Official Swarthmore Decisions: Class of 2012

<p>This thread has fewer acceptances than any other I've followed. I'm starting to feel pretty honored just just being wait-listed.</p>

<p>
[quote]
There seems to be a lot of commentary here that Swarthmore didn't except "the best of the best." That's slightly insulting to those who did happen to be accepted...

[/quote]

Probably not as insulting as being rejected by Swarthmore when you're clearly a cut above the average accepted Swarthmore applicant. Or maybe it's not so insulting if you factor in the Tufts Syndrome explanation. In that case, maybe it's flattering?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Honestly, I don't regard a list of stats as a great representation of how amazing an application was, especially considering the type of student most likely to belong to College Confidential and the fact this minuscule group hardly accounts for the 6,000+ applicants that applied to Swarthmore.

[/quote]

What's that mean? "The type of student most likely to belong to College Confidential?"</p>

<p>Accepted</p>

<p>Stats:[ul]
[<em>]SAT: Math 740 CR 740 WR 770
[</em>]SAT II: Math2 800 Krn 750 Chem 730
[<em>]ACT: n/a
[</em>]GPA: 4.0 uw
[<em>]Rank: 1/400
[</em>]Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB): Calc BC 5 World History 5 English Lit 3 Taking Bio and Stats
[/ul]Subjective[ul]
[<em>]Essays: Why Swat essay was sweet. I amazed myself. On my common app essay wrote about the heart of music (various perspectives of music)
[</em>]Teacher Recs: Excellent
[<em>]Counselor Rec: Excellent
[</em>]Supplementary Material: I sent in a crapload of supp material, sample essay, music resume, music CD
[<em>]Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize): no
[</em>]Location: Mill Creek WA
[<em>]High School Type: Public, at our school noone knows swat, not even my counselor, not even after they visited 2 years ago, which is prob why they stopped visiting, but maybe they will visit again? i got to know swat through my cousin
[</em>]Ethnicity: Korean American
[<em>]Gender: Male
[</em>]Applied for Financial Aid: Y
[<em>]Extracurriculars: Piano was biggie, some clubs, not exactly strong extracurrics
[</em>]Awards: Piano awards, academic awards
[li]Advice? Commiserations? Feel like bragging?:[/ul] accepted at nu carnegie mellon and uw honors, rejected by stanford, waitlisted at jhu, waiting on harvard??? :) [/li]i think im going to swat, really nice and nice lookin school maybe i am a small school person, anyways going to ride the tide and will make my final decision then, and guys school is really just school, people are not determined by accomplishments, try your best, look toward ur bright future, and don't miss out on what u already have</p>

<p>everyone is really hard working i am amazed, take a break, everyone deserves it </p>

<p>this will be the last time on cc for me :)</p>

<p>interesteddad, maybe they don't want their ED acceptance rates to look to high. Colleges don't like it when that happens, either.</p>

<p>"A cut above" based on test scores? That's kind of over-flattering oneself.</p>

<p>Okay, I'm not here to argue, but...</p>

<p>As a disclaimer, I actually expected for my everything EXCEPT my scores to get me into wherever I applied even before I sent everything in, so I really would count me as one of those cases where my scores weren't the best, but everything else was. I'm saying this because I know at least two people that got in from my school that probably had scores that look like the ones on here that got in.</p>

<p>I just wouldn't assume that just because one out of ten people on CC got in, and that person just happened to have a lower GPA/SAT score than the rest means that every ten applicants to Swarthmore had the same outcome. Believe what you want, but I think it's a little premature at this point...</p>

<p>Rejected</p>

<p>Stats:[ul]
[<em>]SAT: 750 Math, 750 Verbal, 770 Writing (2270)
[</em>]SAT II: 780 Math 2, 740 US History, 740 Chemistry, 660 Physics
[<em>]ACT: 34
[</em>]GPA: 4.9 unweighted, 5.1 weighted
[<em>]Rank: 2/~450
[</em>]Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB): APUSH - 5, AP French - 3
[/ul]Subjective[ul]
[<em>]Essays: The common app was about how it isn't what I do, but why I do it that separates me. Why Swarthmore wasn't about anything particularly academic--just how much I loved the school and the class that I sat in on.
[</em>]Teacher Recs: Didn't read
[<em>]Counselor Rec: Didn't read
[</em>]Supplementary Material: I sent them a speech that I wrote
[<em>]Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize): none
[/ul]Personal[ul]
[</em>]Location: Pittsburgh, PA
[<em>]High School Type: Public
[</em>]Ethnicity: WHITE
[<em>]Gender: female
[</em>]Applied for Financial Aid: Yes
[/ul]Other[ul]
[<em>]Extracurriculars: Varsity Crew, Varsity Fencing, Orchestra, Forensics, Model UN, assorted other small clubs
[</em>]Awards: National Merit Scholarship, National Honor Society, Cum Laude Society...
[*]Advice? Commiserations? Feel like bragging?: This was my first rejection so far and I'm pretty depressed about it, not only because I don't get to go to Swarthmore, but also becuase it is not looking so good for the other schools I applied to. I can't imagine that they turned me down becuase they didn't think that I would want to go there, I visited the campus multiple times and had an interview (not to mention my stats aren't good enough for that). The only consolation is how good the stats of the other kids who got rejected are, maybe all hope isn't lost... wait-listed at Amherst the same day[/ul]</p>

