Uddated Factbook

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
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<p>Looks like the Swarthmore Institutional Research department updated most of the Factbook statistical pages this week to include the Fall 2005 data:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/factbook2.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/factbook2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This link takes you to a ton of current and historical data.</p>

<p>Just from a brief perusal, only a few items really jump out. Obviously the admissions data changed this year with a reduction in acceptance rate and an increase in yield. Math and Verbal SATs stayed the same.</p>

<p>The item that stood out more was a significant increase in four-year graduation rate, which increased to what I think is an all-time high of 90.8% for the class of 2005. This is about a 5% jump over each of the two prior years and an 8% jump over the 4-year rates published in USNEWS in the two most recent editions (Class of '01 and '02).</p>

<p>Interestingly, the jump for the Class of '05 corresponds to the first class of freshmen arriving at Swarthmore after the decision to drop football. </p>

<p>By comparison, there was a two-year dip in 4-year grad rates for the Class of '01 and '02, students who would have been in their third and fourth years when the very controversial decision to drop football was made.</p>

<p>Here's the historical data:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/GradRates.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/GradRates.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>IDad,
Boy, that jump in the 4 year graduation "jumped" out at me. It's a significant increase over not just the past few years, but the past many years. Hopefully, the trend will continue! Of course, I will be very interested to see if the class of '05's graduation numbers continue to steadily increase over the next two years.
Thanks for posting these links.</p>

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<p>I think the context is a steadily increasing graduation rate at high-end colleges overall. A hypothesis is that the decision to drop football, a very unpopular decision among some students, caused a short-term reversal of that trend at Swarthmore. Only time will tell.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the info....</p>

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<p>That 90.8% four-year graduation rate is a very high number. Only 4 LACs and 16 universities from the USNEWS Tier 1 lists (225 schools) have a published 6-year grad rate equal to or above 90.8%.</p>

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<p>Man, these stats are amazing.</p>

<p>It makes me feel better about my D getting waitlisted originally in the 2000 bunch. Tough crowd. And 2005 was mighty tough too, if Andi is checking this out!!</p>