<p>If that’s the case. This year is the year to apply. Because Swat offers one of the best undergraduate educations in the US.</p>
<p>“The college accepted 17 percent of its 5,540 applicants this spring, compared with 14 percent of 6,614 applicants in 2013.”</p>
<p>It’s not as if the acceptance rate shot up all that much. It’s still a very very selective school.</p>
<p>“Swarthmore will move to one supplemental essay next year, Bock said, and cap it at 250 words - half this year’s maximum.”</p>
<p>Applications will definitely increase for this admissions cycle. So maybe not the year to apply.</p>
<p>Not only the mis-handling of sexual assault cases, but also the reaction of a very vocal small minority of students on campus to certain speakers and speeches proved a field day for the press. Very bad press, and not unjustifiably. Of course, Jim Bock doesn’t want to mention that, but I believe those instances made quite an impact on applications. A number of parents mentioned that they were unhappy with the way some students on campus seemed to exert so much influence on invited speakers, a board of managers meeting, etc. Hopefully, a new President of Swat will be able to handle those type of situations better than the recently departed president. </p>
<p>College us also involved in an ugly town vs gown conflict with local residents over a liquor license for the proposed Inn. Booze is apparently a big thing for both students and alummni, big enough to take the residents to court, maybe a time of change at Swat although they are resisting strongly</p>
<p>Momof3sons, I was just thinking that of course the head of admissions will blame something like the number of essays. Swat has had some bad press lately, and word gets around.</p>
<p>speedo, I can’t really imagine that the proposed new inn has anything to do with a drop in applications at Swat.</p>
<p>So which essay will they keep and which will they drop?</p>
<p>It’s funny how a drop in apps is seen as something negative, now college are competing not just for the best or wealthiest students but also for the number of apps, in Swarthmores case it probably makes no difference, but apparently it does to them, since they are dropping an essay, wouldn’t it be better to have a system that generates the right apps rather than the most, save the admissions office a lot of time anyway</p>
<p>I agree that a new president is a very good thing. The outgoing (out-gone now) one was ineffectual in her role. I also would tend to think that prospective students (who I would hope are the ones making decisions on which applications to complete) are far more influenced by two (long) essays than commencement speakers and (seriously?) a local tussle over a liquor license.</p>
<p>Is it odd that Swarthmore states the quality of applicants remains very high, but they still feel a need to increase applications? Is that a worry over rankings? About a year ago, an error in federal data made nearby Haverford experience a precipitous drop in some rankings. Haverford chose to not fuss about it, not even publishing any disclaimer. Seemed to me a sign of quiet, self-confidence for Haverford.</p>
<p>Just odd that they acted so quickly on the apps drop, but were so resistant on the sexual harrassment complaints and the drinking issues with the boro, goes to show what’s important at Swat I guess.</p>
<p>Speedo, this isn’t really news. Acted quickly would have been April. What we don’t know is how long they have been considering the change. It’s possible that it has been planned for a while.</p>
<p>The entire discussion is incredibly interesting, as it asks questions about the process that are objectively impossible to answer. What’s selectivity? Do you eliminate possible excellent candidates because your process is more onerous? If your admitted class has the same credentials either way, are you doing everyone in the college admissions process a disservice by making your application easier?</p>
<p>The Common app is the primary reason people carpet-bomb the admissions offices of selective schools. Would Stanford be the most selective school on the planet if they added 3 essays next year? Statistically it would harm the school, as the 10,000 kids who never had a chance wouldn’t waste the $60…because it was too difficult, but the quality of the kids might actually improve as the school would have improved data to decide with.</p>
<p>The fact that Boston College suffered a 26% decrease two years ago after adding essays shows the fickle nature of applicants. Years ago, people had a good idea of where they wanted to go when they applied to 3 or 4 schools. With so many possible outcomes, the schools now have admitted student days to help those with numerous choices decide. </p>
<p>I’ve often wondered if the Ivy’s should hold a draft, or a matching system. Let every kid apply to all 8 at once, with a prioritization list of 1 through 4. Each school then gets a shot at those who listed them first, then second, etc. Schools and students could be “forced together” for pure matches (first choices) with later round kids given a choice. After all four schools have selected, they could offer spots to anyone else they choose. </p>
<p>It’s a big game…so let’s fix the rules and play fair. I don’t think swarthmore should reduce essays. It will obfuscate the real issues that may have caused the decline. </p>
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<p>Which might be the point.</p>
<p>I think @EyeVeee’s comment is spot on. </p>
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<p>“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture</p>