<p>Accepted</p>

<p>Stats:[ul]
[<em>]SAT: 2310
[</em>]SAT II: 770 M2, 750 USH, 670 Lit
[<em>]ACT:
[</em>]GPA: 4.36/3.9
[<em>]Rank: 9/450
[</em>]Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB): 3 5's (USH, CalcAB, Stat)
[/ul][ b]Subjective*[ul]
[<em>]Essays: wrote it about surfing the internet
[</em>]Teacher Recs: bad
[<em>]Counselor Rec: good
[</em>]Supplementary Material:
[<em>]Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize): [/ul]
Personal[ul]
[</em>]Location: PA
[<em>]High School Type: public
[</em>]Ethnicity: Asian
[<em>]Gender M
[</em>]Applied for Financial Aid: N[/ul]
Other[ul]
[<em>]Extracurriculars: running, e bay seller
[</em>]Awards: none
[
]Advice? Commiserations? Feel like bragging?:[/ul]</p>

<p>
[quote]
Probably not as insulting as being rejected by Swarthmore when you're clearly a cut above the average accepted Swarthmore applicant. Or maybe it's not so insulting if you factor in the Tufts Syndrome explanation. In that case, maybe it's flattering?

[/quote]

Every "top" (SAT>2300) student I've ever known that was rejected by any school short of HYPSM blamed their rejection on "Tufts syndrome". That's fine - whatever helps to deal with rejections is good at this point.</p>

<p>The truth is that there are just many, many more qualified students than any top school can admit. The colleges are not picking students, they are building a class. At the end, there will always be many students who got rejected by one school, but were accepted at equally selective another school. Hopefully at the end it will all work out for everyone.</p>

<p>I don't think you can necessarily infer that Swarthmore has Tufts syndrome. It's a very good school--clearly many of these applicants would have gone to Swarthmore if admitted. I think that it is very difficult to be rejected or waitlisted from a top choice (I am waiting for one of those small letters to arrive tomorrow) but I don't think the way to deal with it is by assuming that you are too good for the school. Admissions equations are infinitely more complicated than that.</p>

<p>I agree with nngmm wholeheartedly. Whether we like it or not, colleges have institutional wants and needs; they cannot accept all math majors or every qualified french horn player. They are building a class forth and foremost.</p>

<p>Whether or not Swarthmore rejects/waitlists "over-qualified" candidates (although, I'm not too sure how you can be "over-qualified" for Swat; someone said this earlier, but just because your 2400 and three 800's trumps the scores of someone else who got accepted on a CC thread, does not mean this is representational to the entire applicant pool), I think it's better to remain positive about all your other decisions coming in soon rather than be fixated on hating on the schools that rejected you because you think you were overqualified. </p>

<p>And personally, my friend (an URM with a 2370 and a 4.0, first in our class with a lot of national recognition in art and student body VP) was just accepted by Swat (as well as Williams, Amherst, MIT, and Stanford) and have stellar stats comparable to the people on here blaming their rejection on the "Tufts Syndrome." He worked hard on his Swarthmore application, but Swat is admittedly not his first choice (waiting on Yale and Columbia) and chances are Swat knew he was applying to other top notch schools. So take that as you will.</p>

<p>Accepted...</p>

<p>Now that I look back on it, my comment wasn't very accurate now that I've looked over some other admissions threads. Although I still think AA is a component, there are certainly a lot of asians and females being rejected and waitlisted. That leads me to believe that there's a lurking variable: the academic record.</p>

<p>Swarthmore considers secondary school record as very important which means that they take precedence over test scores (labeled as important), which makes sense. What's a better indicator of success? A test on basic algebra or who-knows-what university math course you're taking? I'd look harder at the latter.</p>

