Explaining to the parents of a student who received perfect scores on her Scholastic Achievement Test why she was rejected from Dartmouth is a daunting task.
Though the College rejected a handful of these high-caliber students this year, the admissions office is still looking for ways to enlarge its applicant pool.
The increased competition to get into schools like Dartmouth has prompted admissions officers to search even harder for unique and more qualified applicants and woo them away from rival institutions like Harvard, Princeton and Yale universities.
"It would be naive and foolish of us not to recruit. It is a defensive activity -- we recruit to get the largest, most talented, diverse applicant pool we can," Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg said.
Furstenberg said recruitment has become a defensive activity since Dartmouth's growing academic reputation has placed the College in direct competition with the most selective universities in the nation.
From Newark to New Hampshire
Furstenberg said minority students are "the chief target" of the admissions office.
"There is no question that we make extra efforts to recruit minority groups," he said. "We do things to reach those students because we are looking for diversity in the student body."
Assistant Director of Admissions Peter McHugh said the admissions office goes to great lengths to reach prospective students of all backgrounds.
"I will go to Newark while one of my associates will be in the woods of New Hampshire" in an effort to achieve a diverse student body, McHugh said. Admissions officers also make sure to visit areas with large minority populations such as New York City, Dallas and Los Angeles.
Furstenberg said in addition to the high quality of education at Dartmouth, admissions officers try to sell minorities on the College's "sense of community and supportiveness and openness."
"Recruitment of minorities is an unusually intense investment of personal time," Furstenberg said.
As a part of this effort, the College pays for minority students to travel to campus in the fall to encourage them to submit applications and in the spring to convince them to matriculate, said Associate Director of Admissions Lorna Hunter, who is responsible for recruiting minorities.
She said she thinks about 25 to 30 percent more minority students apply or matriculate after visiting than would had they not visited.
President of the Afro-American Society Tiffany West '97, who said she chose Dartmouth over Princeton, Yale and Stanford universities said her experience at the College during Perspectives on Dartmouth Weekend was pivotal in her decision to matriculate.
"Seeing a lot of other minority students here at the same time was really great," she said.
She said the weekend afforded her the opportunity to "see two sides" of the College. "In addition to the academic side of things, I got to see the way Dartmouth, as a whole college, promotes social activities for students," she said.
West said she especially enjoyed interacting with minority students at the AAm and at Friday Night Dance Party in Collis Common Ground.
La Alianza Latina President Uriel Barrera-Vasquez '98 called Perspectives on Dartmouth Weekend "her epiphany."
"What really sold me was Perspectives on Dartmouth," she said. "That is why I pretty much came."
In order to assist the parents of minority students considering Dartmouth, the admissions office has compiled a directory of parents of minority alumni who are willing to speak about their experiences with the College, Hunter said.
Furstenberg said the College sends four separate publications to Latino, Asian-American, Native American and African-American applicants that other high school students do not receive.
Director of the Native American Studies Program Michael Hanitchak explained these efforts are necessary because "Dartmouth does not tend to be a household name in Native American communities."
Associate Director of Admissions Christine Pina said, although minority students who currently attend Dartmouth came from many different high schools, admissions officers usually expect to attract minority students from certain secondary schools because of the way school districts are drawn. She cited Kenwood Academy in Chicago as a one such school.
Not recruiting enough?
Many College admissions officers have expressed disappointment with the low proportion of minorities in the Class of 2000. Only 17.8 percent of the members of the Class of 2000 are minorities while 23.5 percent of the members of the Class of 1999 are minority students.
Pina said although she is disappointed with the diminished success of the admissions office to attract minorities to the College this year, they will not overhaul their tactics to recruit minorities next year.
"We will recruit the same we always do," she said. "You win some, you lose some."
But Pina pointed out that the decrease in minority representation stands as testimony to the fact that the College does not drop its qualifications to attract minority students.
West said she was "quite disappointed" with the diminished minority representation in the Class of 2000 and thinks the College should re-examine its efforts to recruit minority students.
"I think the College has listened to a lot of resentment about minority prospectives weekend," she said. "For the Class of 2000, it was held during the week, and there wasn't a chance to plan the type of activities that convinced me to come to Dartmouth."