<p>The cited article begins by claiming that Bock attributes the entire decline to the essays:
This statement by the author seems hard to credit given the subsequent mention of other factors by Bock. </p>
<p>Alas, Bock did not bring up the handling of sexual assaults or student activism. As has been mentioned in this forum previously, there was an ill wind blowing through campus during the 2012-13 academic year. Visitors were met with signs telling them that their tour guide may be a rapist. Tour groups were yelled at by activists. There was none of this during 2013-14 academic year. </p>
<p>The filing of the Title IX complaint was a positive step. It appears that Swarthmore has responded appropriately. For starters, Tom Elverson was fired. A Title IX coordinator has been hired. Here is a list of some other steps taken: <a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/sexual-assault-and-harassment-resources/action-steps”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/sexual-assault-and-harassment-resources/action-steps</a>. </p>
<p>The good news is that there will be a new president within a year. Moveover, the Board has shown that it will not necessarily kowtow to the demands of small interest groups. This leaves me optimistic. Finaly, lost in all this is the fact that one can get a great education at Swarthmore. </p>
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Your guess leaves out many factors. As EyeVeee noted, we do not know how long the change in the number of essays has been under consideration. I happen to think that Swarthmore should have acted long ago, but once they started to act, it took time to get the ship turned around. As noted above, there were hirings, firings, departures and other changes. It is silly to look at the time needed to make a change and use that as the sole measure of importance of an issue. </p>
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You must not have much experience with town-gown conflicts if you consider this one “ugly.” This is a cakewalk compared to the ones my institution has been involved in. Having said that, I believe you will find that it was a resident who sued to block the liquor license application. Swarthmore had no cause to sue residents. Finally, in addition to housing visitors, the inn will be used for conferences and similar academic events. It is common to have a small reception at the end of a conference program with hors d’oeuvres and wine. It is impractical to make such receptions BYOB. And the only students who were vocal about the project tried to block it. </p>
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<p>My short answer is “No.” If colleges could admit a better class using a two-minute brain scan or a blood test, so be it. There is also the question of how much one learns from a second or third essay. There are so many essay-writing camps and editorial services that specialize in helping students write that it is not clear how much one learns from the essays. I happen to think that a single essay that is unique to the college can be useful, but beyond that there are real tradeoffs. The admissions officers can give much more attention to a single 250-word essay than two 500-word essays. This may be a case where less is more. </p>
<p>The important thing is that Swarthmore is not changing standards. If they were messing with the honors program, say, that would be cause for concern, but they are just changing the application. </p>
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<p>I have often wondered the same. Similar schemes are in use in Boston and New York to assign students to public schools. Al Roth and Lloyd Shapley won a Nobel prize for their work on such matching schemes. They have been used for years to match medical students to residencies. </p>
<p>In the United Kingdom, students are only allowed to apply to 5 Universities/Colleges and if they wish to be considered for Oxbridge can only apply to one or the other, none of this applying to 10, 15.<br>
I just heard one of my DS14 HS students applied to 47 colleges, crazy!, imagine the number of essays for her, she got accepted to 5 colleges! She didn’t apply to Swarthmore. </p>
<p>Coase, I think you missed the intent of my comment. If Swarthmore can get 400 applications that generate the 400 students they want, doing anything to create (in theory) artificial selectivity only harms everyone else in the process unnecessarily. The rejected students, the parents paying for the application, the other schools who feel compelled to fight increased selectivity by dropping their application rigor. There is no winner in chasing a selectivity metric so long as you are attracting and delivering the students you want to campus.</p>
<p>I believe the applications that weren’t sent to Swarthmore this year were nearly all rejections. Kids who deep down knew they wouldn’t get in, just didn’t bother this year (given all of the other reasons expressed here).</p>
<p>At 17% acceptance, I think dropping the essay only hurts people…so long as the class of 2018 is every bit as strong as the class of 2017, etc. The fact that BC added essays to “trim the fat” and “lost” 26% of their applicants seems like a intelligent, fair decision. Taken to an extreme, would the Ivies be less desirable if they each required 10 essays? If the applications took 20 hours each to complete, I would argue the same 10,000 (or so) kids would still end up at those 8 schools…but you wouldn’t have a news story about a kid getting into all 8. They would have strategically identified the best fit (or fits) early. </p>