Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I went to top Ivies. Honestly, we always thought of Swarthmore as a junior women's college -- like a Pine Manor for Quakers.

+1 I also thought it was a school for women.

You guys are poorly informed. It is not just an excellent school, but it was a co-ed school back when few of its peer institutions were co-ed. It has been a school for men and women since it was founded in 1864. Great grandparents went there.

Are you confusing it with Bryn Mawr? Skidmore?

I don't think LACs are "dying" (which would imply a decline in performance) moreso than other universities are climbing- especially those in urban areas. Schools like UChicago, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, USC, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, Tufts, Northeastern, and such are getting more desirable.

Students want large experiences in or near urban locations. The LACs which have seen the greatest increases in yield are Barnard (Columbia University consortium, NYC), Wellesley (MIT consortium, Boston), and Pomona (Claremont Consortium, LA). Swarthmore's perceived intensity and lack of use of the consortium undermines to prospective applicants the access to UPenn or Philadelphia.

But the yields and selectivity have remained consistent at Amherst, Bowdoin, Williams, Carleton, Swarthmore, and the like. That means there are always those who will enroll at these schools.

https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-research/AdmitYieldRatesChart.pdf

Swarthmore's yield has been ~40% for the past 17 years.

https://www.haverford.edu/sites/default/files/Office/President/Factbook-Admission-Stats.pdf

Haverford's yield has been ~40% as well.

Because the number of international students is going up, past year they went subject score optional, they've made essays optional or reduced their length, and/or they've upped marketing (Swarthmore is especially notorious for this)

Anonymous wrote:Top LACs are slowly dying. They are finding it very hard to compete with ivies as shown by their very low yields and every year there are tens and tens of top LAC students transferring into the ivies.

Then why are many like Amherst and Williams receiving record numbers of applications every year and their admissions rate keeps decreasing w/Swarthmore and Amherst now approaching single digits. Their yield numbers haven't dramatically changed in 20 years--they draw interest from kids who are applying to the Ivies and do lose many to the Harvards and Princetons of the world (but it has always been that way).

Anonymous wrote:Top LACs are slowly dying. They are finding it very hard to compete with ivies as shown by their very low yields and every year there are tens and tens of top LAC students transferring into the ivies.

You obviously don’t understand the appeal of LACs and that’s fine but why do you feel compelled to share your uninformed opinions with others?