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<p>Oh, I’m very well aware of how incredibly talented Swarthmore diverse student body is.</p>
<p>I am also very well aware that, if you want high SAT averages, you enroll a higher percentage of rich white students and a lower percentage of first-generation college students and minority students. One of the big complaints about SATs is that they correlate so strongly with ethnicity and family income. It’s no big secret.</p>
<p>Again, Swarthmore is one of the most diverse elite colleges on the East coast. It actually is, I believe, **the **most diverse co-ed college or university in the northeast. Its diversity percentages are even higher than Harvard’s, the most diverse Ivy. I simply reject the notion that you can make valid comparisons between Swarthmore and other liberal arts colleges without starting with the diversity statistics. This is a definiing characteristic of Swarthmore College in the 21st century and it impacts almost every aspect of the College. I personally think it’s one of Swarthmore’s great strengths, but I understand how it’s not going to be everybody’s cup of tea. For example, Swarthmore seems less “preppy” than Haverford or Davidson because it **is **less preppy. It seems less “white” than Haverford because it **is **much less white. For example, it is 17% Asian American compared to 10% at Haverford. 7% international compared to 3%.</p>