Barrera-Vasquez and Dartmouth Asian Organization President Priscilla Cham '98 said they think the rash of racial incidents on campus this winter deterred minority students from enrolling at the College.
Barrera-Vasquez, who works in the College's admissions office, said minority prospectives expressed concern to her about the racial incidents that took place on campus this winter.
"When I met prospectives, they had a lot of questions" about the incidents, she said. "They definitely knew about them."
"I think the racial incidents did have an impact on people's decision to matriculate," Cham said. "Dartmouth doesn't have the best reputation in terms of being diversified in the first place. Those incidents backed up what people were already thinking about Dartmouth."
"I have friends back home who were concerned about it, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of 2000s were concerned about it too," Cham added.
'A big business'
Big Green athletic coaches recruit about 15 percent of Dartmouth's student body, Furstenberg said.
Director of Athletics Dick Jaeger said recruitment tactics vary from coach to coach and from year to year depending on what positions a given team is looking to fill.
He said coaches frequently make use of personal contacts across the country to entice certain students to apply to the College.
"We must tell them all about Dartmouth and get them to apply," he said. "They can't get in if they don't apply first."
Big Green Football Coach John Lyons, who began recruiting football players for the Class of 2001 last month, said the team aims to recruit about 35 players per year.
Football staff hit the road in December visiting high schools and athletes' homes. In January, the College pays for 70 football recruits to visit campus, he said.
Lyons dubbed recruiting "a big business."
Lyons said the football team has a full-time paid position to enter the names of recruits into the computer. He said currently there are 1,700 names in the computer, but the number will climb to about 3,500. "Recruiting is a big part of what we do and it never stops," he said.
Football recruit Brad Jefferson '98 said he received "a constant flow of mailings from the College." A resident of Washington state, Jefferson said he also received a paid visit to the College.
Assistant Women's Field Hockey Coach Amy Fowler said the College recruits women for field hockey in two different ways.
"Most kids write us a letter and we send out an informational letter or myself and other people will be working at a camp or go to state tournaments," she explained.
Men's baseball coach Bob Whalen said the staff in the baseball office went to 22 states and saw 250 to 300 games last summer.
Men's Golf Coach Bill Johnson said, "I have contacts with high school golf coaches throughout the country, former alumni and since I was a PGA golf pro for many years, I have conducted junior programs throughout the country."
As with minority students, the College has found that the best way to attract athletes is to have them visit campus.
Johnson said Dartmouth students play a crucial role in this process.
"I try to expose them to what Dartmouth is," he added. "I never try to sell the school. I let the school sell itself."
Co-Captain of the men's golf team Steve Sugarman '96, a recruit from California, said his trip to the College was "a turning point" for his decision to come to Dartmouth.
Sugarman, who was deciding between Dartmouth, Stanford and Princeton, said without the opportunity to come see the campus and stay with members of the golf team, "I would be somewhere else for sure."
The College also tries to promote its academic standing to attract athletes.
Fowler said the women's hockey team includes the U.S. News and World Report articles in one of their recruiting mailings.
"One of the biggest positives is when we tell them an Ivy League education is second to none and that classes are not taught by a bunch of graduate students -- that's a draw."
Competing for 'their' candidates
The input of coaches and faculty members can influence the admissions process, but cannot guarantee an acceptance letter.
Athletic coaches and faculty contribute to the general recruitment efforts of the admissions office by identifying promising applicants and submitting their names to the admissions office for consideration.
Fowler said the number of recruits on each team's priority list varies from year to year and is determined in a meeting with admissions officers and members of the athletic department late in the spring.
Drama Professor Paul Gaffney said he does not think drama recruits are given as much priority as athletic recruits.
"We very often recommend students, but we are not in a position to recruit as for example the College might a star athlete," Gaffney said.
Gaffney said he does not understand how much weight the admissions office grants to students who have been placed on departmental priority lists.
Furstenberg said much of the faculty recruitment of applicants is student-initiated.
"A kid interested in chemistry might come to Dartmouth and wander to the chemistry building," Furstenberg said. "The more serious the student the more likely they are to seek out faculty."
Any faculty member can submit a letter of recommendation on behalf of an applicant to the College, but only athletic coaches and faculty of the drama department submit priority lists, which rank the students they want to see admitted, to the admissions office for special consideration.