<p>So... if anyone else posts stats, could you include your core classes or any other academic courses/programs that offer you a hook? Thanks in advance :)</p>

<p>The first part of the form would look like this now (delete the spaces!):</p>

<p>[ b]Stats:[ /b]
[ list]
[ *]SAT: #
[ *]SAT II: #, #
[ *]ACT: #
[ *]GPA: #
[ *]Rank: #/#
[ *]Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB): more #'s
[ *]Highest Math: Precalc, AP, ... complex analysis, etc
[ *]Highest Science: honors, AP, IB, college, etc
[ *]Highest English: ditto
[ *]Highest other: research, summer programs, classes oriented toward your major, etc
[ /list]</p>

<p>or something to that effect. Feel free to modify the layout... I just want to see what's going on "under the hood" of Swarthmore's admissions process.</p>

<p>I really appreciated reading this thread, thanks for sharing your info, CCers. It proves that Swarthmore applicants make up the finest selection of young adults in the country. Congratulations to those accepted, and good luck to those waitlisted or rejected. I'm sure everything will work out for each of you in the end. :-)</p>

<p>Rejected</p>

<p>Stats:</p>

<pre><code>* SAT: 780 Verbal, 690 Math, 720 Writing (2190)
* SAT II: 800 Literature, 750 US History, 720 Physics, 720 Math IIC
* ACT: n/a
* GPA: unsure...95
* Rank: school doesn't rank
* Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB): European History [5], US History [5], US Government, Comp Government, Spanish Language [4], Spanish Literature, English Language[5], English Literature, AB Calculus
</code></pre>

<p>Subjective</p>

<pre><code>* Essays: Common app essay was one of the best pieces I've written and I'm proud of it. Why Swat essay was well written. I also applied through QB's regular decision process, so there were extra essays to read.
* Teacher Recs: Didn't read, but one was definitely amazing and one was probably good
* Counselor Rec: Didn't read, but I have a very close relationship with both my guidance and college counselors, and it would be glowing
* Supplementary Material: I sent them a CD [violin]
* Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize): focus on law throughout the years, 10 years of violin/fencing, mother died of cancer, well-roundedness
</code></pre>

<p>Personal</p>

<pre><code>* Location: NYC
* High School Type: Public
* Ethnicity: white
* Gender: female
* Applied for Financial Aid: Yes
</code></pre>

<p>Other</p>

<pre><code>* Extracurriculars: Fencing Team [co-captain/starter/member], Orchestra, newspaper staff, Honor Society Committee, latin dance, JSA, after-school law program, Model UN, study abroad program to Spain, summer law class in DC
* Awards: National Merit Scholarship, National Honor Society, Questbridge Finalist, New York Times Scholarship Finalist, Spanish Honor Society, AP Scholar with Honor
* Advice? Commiserations? Feel like bragging?: While this was one of my top schools, I actually don't mind that I was rejected. The rejection letter came after/at the same time as acceptance letters to other amazing schools and while I would have loved to go to Swat, I am glad that someone who really deserves to go will get a spot instead of me.
</code></pre>

<p>Congratulations to everyone admitted and good luck to everyone else!</p>

<p>
[quote]
That leads me to believe that there's a lurking variable: the academic record.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I've always felt that academic record is the number one threshold for Swarthmore. Whenever anyone posts a "what are my chances" thread, I always look at the class rank. The #1 class rank is what makes "fothi", for example, an outstanding applicant, much more so than test scores.</p>

<p>The second variable I've noted over the years is "Swattiness" -- can the admissions office picture a living, breathing Swattie in the application? That's why you see people with off-the-charts stats getting rejected if their applications scream, "I really didn't want to go the Swarthmore." The Why Swat essay and the extra-curriculars are keys in this area. It's not surprising at all to see applicants get into great colleges and universities, but not Swarthmore. Happens every year, just like this year.</p>

