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The Dartmouth
March 28, 2024 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

1,100 prospective students visit for Dimensions

Prospective students watched members of the Class of 2018 perform songs, dances and skits Thursday evening.
Prospective students watched members of the Class of 2018 perform songs, dances and skits Thursday evening.

The third session of Dimensions of Dartmouth — the College’s prospective students programming — ended this Friday, with total of about 1,100 prospective students attending the three sessions. This number is roughly equal to the number who visited last year, which director of admissions Paul Sunde said is noteworthyconsidering the fact that the College admitted about 100 fewer students than last year.

Reflecting on the past few weeks, Dimensions co-director Rosie Mahoney ’17 said that she think Dimensions this year successfully established a solid connection between current and prospective students. Though there were some changes in the composition of Dimensions, Mahoney said that the changes themselves did not determine the quality of the prospective students’ experiences at the College.

“It’s [Dimensions], not the traditions, that make prospective students choose Dartmouth,” she said. “It’s just getting a taste of Dartmouth itself.”

Prospective member of the Class of 2019 Deborah Rheem, who attended the second Dimensions session, said that coming to Dimensions dispelled her preconceived notion that Hanover is too far removed from more populated areas.

“When I stepped on to campus, I really loved it,” she said. “Even though it is in rural area, I didn’t really feel that it was in out-of-nowhere, and I absolutely got a very cozy atmosphere out of it”

Sam Reed, another prospective student who attended the third session of Dimensions, said that the College’s campus is picturesque.

Though Rheem had heard that Dimensions can paint an unrealistic portrait of what attending Dartmouth is like, she found this to be untrue and she said that the programs and activities offered through Dimensions helped her understand various aspects of the College.

“I didn’t really know what everything was, like the D-Plan,” she said. “[Dimensions] has different activities that really covered different questions I had.”

Reed also said that he was glad that the programs at Dimensions enabled him to learn in greater detail about various courses, student groups and mentorship options available at the College.

He said that he wishes that Dimensions created more platforms for prospective students to interact with each other.

Rheem said that she wishes the prospective students who attended the first and second sessions of Dimensions were also able to watch the Dimensions show. She added that she thinks Dimensions could be improved by incorporating the entertainment and “fun” aspects of the third session into the first two.

Mahoney said that the composition of each Dimensions slightly differed from the others, with the last session being the longest. In the place of Dimensions show, the first and second Dimensions included “coffeehouse” events that enabled current and prospective students to interact.

As much as Dimensions plays a crucial role in reaching out to prospective students, Mahoney said that prospective students’ experience of visiting the College can be improved if more current students proactively reach out to the prospective students visiting campus.

Sunde said that first-year students’ feedback on Dimensions is crucial for improving the following year’s Dimensions.

For the future, Sunde said that Dimensions will develop a more flexible time frame so that more students can come at their convenience after receiving acceptance letters.

“We released our decisions the late afternoon of March 31 and in the morning of the April 1, a handful of ’19s were visiting us,” he said. “We had more students visiting us earlier, so I think as we go to the next cycle, we will be thinking more proactively about that.”