<p>Duhvinci: "chill, don't worry about how i spell my handle and worry more about your math and grammar, that's the real reason you're not getting into penn, swarthmore, williams and harvard (get real!)."
first, i never said i was applying to harvard so i have gotten real.
second, you are like the biggest tool ive ever heard of. some kid is asking an honest question about the school you attend and you are a total jerk for really no reason. i was never arrogant and in response i get this kid that sits around his computer all day whacking it to how good his sats are. you make me sad.</p>
<p>"also, i might be a jerk, but i didn't waste all my time on stuff i am mediocre at, at the expense of my sats."
first: objectively, *** are you talking about. i think its pretty clear (this isnt arrogance but objectivism) that everything on my ec list shows that im not mediocre at **** i do. maybe im not great at school and standardized testing but i can assure you i would own your face in any sport or at debate.
second: see the final part of #2 above.</p>
<p>I too am a freshman at Swarthmore and would like say two things. First, I think you (chillax) don't stand such a bad shot at Swarthmore. Your GPA is neither amazing nor bad. Your SAT scores are pretty good as well. In fact if I recall they're only slightly lower than what I had. The fact that they're skewed is not a bad thing and you seem to have strong passions. Second, Duhvinci, this past week has been one of learning how to accept people who are different to you. The morals, principles, and advice given to us through the diversity workshops, speeches, and activities that we attended should be taken to heart. They truly will make things easier for you. After all, why be rude when you can be polite? </p>
<p>Anyway, I hardly come on this forum so it will probably be some time before I'm back but good luck in whatever goals you try to achieve. One word to the wise, if you want to go to Swarthmore unequivocally then apply ED. I think it would greatly improve your chances.</p>
<p>The overall acceptance rate at Swarthmore for this fall's class was 18.5%, so there is no way for any of us to say, "sure, you've got a good shot."</p>
<p>I think that, after tracking many applications from here on College Confidential (over 100 for this fall's class), getting accepted at Swarthmore seems to center around a strong application that highlights interesting activities, specific reasons for liking Swarthmore, and communicating an overall fit with the college culture.</p>
<p>IMO, your debate interests give you the opportunity for a strong application package and you might be able to get an athletic tip. Conversely, the strong presence of the debate team (and debating period!) plays in the Swarthmore campus culture might make the school a particularly good fit. If you were very seriously interested in Swarthmore and played your cards right, those may be enough to overcome so-so stats for Swarthmore. If Swat is just another college on your list, the odds of pulling off a convincing application diminish greatly.</p>
<p>although swat technically is "just another college on my list" i really liked the campus and the school and think that that will come across as i write my essays.</p>
<p>regardless of what anyone says or thinks here, the only way anyone can venture a guess as to anyones chances of admittance is with the postings from previous years as a guideline. the original poster failed to mention whether he qualifies as a diversity candidate. lacking that, if one looks over the stats and ec's of accepted students at penn and swarthmore and williams who are not diversity candidates, i don't believe that anyone got accepted with sat scores and gpa as low as the chill. interested dad refers to the case of njpitcher, however, njpitcher had sat scores in the 2300's (i think) and was still waitlisted and he applied ed. also what attracted me to swat was the humanistic view the school has towards society and our place in society. chill's ec's are are all about chill and noone else. i read in a jim bock interview somewhere that national merit scholars don't have much weight at swat simply because every other app is a national merit scholar. chill punctuated all debate statements with stuff like "one of 25....." or "top 5...." et al. so, in analyzing that, i can only surmise that there may be 24 others with the same recognition as chill but possibly with higher gpa's and sats applying to the same or same type of schools chill is applying to. the baseball and tennis stuff is useless unless he's good enough to be recruited. one of my classmates was asked to be an instructor at one of the most prestigious tennis academy's in the country and that didn't help her get into swat (i don't think but she didn't need it anyway, she was top 3 in her class and 2300+ sats and tons of other ec's). so if chill wants the truth instead of seeking validation for all those debate accolades, look at the accepted student threads on the penn board and the swat or williams board (or better yet, look at the rejected postings) and in comparison, i think most will agree with me that chill's chances are closer to 0% than 20-25%. gpa and sat will not get you into swarthmore or penn or williams, but gpa and sat will certainly keep you out and as i see it, your nose is pressed up against the glass looking in. </p>
