Swarthmore acceptance rate and admissions statistics
Swarthmore admitted 977 of 12,995 first-year applicants in its 2025-26 Common Data Set, an official acceptance rate of 7.5%. Every number below comes from the college’s own Common Data Set, each year linked to its document; a figure the college leaves blank says “Not published”, and the notes at the foot of the page say where a total is the sum of rows the college printed.
What did admitted applicants have? How to get into Swarthmore counts the grades, scores and activities they posted.
Swarthmore acceptance rate by year
| CDS year | Applied | Admitted | Acceptance rate | Enrolled | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 12,995 | 977 | 7.5% | 426 | 43.6% |
| 2024-25 | 13,065 | 975 | 7.5% | 427 | 43.8% |
| 2023-24 | 14,287 | 992 | 6.9% | 415 | 41.8% |
Acceptance rate is admitted divided by applied; yield is enrolled divided by admitted. Both are computed by Aristo Scholars from the two counts printed beside them.
Early decision at Swarthmore
Swarthmore waitlist
Swarthmore SAT and ACT scores
What Swarthmore says matters in admission
In section C7 each college rates its own admission factors as Very Important, Important, Considered or Not Considered. These are the factors Swarthmore rated in the top two tiers.
- 2025-26
- Very important: Rigor of secondary school record, Class rank, Academic GPA, Application essay, Recommendations, Character/personal qualities
- Important: None recorded
- 2024-25
- Very important: Rigor of secondary school record, Class rank, Academic GPA, Application essay, Recommendations, Character/personal qualities
- Important: None recorded
- 2023-24
- Very important: Rigor of secondary school record, Class rank, Academic GPA, Application essay, Recommendations, Character/personal qualities
- Important: None recorded
Swarthmore testing policy for students applying in 2026-27
Test-optional for the 2026-27 cycle. Swarthmore has suspended its SAT/ACT requirement, so applicants may submit scores or suppress scores already sent.
From Swarthmore’s admissions site, read 2026-11-05. Policies change; the college’s page is the authority.
How these numbers were read
The 2025-26 and 2024-25 C1 total fields print 0, so those years' totals are the sums of the printed rows. C2 prints only the number admitted from the waitlist in each year.
Swarthmore acceptance rate questions
- What is the Swarthmore acceptance rate?
- Swarthmore's Common Data Set for 2025-26 reports 12,995 first-year applicants and 977 admitted, an acceptance rate of 7.5%. It was 7.5% in 2024-25 and 6.9% in 2023-24.
- What is the Swarthmore early decision acceptance rate?
- In 2025-26, 228 of 1,281 early decision applicants were admitted (17.8%), against 7.5% of all applicants. Early decision applicants are a different pool who commit to enroll, so the two rates are not a like-for-like comparison.
- What SAT scores do Swarthmore students have?
- In 2025-26, the middle half of enrolled first-year students who submitted the SAT scored 1480 to 1550, and ACT submitters scored 33 to 35. 40.1% of enrolled students submitted an SAT score.
- How many students get off the Swarthmore waitlist?
- In 2025-26, Swarthmore offered an unpublished number of applicants a place on the waitlist; the number who accepted is not published, and 14 were admitted from it.
- Does Swarthmore require the SAT or ACT for students applying in 2026-27?
- Test-optional for the 2026-27 cycle. Swarthmore has suspended its SAT/ACT requirement, so applicants may submit scores or suppress scores already sent.
Applying to Swarthmore?
An acceptance rate describes the whole pool, not one student. A Specialist can read your student’s file against what Swarthmore says it weighs.
Source: Swarthmore Common Data Set, sections C1, C2, C7, C9 and C21, each year linked above, read 2026-11-05. Aristo Scholars is not affiliated with Swarthmore. All official acceptance rates