<p>Waitlisted</p>

<p>Stats:
[ul]
[<em>]SAT: 610/670/640
[</em>]SAT II: Japanese 740, Math I 650, Math II 610, Physics 610
[<em>]ACT: didn't take
[</em>]GPA: 4.89-ish/5.00
[<em>]Rank: top 5%?
[</em>]Other Tests (AMC, AP, IB): TOEFL 115
[<em>]Highest Math: AP Calc AB
[</em>]Highest Science: Honors Physics in USA, but we basically study bit of every AP Science in Europe (like genetics in Senior Biology etc.)
[<em>]Highest English: American Lit in USA (but we cover materials and books from American AP English on our lit courses anyways, I believe)
[</em>]Highest other: 7 years of Italian, 1 of Spanish (in USA), 2 of Latin
[/ul]
Subjective[ul]
[<em>]Essays: PS - I didn't like much. It's weird... I think I could've done better. But "Why Swat?" - I liked a lot :) I think it showed sincere emotions towards the institution :p I really LOVE the school!!!
[</em>]Teacher Recs: 2 Euro ones - mechanic, but still nice? 2 American ones - didn't see, but I believe they're good if teachers wrote similar stuff as on grade reports
[<em>]Counselor Rec: mechanic
[</em>]Supplementary Material: Photography portfolio on CD
[li]Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize): I am fluent in three languages, took a year abroad on full scholarship to private American school, lived in 4 countries on 3 different continents, biracial? [/ul]</p>[/li]
<p>Personal [ul]
[<em>]Location: I think it falls under Eastern Europe
[</em>]High School Type: public
[<em>]Ethnicity: biracial w/A
[</em>]Gender: female
[<em>]Applied for Financial Aid: Y - huge amount[/ul]
Other
[ul]
[</em>]Extracurriculars: theatre for 3-4 years, journalism club (4 years) - graphic editor, photography (did several EC's on this)
[<em>]Awards: some photography awards, article passed country comp and proposed for national comp, expenses to photo-workshop fully covered due to quality of my work, 1st in county for English (which won me a scholarship to a local college)
[</em>]Advice? Commiserations? Feel like bragging?:
I was down when my Gmail preview showed "Dear (name), you're one of our record number of highly qualified applicants..." because I thought they were rejecting me so I put off opening the mail. But when I opened it, I saw they actually put me on "alternate list"! :) I was a bit sad at the news, but still, I feel really flattered that I wasn't outright rejected and that they find me somewhat qualified for Swarthmore :D ... and that I still have some chances of getting in :)
To be honest, I have no idea why I was waitlisted, but probably not accepted due to so-so scores and not really defined essays (I could've done better explaining my situation), but still not rejected because my background probably seems interesting and I seem to be interested in Swarthmore (I think my essay showed my love really well). I still have 4 more decisions to see before I accept or turn down waitlist - I try to keep positive about them, I just need ONE acceptance, and I'd be happy like a little puppy. </p>

<p>Well, congratulations to everyone accepted and good luck to us all in the remainder of our decisions! :)[/ul]</p>

<p>Rejected</p>

<p>Stats:
[ul]
[<em>]SAT: N/A
[</em>]SAT II: 800 Bio-E, 770 MathII
[<em>]ACT: 35 Composite
[</em>]GPA: 3.9uw (school does not weight)
[<em>]Rank: school does not rank
[</em>]Highest Math: Calc BC junior year, assorted math electives this year
[<em>]Highest Science: Biology at local university this year
[</em>]Highest English: highest level english courses at school
[<em>]Highest other: Summer Institute for the Gifted, polar research at local university for 2 years + summers
[/ul]Subjective[ul]
[</em>]Essays: English teacher loved common app one, said it was one of the best she'd ever read. Why Swat was very well written but a bit generic.
[<em>]Teacher Recs: Stellar, three teachers who know me very well wrote them, as well as one from the professor I've been doing research with.
[</em>]Counselor Rec: Stellar as well, she knows me very personally.
[<em>]Supplementary Material: Clarinet CD, and the extra recs.
[</em>]Hook(recruited athlete, legacy, Nobel Prize): none?
[/ul]Personal[ul]
[<em>]Location: NH
[</em>]High School Type: Public
[<em>]Ethnicity: White
[</em>]Gender: M
[<em>]Applied for Financial Aid: Y
[/ul]Other[ul]
[</em>]Extracurriculars: Math team, varsity swimming, research, clarinet (all school ensembles, plus play with the local university's group), school community service group
[<em>]Awards: student of the month, some essay contests, national merit, etc.
[</em>]Advice? Commiserations? Feel like bragging?:[/ul] not so much.</p>

<p>edit: formatting</p>

<p>why are you guys pointing out your ethnicity. arent you guys bitter.</p>

<p>...not going to lie... I'm kind of bitter. Less for me actually than for everyone else, I mean seriously, this is ridiculous! </p>

<p>You can say that high school record is the most important, but I was second in my class, I took all the hardest classes available (no blow off APs) and I even did pretty well and I was still outright rejected. The worst part is... I still love Swarthmore.</p>