I am going to welcome Mr. Alexis Monteith, our social media influencer, to the Versan family. Though Mrs. Buchanan has been around for a while, we officially welcome her too as a teamplayer at Versan. We thank Navardo Walker for being a true Versaner, our teachers for the incredible work they do every term, our cleaning staff for trying desperately to keep us COVID free, to John, our blog designer who went through horrible fires in California, to the Versan team in Mobay, just getting off on their new legs, lots of gratitude to them all...and our thousands of students out there in college, fighting the battle...especially, our Pearce Smith, who is undoubtedly one of the rare sons of Versan...along with Joshua, of course.

EXAMS

Get registered.

APPLICATIONS

You have until October 31-Nov 5 to complete.

WHY?

All consultations from that point on will be online and no longer physical. You need face to face contact? These are your remaining last days.

DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE RESEARCH ON COLLEGES/SCHOOLS/UNIVERSITIES

If not, you may be unpleasantly surprised....

See notices below.....Until next week...oh, the books are coming.

Dear College Advisors and School Counselors, We all need a little more flexibility this year. As such, we have decided to extend our Early Decision 1 application deadline to Tuesday, November 17, 2020. For so many students, the disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and by natural and environmental disasters, have been extraordinary. In many parts of the U.S. and the world, the school year started several weeks later than usual. We know from talking to counselors this fall that many students have had less access to college advisors than usual, interrupting their usual college planning process. And anxiety about access to standardized testing continues to grow. The decision of whether to apply to any university via a binding Early Decision plan is a big one. We want students and families to have the time they need to determine whether Early Decision 1 is the best option for them when applying to Tufts University. We believe the additional two-and-a-half weeks will allow students to more confidently submit their applications, coordinate submitting supporting credentials, and request and receive an optional alumni interview if they so choose. As a reminder, Tufts proudly meets 100% of the demonstrated financial need of all admitted students, regardless of citizenship. We are also confident that our team can evaluate each applicant’s candidacy in our holistic and contextual review process with this new deadline, and still release decisions in mid-December. The fine print: Early Decision 1

• Admissions Applications due by November 17, 2020 • Financial Aid Applications due by November 20, 2020 • Supporting credentials (transcript, recommendations, etc.) due as soon as possible • Decisions released in mid-December

Early Decision 2 and Regular Decision

• Admissions Applications due by January 1, 2021 • Financial Aid Applications due by January 15 for ED2, February 3 for RD • Decisions released in mid-February (ED2) and by April 1 (RD)

A note about our test-optional policy: At the time that students submit their application, they are asked to indicate their choice about whether or not to include SAT or ACT scores in the review of their application. The choice they indicate on their application is final. For that reason, we strongly encourage students to choose not to include SAT and ACT scores in their application review if they have not yet received their scores. Alternatively, students who think they will want us to include scores in their application evaluation should wait to submit their application until they have access to those scores. We will only include SAT and ACT scores in our evaluation of candidates who indicate that choice on their application, whether or not scores are available to us. Students may self-report their scores on their application or self-report them via a form available in their applicant portal after their application has been submitted if they have requested test scores to be part of their application review. Students are not advantaged in our process if they submit SAT or ACT test scores. Test-optional really does mean test-optional. The weight of our application review for all students rests on a holistic and contextual evaluation of all pieces of the application. For guidance on our mid-50% test ranges for admitted students this past year, check out our Class of 2024 profile. Finally, we have received many questions from students and counselors about whether and/or how to use the ‘community disruptions’ prompt on this year’s college applications. Students may do as they please, but here is our general advice. Thank you for all you are doing to support students and families this year. If there’s anything our team can do to support you this fall, please let us know. Sincerely, JT Duck Dean of Admissions

Dear Sandra, We hope you and your loved ones are staying healthy and safe. Now that we have begun the fall semester, we wanted to share some information about our application review process, how we will be evaluating students in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how we are supporting Swarthmore students this fall. We hope that this will provide context for the work that you are doing to support students through this process. Application Deadline Change In order to better serve students, families, and counselors, we have decided to move our Winter Early Decision and Regular Decision deadlines to January 4, 2021. We hope this will allow students more time after the winter holidays to submit their applications. Our Fall Early Decision deadline (November 15) is remaining the same. As always, we will accept supplemental documents, such as school transcripts, after the deadline for admission. Test-Optional Policy For students applying to Swarthmore in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 admissions cycles, we have suspended our requirement that applicants submit SAT or ACT scores. Students will be able to report previous testing as part of their application process, if they wish. Until now, students could not report the results of their PSAT or PreACT. They will now be able to do so, along with results of any SAT, ACT, AP exams, or IB exams. Students who either did not take a test or choose not to share results with us will not be penalized in the admissions process. This policy will apply to all applicants including domestic and international students, first-year applicants and transfers, and students attending public and private schools and homeschooled applicants. For more information regarding our test-optional policy, please see our Test-Optional Policy Update on our Information for Counselors page. Context-Based Evaluation Swarthmore reads applications through a committee-based, contextual and holistic admissions process. We take into account what opportunities and resources students have had access to, high school curricula, geographic location, family background, and cultural identity. This contextual evaluation is even more important this year. We understand that extracurriculars may look different, or not be available at all, this year. Transcripts may look different as students had to adjust to learning from home this past spring and many schools changed their grading policies. Context is crucial to our evaluation of a student’s application, and we will pay even more attention this year to ensure we consider the full context of each student’s background, experiences, and opportunities in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. If a student wishes to share any additional context with us, they may do so in the new COVID-related questions on the Common Application or Coalition Application. They may also include information in the “Additional Information” section available in the Common Application, Coalition Application, and Questbridge Application. You can read more about how we evaluate applications and what we are looking for in potential Swatties on our Apply to Swarthmore page. Textbook Affordability Program Swarthmore remains committed to equity and inclusion for all students, whether or not they will be on campus this fall. For the 2020-2021 academic year, Swarthmore has introduced a Textbook Affordability Program. Through this initiative, the cost of tuition now includes a $700 allowance for all students to help cover the cost of required course materials. Students can use this allowance to purchase textbooks from our Campus & Community Store and cover the cost of shipping textbooks for students not living on campus this fall. We hope this program will alleviate some of the hidden costs borne by many of our students and their families. Slate.org/Counselor Calls This year, the Swarthmore Admissions Office will not be holding school counselor calls before decision release in order to focus on better serving all students and counselors. After conducting internal analysis, we found that counselor calls were requested disproportionately by private and independent school counselors and rarely by public school counselors and college access advisors. Still, we understand why information related to applicant decisions is important to you. To ensure all school counselors have access to applicant-related information, we will launch our participation in Slate.org this year. This will allow counselors to view Swarthmore decisions after decisions have been released to students. We hope this provides valuable information to all school counselors. To register for Slate.org for free, school counselors can visit slate.org. Thank you for your hard work in supporting students as they explore their post-secondary options! Should you have questions, please feel free to reach out to your regional dean. We appreciate all that you do. Sincerely, Andrew Moe, Ed.D. Director of Admissions