Furstenberg said his office gives these recommendations the same weight as they would any student's accomplishments that go beyond the walls of the classroom.
Johnson said his experiences with the golf team have led him to believe this system can "create disappointment when you find some candidates who you suspect are highly qualified but they are rejected."
Fowler said it is crucial that athletic recruits understand coaches cannot guarantee they will be admitted.
"The first thing we tell everyone is we can't guarantee they will be admitted," she said.
While Furstenberg said the application process is the same for everyone, he admitted the application process does entail certain "trade-offs" once the applications are under consideration.
"When we see other things that are significant, we are willing to make some adjustments, but everyone is still at a very high level," he added.
Jefferson said, after his experiences with the football team, he thinks athletes are as qualified academically as any other student.
"I think the people who were helped to get in by athletics are just as strong as other students here," he said. "The fact that we are here to play football encourages us to perform well in classroom so we can continue playing."
No longer a minority?
Since women were first admitted to the College in 1972, admissions officers have engaged in a concerted effort to attract female applicants to the College. It was not until this year's freshman class that a Dartmouth class was comprised of more women than men.
In the early years of coeducation, admissions officers were forced to combat stereotypical images of the College to convince women to matriculate.
Dean of Student Life Holly Sateia, who joined the admissions office in 1974, said the first question she always heard when she spoke to groups about the College was inevitably, "Is it true women are treated horribly at Dartmouth?"
"We were obligated to present them with the true picture of how things were," Sateia said. "We told women it was difficult, but things would not change unless they came up and joined us in meeting the challenges of coeducation."
Sateia said Dartmouth was the last Ivy League institution to adopt coeducation and its problems with women, often received much media attention, which hindered the recruitment process.
In the early years of coeducation, women admissions officers joined the staff of the admissions office and College brochures were self-consciously designed so women were projected as possessing an integral role in campus life, said Dean of Residential Life Mary Turco.
Sateia said all the female administrators and faculty members used to work together to recruit women and created close bonds with the women they worked so hard to recruit once they matriculated.
"Many Sighs and Many Cheers," the first brochure designed to recruit women to the College was published in 1976. It stated, "Dartmouth women have enthusiastically joined the multitude of organizations on campus and many women have assumed leadership positions. They can be seen competing in wood chopping events at the Outing Club's Woodsmen's Weekend, performing night-editing duties at the Daily Dartmouth or running the lights for a Hopkins Center production."
Sateia said the reluctance of some alumni to accept the presence of women at the College often frustrated the efforts of admissions officers.
Sateia said the College's concerted effort to recruit women officially ended with the Class of 1981 when men and women were admitted under a sex-blind admissions policy. Previously, men and women had been considered separately.
"We stopped a concerted effort to recruit women in 1981 with single pool admissions," Sateia said, "but we didn't pull back our efforts that much because we were still struggling with images people had of women at the College"
Marketing the College
Glossy brochures depicting smiling Dartmouth students are crammed into students' mailboxes across the country each fall without fail.
While the College actively recruits some students like minorities, athletes and budding actors, its also tries to persuade "above-average" students across the country to apply to Dartmouth.
The College employs a smorgasbord of recruitment tactics to entice students to the College.
Furstenberg said the best tactic the College has is an invitation to campus.
"I wish we could bring everyone here," Furstenberg said.
Furstenberg said the admissions office also capitalizes on the annual U.S. News and World Report polls which ranks Dartmouth as the seventh school in the nation overall and the first in the nation for faculty teaching, to recruit students.
"The commitment to teaching is a godsend and we point that out to people," he said.
Another admissions office's recruitment tactic is bringing high school guidance counselors to campus in an attempt to convince them to encourage their students to apply to the College, McHugh said.
Dan Parish, a guidance counselor at Phillips Exeter Academy, who previously worked in Dartmouth's admissions office, said admissions officers from the College also visit Exeter each fall and spring to entice students to apply.
"Dartmouth does what a lot of colleges do, but better," he said. "It accentuates the strengths of the institution in a very effective way and shows how Dartmouth is different than the other choices high- achieving students have."
"If I read the materials Dartmouth sends out, what I see and what I hear is the ability to have close contact with professors and to undertake research and have academic experiences which students might not be able to have in other institutions due to large graduate student populations," Parish continued.
