We believe that The Dartmouth’s Oct. 1 article, “Amidst student criticism, admissions office offers more information on new need-aware policy” misquoted our views and presented them out of context. The emails written by interim dean of admissions and financial aid Paul Sunde referenced in the article were private emails between Sunde and The Dartmouth staff and were not available to us. Our comments on the administration’s elusiveness regarding the reasons for the policy change were made in complete absence of an official statement.
The only public comment of which we were aware underlined the aim to “stabilize the variability of international admissions.” This too was an email quotation posted on The Dartmouth and Dartblog. It should be noted that, other than The Dartmouth’s published quotations, a clear official statement from The College has still yet to be released.
Perhaps, if such a statement is released — one that publicly admits the choice to reallocate funds from the international to the domestic aid budget — a constructive dialogue about the policy itself, rather than the lack of transparency surrounding it, can follow.
The Dartmouth excluded all pertinent details of a seven-student meeting with College President Phil Hanlon, further misquoting us as saying this discussion was “not satisfactory.” In fact, that discussion provided the sole insight that this policy stems from a reallocation of funds. This and other details were either overlooked or intentionally excluded from the College’s communication and The Dartmouth’s reporting, though the newspaper later added a clarification on Oct. 4 acknowledging the mistake. It is saddening that a student-run newspaper can blatantly misrepresent a student initiative.