<p>also, how insensitive is it to say that one OWNS anyone in any context. in light of america's past, i find that statement to be rather offensive and well beyond any name calling (which by the way, i did not engage in). </p>
<p>i reiterate, no chance here and if chill is a usn&wr afficionado, i would start looking realistically at 16 and back (with the possible exception of wash u) and the lac's at 9 or 10 and back. chiao baby.</p>
<p>I have no idea what Chillax's chances for admission to Swarthmore are, but his Math and Verbal scores are clearly in the range shown in the latest USNews online edition. His verbal score is just 10 points below the 75th percentile score and his math score is just 10 points below the 25th percentile score. His total of 1440 for those two tests is right in the middle of the range 1350-1530. I am not sure about the writing score, because no data is given for that test. </p>
<p>Duhvinci - Do you have access to the gpa's and scores of all of the students Swarthmore accepted, as well as their ethnic background? I don't think so.</p>
<p>im an 1/8th native american. and im "ranked" in the top 5 LD debaters in the country and have a good shto at being captain of the all-american team.</p>
<p>I agree that 1440 SATs are high enough for any student to be accepted to Swarthmore. I don't think that SAT scores really play a big role in Swat admissions, one way or the other -- not because they don't care, but because the applicant pool tends to have high test scores across the board. However, it is important to note that SAT scores are viewed in the context of socio-economic, ethnic, and quality of high school factors and that the overall median ranges are impacted by successful applicants with major "tip" factors. 1440 SATS for a white applicant from an affluent high school would not receive any gold stars on the admissions folder.</p>
<p>The bigger hurdle that would have to be overcome in this particular case is a relatively weak class rank -- outside the top 20%. Unless the school is just amazing (Exeter, Thomas Jefferson High, Raffles Singapore), that is going to be a challenge to overcome. From everything I have been able to piece together about Swat, class rank (or GPA in the context of the high school) is the number one gating item academically. </p>
<p>Of the 4850 students who applied for this year's freshman class, only 81 with a class rank outside the top 10% were accepted. I know of at least two of those 81 from College Confidential. Both came from VERY competitive high schools and had significant tip factors. One was just barely outside the 10% cut line at one of the top publics in the country and had an athletic tip. The other was a low-income African American male on full scholarship to one of (if not THE) top academic private day schools in the country and steadily raised his class rank from "trouble" in the ninth grade (his first year) to just outside the top 10% by his senior year -- really impressive.</p>
<p>Attention prospective Swatties! Don't wait three pages worth of "chances" discussion to drop the little tidbit that, "oh, BTW, I fall into a URM classification for admissions purposes." That is a tip factor that can have significant impact on admissions odds.</p>
<p>I don't know. If I recall, the Common Data Set requests tribal affiliation, so there may be some formal criteria for Native American that don't apply for other underrepresented minorities. </p>
<p>You should probably e-mail the admissions office and find out if there are specific criteria.</p>
<p>I hope you understand that it is very difficult to give you much guidance on admissions odds. On the one hand, you have some EC and academic interests (debate, baseball, arabic) that Swarthmore would find interesting. On the other hand, your academic "stats" are only so so. So I don't want to discourage you, but I also don't want to pump up your chances. "Lopsided" applications are the toughest to predict because they could legitimately go either way.</p>
<p>I don't think anyone on these boards is "expert", including ID, inspite of the inexplicably enormous amounts of time he spends on these boards. I was accepted to Swat as a transfer with 3.6 GPA for one semester college and 1480 SAT. Cool ECs but probably not requiring as much raw tallent and hard work as chill's do. They accepted 20% of transfers that year, so I'm not sure how that compares to first-year class. And yeah, probably having some interest in "ethical intelligence" and showing it in your essays is important. (Can't say I still don't wonder sometimes what it would've been like to go to Swat, but I'm pretty happy where I am now.)</p>
<p>But seriously, duhvinci, with these posts of yours smacking of elitism it's hard to imagine that some interest in common good is really high on your list. Even if you're just posting here for kicks, it seems sort of a bad use of time.</p>
<p>Finally, I don't think URM necessarily gives as much advantage as people think, just based upon specific people I know.</p>