For Immediate Release: September 8, 2006
Contact: Alisa Giardinelli
(610) 690-5717
http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/

Swarthmore College Opens Classes for 138th Year

The Class of 2010 began classes at Swarthmore this week as the College opened the 2006-2007 academic year, its 138th year of instruction.

The new class includes 194 women and 178 men for a total of 372 students.  Of the admitted students who come from high schools that report class rank, 20 percent were valedictorians or salutatorians, 42 percent were in the top two percent of their high school class, and 82 percent were in the top decile.

Swarthmore's new first-year class comes from an original pool of 4,852 applicants, of whom 19 percent were offered admission.

Of the domestic students in the Class of 2010, 12 percent identify themselves as African American/multiracial; 12 percent as Hispanic/Latina/o/multiracial; 17 percent as Asian American/multiracial.  One percent identify themselves as belonging in the category "Native American/Hawaiian/other."  Six percent of the class is made up of international students.

Forty-two states are represented in the Class of 2010, as well as the District of Columbia.  Members of the new class attended high school most frequently in Pennsylvania, followed closely by New York, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Texas, Georgia, and Maryland.

In addition, this year's incoming class includes 22 international citizens representing Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Ecuador, Ghana, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, People's Republic of China, Republic of Korea, and Turkey.

Sixty-five percent of the new students attended public high schools, 21 percent private independent schools, five percent parochial schools, and nine percent schools overseas.  The most popular anticipated major among the new freshmen is political science.  Next are English, biology, engineering, economics, physics, history, mathematics, philosophy, and chemistry.  As in years past, "undecided" is the biggest category.