rejected 
valedictorian 6 APs all advanced classes 1470 sat 790 math II. All 4s on APs (world history, calc, physics, lang) over 500 hours of volunteer. lots of ECs good essays. no legacy, in state, trilingual and multi racial. disappointed and just a bit confused waitlisted at haverford.
Hi! I’m a current junior at Swat, if any of u need any advice let me know!!
HI, Thank you for the kind offer. I am curious to hear: how flexible is the curriculum, how many required classes you have to take?
Also, rumor has it Swarthmore is super stressful and competitive. Is that true?
Given the current situation, I suspect they will accept more than usual off the waitlist. Many who may have been able to afford Swat at full price normally will not be able to now and will select cheaper schools (small business owners are taking a major hit.) I also suspect that the waitlist will not be very needs blind at all.
Is the waitlist usually need blind? Why would it be any different?
It shouldn’t be but I suspect that movement off the WL will not be need blind since they need to move quickly once they have spots to fill.
Denied.
White Male
33 ACT
4.0 unweighted GPA
6 AP’s
2 Varsity Sports
Class President
@sonataB No problem! Sorry for the late reply, I didn’t get a notification. Compared to all my other college friends, I feel like I’ve had a lot of freedom in the classes I’ve had to take. Our main graduation requirement is taking 3 sciences, 3 social sciences and 3 humanities (and AP/IB credits will count) along with a PE requirement. Because I’m a bio major and a psych minor (that covered the sciences and social sciences right away).
I don’t enjoy humanities a lot but there’s so many opportunities like art courses, religion, English, or any other language (I’d already taken 5 years of Spanish so I chose not to go that route - some schools still require u to do foreign language but Swat will not force u as long as u have done 4 years or classes in high school). I had one AP credit for English then I took one English class, and I actually still have my 3rd humanities requirement left which I think I’m going to satisfy by taking either ceramics or photography during my senior year. So hopefully this shows how much freedom you have because we don’t have like specific gen Eds that all freshmen have to take, etc.
I have never felt that it was too competitive tbh (even less so than I was in high school, if anything, people are competing with themselves to get better), but it is stressful because Swarthmore is hard but it’s not impossible. You earn your way in and there’s a bit of a learning curve (so the pass/fail semester really helps) but as long as you don’t have a terrible professor, everyone is bound to do decent or well if you’re taking a course you are really good in! 
Thank you so much for your reply! Extremely helpful! My D was accepted to Swat, Amherst, Williams, Hamilton, Kenyon and Smith. Deciding really whether to go with the open curriculum or not. This helps.
@sonataB: Based on your daughter’s acceptances, you might enjoy viewing this Forbes article:
(Then it’s probably best disregarded as inconsequential to your daughter’s final decision.)
@sonataB I do think an open curriculum sounds better than a core curriculum, but what Swat has is not core/closed at all! Plus, if ur going to go a liberal arts college, then you should at least be influenced by the college to take classes in many fields like I’ve taken History, Cog Sci, Bio, Chem, Biochem, Physics, Math, Stats, English, Education, Anthro, and will be taking Art, Astro, Econ, Religion in the future etc (with the most freedom in senior year and a semester abroad) so u can see the curriculum at Swat is not problematic. I chose Swat over Williams bc the location is really important, like the amount of internships and connections I’ve had at hospitals in philly/penn as a pre-med student is crazy. The location overall is more enjoyable too!
Choose a college based on something other than the curriculum, bc all those schools provide a great education.
So, her top choice at this point is Smith. As much as we can go with our gut over the internet …her gut tells her Smith.
@sonataB: The internet aside, your daughter’s acceptance list is the best I’ve seen on CC this year — partly because of the inherent qualities of the schools themselves, and partly because of the clarity of preference your daughter has expressed in their selection.
Thank you! I am very proud of her and I trust her gut 
Ironically she did not get into her original top choice - Vassar - her only rejection. Thankfully they released their decision last, she had almost a week to fall in love with Smith before finding out about Vassar. In the end, Vassar made it easy for her, she did not have to decide between Vassar and Smith.