woah

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
1

<p>I don't know if other people know this, but US News has ranked Swarthmore to be #1 in selectivity. Wow</p>

<p>I'm so honored now to get in early</p>

<p>Wow</p>

<p>But why me?</p>

2

<p>Are you serious?! ...that's pretty awesome!</p>

<p>Could you put a link up please?</p>

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<p>sure</p>

<p><a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/swarthmore-college%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.answers.com/topic/swarthmore-college&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>look under the Academics section</p>

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<p>Actually, I think that may have been last year's "selectivity" rank. The current list has Harvey Mudd as #1 in selectivity, followed by Swarthmore, Amherst, Pomona tied at #2. That rating is driven mostly by median SAT scores. Mudd's SATs have gone through the roof. Swarthmore's have been high forever, and haven't really changed in quite a few years.</p>

<p>I think it's splitting hairs. Those colleges, along with several other LACs, are very difficult to get into. Which is harder depends on the individual student and the fit with what each school is looking for.</p>

<p>I hear ya, though. My daughter first visited Swarthmore the summer before her junior year. She came home raving. I knew of the school generally speaking, but not in any detail. So I looked up the selectivity in USNEWS (it was #1 selectivity at the time) to see if she even had a chance and said exactly the same thing, "woah". Shortly thereafter, I said, "Have you thought about any safety schools?" Nearly four years later, having gotten in, and enjoying Swat, she is still pinching herself to see if it's true.</p>

<p>As for the overall rankings, Swat, Amherst and Williams have all held the #1 spot about equally over the 25 of years of the USNEWS rankings. It's all a game. USNEWS changes up the weighting in the rankings every few years just to scramble the top handful of schools and generate some interest. Nobody would buy the new ranking issue otherwise. Swat and Amherst took turns swapping the top spot in the late 1990s and early 2000's. It's been Williams' turn for the last few years. I think it's possible to have an individual preference, but I don't see how you could say that any of the top schools are inherently "better" in some overall sense than the others.</p>