Chances and a few questions...

itsrainingpants
Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:56:53 +0000

antisthenes-
I was in the same position as you a year ago. I discovered Swat a bit after my deferral from Columbia, and I applied RD sometime early in January. Applying here was one of the best things I did senior year.
A note about the place based on what you said about yourself- You may or may not have the notion that Swat holds your hand. It is not a supportive, “type B” place. As a West Coaster on my hall put it, no one here is “chill”. Many people are just socially awkward. Although Swatties do not do things for the sake of a transcript or because it is something to do, they are a generally intense and involved bunch. Social and political activism is pretty strong here, as is community service. Academics can be competitive, particularly the sciences. The workload is rough, no matter how tough a high school you attended. But the level of discourse is just awesome- I’ve had some of the most intellectually meaningful conversations of my life at random times. Everyone here has a lot of depth.
Also, I recommend that you think long and hard about applying Winter ED. I don’t know how long you’ve known about Swarthmore or how much you know about it, but Winter ED can be a rash move. I have a friend who was deferred from Princeton early, applied Winter ED to Swarthmore, was accepted and ended up hating it and dropped out after a month. He’s now applying to Georgetown. It sounds like you might like Swarthmore, so I totally think you should apply, but you might not want such a binding contract after applying ED somewhere else…who knows, you might end up getting accepted by Columbia in April.