Anonymous
05/19/2025 17:09
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:They need flexibility for athletic recruits and other institutional priorities. Swarthmore admits a very high percentage of non-white/Asian and FGLI students.
Swarthmore doesn't need more flexibility for athletic recruits than Ivies, Stanford, and other schools that have reinstated standardized test scores, so I don't think this is the reason.
It might be. I have a kid in the middle of the academic D3 recruiting process for baseball, and we’ve been told that MIT and Swat have been known not to be willing to recruit kids with scores and grades that don’t fit the schools’ overall profile. Maybe Swat is looking for some wiggle room on that.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 17:02
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:They need flexibility for athletic recruits and other institutional priorities. Swarthmore admits a very high percentage of non-white/Asian and FGLI students.
Swarthmore doesn't need more flexibility for athletic recruits than Ivies, Stanford, and other schools that have reinstated standardized test scores, so I don't think this is the reason.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 17:00
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It seems all SLACs are TO now.
What is the application strategy? Which lacs are most friendly to high scorers?
They all still report submitted SAT scores, so high scores are still beneficial.
+1 and if you are white or Asian, not FGLI, they are still essential. But high-achieving white and Asian students are not an institutional priority, as their data makes clear. Really not worth an ED application for those kids at this point.
+1
Yes, not worth ED to these SLACs.
If the number of applications is capped by your high school then you may be reluctant to apply to too many LACs due to the much smaller number of admits.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 16:55
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:SLACs have no choice. In this day and age they need as many applicants as they can get. Especially for liberal arts colleges, requiring high SAT's would destroy supply of applicants.
I'm fairly certain that Swarthmore has no shortage of applicants. You are probably right with regard to most other SLACs, but Swarthmore, Amherst, Williams, and Pomona will not be facing a shortage of qualified applicants anytime in our lifetimes.
There are about 20 SLACS with acceptance rates of 20% or less and at least 25 with rates under 30%. None of them will have any shortage of applicants in the foreseeable future. They are more likely to have increasing application rates as the damage done by the current administration to universities becomes clear.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 16:48
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:They need flexibility for athletic recruits and other institutional priorities. Swarthmore admits a very high percentage of non-white/Asian and FGLI students.
This is the real reason (plus the very bad optics of potentially being the only top SLAC that’s test required). Swarthmore recruits more first-gen than any other SLAC I am aware of. Posters assuming the real reason for this decision is a lack of correlation between academic performance in college and students’ SATs are drinking the Kool-Aid.
In fact, it is more revealing than anything that Swat put off this decision for so long: the correlation must be huge — or they would not have even considered it.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 16:47
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:SLACs have no choice. In this day and age they need as many applicants as they can get. Especially for liberal arts colleges, requiring high SAT's would destroy supply of applicants.
This is just nonsense. The top 25 SLACS all have acceptance rates under 20% with more than a couple under 10%. And score submission is going up as well.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 16:40
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Just receive an email from Bowdoin this morning. I can't copy the image here, but basically the email is about:
"What we look for in a college application:"
Academics (white color); Heart (light blue color); Income (orange); Test scores (Green).
The image shows a bar chart with half in white color, and another half in light blue.
My takeaway is that yes you can still submit the scores to Bowdoin, but no they are not going to consider it.
They definitely are still considering scores for those who send. I got the same email. The graphic is just intended to be eye-catching.
Bowdoin has been TO for a long time. Nevertheless at our affluent NJ public HS in the past five years no one has gotten in with a score below 1500. So it seems like when you’re coming from a school like ours, good scores are needed.
Also in NJ here and we've had great kids go to Bowdoin too but definitely some athletes and legacies who didn't submit scores (and didn't get above 1500). That's how it works.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 16:38
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:Just receive an email from Bowdoin this morning. I can't copy the image here, but basically the email is about:
"What we look for in a college application:"
Academics (white color); Heart (light blue color); Income (orange); Test scores (Green).
The image shows a bar chart with half in white color, and another half in light blue.
