Do I have any chance at Swarthmore?

[A.E]

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@dramatica

Thus in coming full circle on my earlier post, I still feel that USN&WR has been more of a hinderance than a help. You are correct that not all schools can be researched in depth. However, students and parents would be better served by researching other sources on the internet and libraries. For us, the directory of theaters was a good start. The colleges’ websites was the next step. There is a wealth of information that can be obtained from the websites of the colleges themselves, including the college’s own newspapers in order to narrow what schools to visit. Choosing where to apply on the basis of ranking, like many do, can lead to a miserable experience at a time when a child fortunate enough to live in this country, and able to go college, should be about to embark on the best years of his/her life.

I’m sure I agree with you here, but where does a 17 year old kid with straight As and perfect SATs begin? He has to learn about the existence of elite institutions and then learn their identities before he can visit their websites. A Google search will undoubtedly prove helpful, but it’s almost certain it will point to USN&WR rankings or to lists derived in some measure from them.</p>

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At the time that I was looking at colleges I lived in Maryland and that may have been a function of why I knew about Swarthmore since it was a school in a relatively close state.

Right, and there’s a good chance you had never heard of Pomona or Reed or other places far away from you. I know that was the case for my dad. Colleges had far more regional student bodies back then. The people I know in my dad’s generation who went to Swarthmore were either from the region (Pennsylvania or a bordering state) or were Quakers.</p>

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@johnwesley

Well, thank you for clarifying your point. Now you’ve gone from simply endorsing their methodology to crediting USNews for the existence of every other source book on college admissions. That’s pure speculation on your part. You have no idea what might have been put in place but for USNews’ occupying the field. It also begs the question whether encouraging waves of applicants to focus on the same dozen or so colleges and universities is even a good thing?

Are straw man arguments tolerated at some top liberal arts institutions? Because that’s what you have here, and I doubt it would fly in even the lowliest of PDCs at Swarthmore. All I said is that USN&WR helped create, or at least expand, the elite college market and helped solidify in the minds of American high schoolers what elite colleges are. It has irrevocably altered the landscape of higher education, for better or for worse. Are you really going to argue against that?</p>