The rise in applicants to the College increased its momentum of a five-year trend this year as the number of applications rose to an all-time high.
Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg said there are 11,171 applicants in this year's applicant pool -- a 13 percent increase over last year's 10,006 applicants. These statistics include both early and regular admissions applicants.
"This is really good news," Furstenberg said. "We did better than almost any place else."
The admissions office expects the total number of applicants for a spot in the Class of 2000 to be around 11,300, because some applications are still being processed. Furstenberg estimated that about 200 more applications await processing.
"It's the sixth year in a row the numbers have gone up," he said. "We beat last year's record by over 1,000 applicants."
This year the College will only accept one in five applicants -- down from the 23 percent accepted last year, Furstenberg said.
"We are becoming more selective and getting stronger classes," he said.
The rise in Dartmouth's regular decision applicants is significant compared to other Ivies' results.
Yale University, Princeton University and Harvard University attracted roughly the same number of applicants as last year while Brown University had an eight percent increase, Furstenberg said.
"The important thing is the number of applicants to many of these other schools have been up and down over the past few years, while our numbers have been constantly on the rise," he said.
"This is significant because it shows we are attracting more applicants for reasons specific to Dartmouth," Furstenberg added.
This was the College's first year using the Common Application, a generic application that can be sent to many schools.
About 2,000 of this year's applicants took advantage of the new application method, Furstenberg said.
"There are several reasons for the increase in applicants," Furstenberg said. "One of them is the growing reputation of Dartmouth as a top place."
Secondly, Furstenberg noted that Dartmouth ranked first in the new "quality of teaching" category in the most recent US. News and World Report's college survey.
A third reason he cited was the admissions program itself. "Over time we have built up the scope and range of the program in thoughtful ways," he said.
The number and proportion of female applicants also exceeded last year's. The number of female applicants reached 5,034 -- 45.1 percent of the applicant pool. There were 4,482 female applicants out of a total of 10,006 for the Class of 1999 -- 44.8 percent of the applicants.
But Furstenberg said admissions assessments are complicated by the change in scoring and format for the Scholastic Assessment Test.
"The new SATs make things strange," he said "We see a lot more 800s, especially in the verbal scores."
Competition for a spot in the Class of 2000 is made even more difficult this year due to a particularly strong group of early admission candidates.
"They are a good group and take up more than 33 percent of next year's class," Furstenberg said.
Dartmouth accepted the most early decision candidates ever, up nearly 50 students from last year. The College has already accepted 381 applicants into the Class of 2000 in comparison to 334 accepted early last year and 328 for the Class of 1996. The College received 1247 early decision applications for the Class of 2000.