My takeaway is that yes you can still submit the scores to Bowdoin, but no they are not going to consider it.
Why do you say these things? They report that test scores are considered in their CDS.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 16:33
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:It seems all SLACs are TO now.
What is the application strategy? Which lacs are most friendly to high scorers?
They all still report submitted SAT scores, so high scores are still beneficial.
+1 and if you are white or Asian, not FGLI, they are still essential. But high-achieving white and Asian students are not an institutional priority, as their data makes clear. Really not worth an ED application for those kids at this point.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 16:26
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:SLACs have no choice. In this day and age they need as many applicants as they can get. Especially for liberal arts colleges, requiring high SAT's would destroy supply of applicants.
Yes, because God forbid their admissions rate goes from 7% up to 20% with fewer applicants.
+1. This is a big mistake
Anonymous
05/19/2025 16:24
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:"Twenty-seven percent of the admitted students are among the first generation in their family to attend college. A total of 27% are affiliated with local, national, and international community-based organizations such as A Better Chance (ABC), College Match, EducationUSA, Gear Up, Lenfest Scholars Foundation, Matriculate, Heights Philadelphia, Open Dreams, Our Moon Education, TeenSharp, and QuestBridge."
One third of Swarthmore admits are FGLI. I applaud the school for doing the right thing.
Purely from a strategy point of view, it's better for a regular unhook Asian applicant to apply to national universities rather than SLAC such as Swarthmore. The lacs are already really small. With 1/3 spots to FGLI, the chances for a regular unhook Asian applicant is much smaller.
They still want the diversity provided by Asian applicants.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 15:34
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:Just receive an email from Bowdoin this morning. I can't copy the image here, but basically the email is about:
"What we look for in a college application:"
Academics (white color); Heart (light blue color); Income (orange); Test scores (Green).
The image shows a bar chart with half in white color, and another half in light blue.
My takeaway is that yes you can still submit the scores to Bowdoin, but no they are not going to consider it.
They definitely are still considering scores for those who send. I got the same email. The graphic is just intended to be eye-catching.
Bowdoin has been TO for a long time. Nevertheless at our affluent NJ public HS in the past five years no one has gotten in with a score below 1500. So it seems like when you’re coming from a school like ours, good scores are needed.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 15:23
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:This is interesting. Swarthmore was holding out on this decision and "looking at data" (per its admissions office) because first semester grades are pass/fail and they were looking at correlation between scores and grades of incoming students. Just last week they were saying they might require standardized tests for the next admissions cycle, which would have made them the only selective liberal arts school to do so. They've now announced they are test optional, suggesting there is little/no correlation between grades of incoming students who submitted scores and those who didn't.
Standardized testing is overrated.
Not a big deal.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 15:19
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
"Twenty-seven percent of the admitted students are among the first generation in their family to attend college. A total of 27% are affiliated with local, national, and international community-based organizations such as A Better Chance (ABC), College Match, EducationUSA, Gear Up, Lenfest Scholars Foundation, Matriculate, Heights Philadelphia, Open Dreams, Our Moon Education, TeenSharp, and QuestBridge."
One third of Swarthmore admits are FGLI. I applaud the school for doing the right thing.
Purely from a strategy point of view, it's better for a regular unhook Asian applicant to apply to national universities rather than SLAC such as Swarthmore. The lacs are already really small. With 1/3 spots to FGLI, the chances for a regular unhook Asian applicant is much smaller.
One third of Swarthmore admits are FGLI. I applaud the school for doing the right thing.
Purely from a strategy point of view, it's better for a regular unhook Asian applicant to apply to national universities rather than SLAC such as Swarthmore. The lacs are already really small. With 1/3 spots to FGLI, the chances for a regular unhook Asian applicant is much smaller.
Anonymous
05/19/2025 14:27
Subject: Swarthmore officially test optional for rising seniors
Anonymous wrote:It seems all SLACs are TO now.
What is the application strategy? Which lacs are most friendly to high scorers?
Harvey Mudd.