. See Harvard, Yale, Swarthmore, and so forth.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe by asking for the school’s profile? Even schools that “don’t rank” usually provide the decile cutoffs. Or, by finding out the cut-off for honor roll or some other academic achievement and counting the number who made it. A smart kid out to be able to at least figure out if they are top 2%, top 10% or none of the above. The colleges are going to know.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t agree with that “fact”. If you need a full-ride aid package, then you have nothing to lose by applying early decision. On December 15th, you’ll know whether you got an acceptance letter and an aide package that works. If you didn’t get the aid package, you know in time to submit other applications.</p>
<p>The people who can’t apply early decision are those who are simply shopping price. In many cases, these are affluent families who are shopping merit aid pricing discounts.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Get real. Knowing that you and a hundred other kids made the honor roll tells you next to nothing about your class rank. I would agree that kids should generally be able to tell whether they are doing well or poorly in school, but that’s hardly the same thing as knowing your rank within the class.</p>
<p>
You seem to think that the only people who apply for financial aid are those who need a full ride of $50k or those who simply don’t want to pay their EFC. There is a large middle ground between full-ride and full-pay. For many families, a $10k per year difference in financial aid offers between schools would be a deciding factor. And it is common for schools to differ in their calculations of need by this much and more. I would not refer to this as “shopping around.” This has nothing to do with merit aid – ED should be avoided if you are applying for need-based aid.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>For example, our district had an awards banquet honoring the top 10% of seniors at the local high schools. So it wouldn’t take a Harvard graduate to look around, see if you were invited, and know whether or not you are in the top 10%.</p>
<p>Give me a break. A high school senior can’t figure out whether they are in the top 10% of their senior class and they want ME to tell them whether or not they will be accepted into Yale? Come on.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What makes you believe that’s what I think? There are some people for whom every last dollar could be go/no go. Those students can’t apply ED because they have to play the merit aid game. That’s fine. There are other people who have a pretty good idea where they will fall in the need-aid game and are willing to live with that, plus or minus a few thou’. Many of those people do just fine in the ED cohort.</p>
<p>In any case, back to the original premise. I think that Schwartz is overlooking the outstanding job the seasoned professionals in these admissions offices do in enrolling exactly the class they want to enroll. It’s not random.</p>
<p>“I think that Schwartz is overlooking the outstanding job the seasoned professionals in these admissions offices do in enrolling exactly the class they want to enroll. It’s not random.”
I agree with that 100%!</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Yeah, we have that too. And it’s held every year in late May - well after every senior’s “chances” have been made perfectly clear by their official acceptances and rejections. It’s not a lot of use for a senior earlier in the year or a junior at any time to assess where they stand in the class ranking.</p>
<p>tokenadult - [News:</a> Michigan Votes Down Affirmative Action - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/08/michigan]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/11/08/michigan)</p>
<p>I agree with interestddad that at the dozen or so most well-endowed schools, having financial need shouldn’t deter a soul from applying. If one wants to shop for merit aid, that’s another matter.
On racial diversity (Post #84), Swarthmore IS Princeton. 8% African American to Princeton’s 9%. Both 1% Native American. 17% Asian American to Princeton’s 14%. 10% Hispanic to Princeton’s 8%. 7% International to Princeton’s 9%.
Swarthmore is part of the pack among its peer schools on this dimension. What is unusual is that Swartmore has been able to achieve this as a small LAC with small LAC visibility in a wealthy, white suburb.
“A” for effort, same result as other elites. Swarthmore just has to try harder.</p>
<p>Those diversity numbers would be VERY different if Swarthmore simply chose a freshman class at random from its applicant pool. The acceptance rates for Asian Americans, African Americans, and Latino/a students are all signficantly higher than the overall acceptance rate. A random selection would be much whiter (and much wealthier) than the current Swarthmore enrollment. All you have to do is look at the diversity for similar colleges that have not made a significant affirmative effort to diversify, Davidson being a good example.</p>
<p>Enrollment 2008-09
White US-citizens (inc. unknown)
Swarthmore 55%
Davidson 82%</p>
<p>I believe that Professor Schwartz would, indeed, notice a difference in his classroom with those two admissions models.</p>
<p>Thanks, johnwesley, for the link. But the university’s position has been contrary to that of the majority of voters in Michigan, as shown by positions the university administration has taken in litigation.</p>