Gaining admission to a top ranked SLAC

[Anonymous]

14:18 -- I'm a former college admissions officer and have gone through the admissions process with 3 kids. My hat is off to you for your pithy and insightful observations. Dude, you are so totally ready to write your own insider's guide to the SLACs. -- sign me -- mom of NESCAC bro (ITA very different from Duke bro)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:18 - that's probably not too far off. I have a lot of friends from Swat and they do tend to be geeky, sometimes insufferably so.

Your sizes are a little off, which I know only because I just looked at Williams and Middlebury for my DC (DC is not considering Swarthmore). Swarthmore is 1524, Williams is 2029 and Middlebury is 2532. Not sure when Middlebury became so large, I was surprised.

Yes you are right. I flipped them, sorry. Some more info to consider for all who are interested:

Regarding sizes for those interested, Pomona is actually smaller than Swat, but the same 'bubble' isn't as pronounced because it is literally next door to 4 other LAC's (Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna, Pitzer, and Scripps). Those 5 are really integrated and put together are like 5k undergrads. It genuinely is one big campus.

Swat does have a close relationship with Haverford and Bryn Mawr and as a Swattie you are allowed to cross register easily for Brwn Mawr and Haverford classes (a shuttle is run between the BM/H and S and it's like a 20-30 minute ride in the shuttle). However that relationship is not as close as the Claremont Colleges all have with each other. BM and Haveford have a very close relationship akin to the claremont colleges given their proximity to each other.

At Swat you can also cross register pretty easily with Penn, which gives you tons of course options (a lack of some courses is always used to knock LAC's compared to Ivy's); this was a big selling point for my sibling, however i hear the logistics in terms of getting from swat to penn (even though there is a septa pretty much at the doorstep of both campuses) is extremely annoying, especially for someone who has a lot of commitments outside of academics.

Swat also has a mutual domestic exchange program with Middlebury, Tufts, Pomona, Harvey Mudd, and one other school I think. This is like a domestic 'study abroad' that lets a student from each school move to the other for a semester or a whole year (that's how the Middlebury kid that wrote the op-ed about the differences between Swat and Middlebury administrators handling of on-campus underage drinking was able to experience Swat). However one thing to note, according to my sibling, is that Swat has suspended letting kids go to Pomona or HMC. The reason for this is because the relationship has supposedly been lopsided (i.e. more Swat kids are going to Pomona/HMC for a semester or a year compared to Pomona/HMC kids coming to Swat). Make of that what you will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:14:18 -- I'm a former college admissions officer and have gone through the admissions process with 3 kids. My hat is off to you for your pithy and insightful observations. Dude, you are so totally ready to write your own insider's guide to the SLACs. -- sign me -- mom of NESCAC bro (ITA very different from Duke bro)

Think lax bro/frat culture (even though they don't have frats). But I'd say that's pretty moderated by the fact that these are super smart kids who had to work really hard in HS to get to Williams or Middlebury. These aren't Duke level lax bros.

Very true. I did not mean to insinuate that Williams and Middlebury have a 'bro' culture like Duke or UVA. Only in comparison to Swat (though I guess compared to Swat virtually any school is more 'bro').

[Anonymous]

I didn't realize this but Amherst quite diverse as well, even moreso than Swa (statistically).

I don't know much about Amherst at all though so I can't tell you what it is like compared to Williams or Swat.

[Anonymous]

Amherst has been a leader in recognizing the need for greater economic diversity at top colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amherst has been a leader in recognizing the need for greater economic diversity at top colleges.

Between that and Amherst's big emphasis on sports recruiting, my white DD isn't going to bother applying, despite her like of Emily Dickinson. The admissions rate is already low, and it just doesn't seem like there are that many spaces left over.