9 wk grades for ED 1

interesteddad
Wed, 07 Dec 2005 00:00:10 +0000

megblum has the whole package. High class rank, high test scores, governor’s program in her state, several solid ECs, and an unusually interesting experience - several years of sitting on a teen court for juvenile offenders. Demonstrating strong preference for Swarthmore with an ED application. Stop right there and I figure she’s probably in. Now factor in third-generation, quadruple-legacy at a school that is defined by its long-standing “culture”. How would Jim Bock explain not accepting her to a bunch of justifiably furious alumni? “Sorry, she just wasn’t qualified?” “We just had too many strong early decision applicants from Kentucky this year?”



In Moongirl’s case, start with the premise that enrolling very highly qualified African-American students is the most difficult challenge for elite colleges. The applicant pool is small and the competition for those applicants is fierce. 12% of the acceptances Swarthmore mailed for this year’s class went to Af-Am applicants, but by the time the competition all settled out in June and they’d lost some to Harvard and others to big merit aid bidding wars, they had only enrolled 6.7% of the class. Early decision is guaranteed yield. So, anytime you can fill a hard-to-fill slot ED, you bend over backwards to do it.

Moongirl has a strong application. She is in the top 4% class rank of large public high school in Georgia (I’m guessing something along the lines of N. Druid Hills, etc. with a pretty competitive student body) and a 4.0 unweighted GPA. That’s strong. Her test scores are also high – in the top 1% of all Af-Am SAT takers nationally. Remember, test scores are evaluated in context. If you are a white kid with two MIT parents, you will be expected to have higher test scores than a first generation college applicant and so and so forth. Even without that, Moongirl’s SATS are higher than about a third of the students who will end up in Swat’s freshman class next year.

ECs are OK, including political involvement and mentoring in an elementary school. Invited to and attended Discovery Weekend. I’m guessing that as Jim Bock looks forward to the work involved in yielding applicants from this group come April, the opportunity to fill a slot ED will carry the day. Remember, from Bock’s perspective, the operative question in ED is, “when all is said and done June 1st, can I fill all my slots with stronger applicants from the RD round than this one?”

That’s how I see it. Again, I’m just an armchair QB and I could be dead wrong. But, I like both Moongirl’s and megblum’s chances. Strong transcript and a hook is a good combo.