<p>So, your niece is an early write, and your daughter might get some sort of legacy credit for having her older cousin go there (I’m assuming she did actually go there, seeing as how she was ED). I’m not sure if these two qualify as legitimate counterexamples to the presence of Tufts Syndrome at Swarthmore. Not to mention, even with Tufts Syndrome, it’s not like they’re going to turn away 100% of overqualified applicants. They’re just going to be extremely selective about them, rejecting those that aren’t very likely to choose Swarthmore despite having “better” options.</p>
<p>I have to imagine there is some form of of the Pareto Principle at work with regards to acceptance of overqualified applicants at a place like Swarthmore. They can probably use some heuristics to determine which of their applicants with extremely good stats are likely to actually matriculate if accepted and which aren’t. It wouldn’t surprise me if 20% of the overqualified students would represent 80% of those who actually chose to attend if they were all given acceptance letters, and that 20% can be categorized via careful evaluation of admissions material.</p>