Following a current Ivy League trend of increased early acceptances, Dartmouth chose about 40 percent of the Class of 2002 under the early decision program, Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenburg said yesterday.
He described the number of students accepted -- 433 out of 1,214 applicants -- as "unusually high."
Unlike Harvard and Princeton, which accept close to 50 percent of their classes under the early decision plan, Dartmouth usually hovers between 30 and 35 percent.
Furstenberg called this year's increase "an anomaly," and expects that unless the pool grows stronger and more diverse next year not as many students will be accepted early.
The increase in early acceptances comes in a year when the College received about 100 fewer early applications than it did the year before.
Furstenberg said the College tries to avoid granting admission to too many students under the early decision program, because the application pool is less diverse than the group of students who meet the regular admissions deadline.
In general, the early pool has fewer minorities, fewer candidates for financial aid, and is largely made up of students from the Northeast.
The number of African-Americans, Native Americans and Latinos slightly increased from 28 students in the Class of 2001 to 35 in the incoming class.
Furstenberg called minority recruiting "the most competitive issue" for the admissions office, and though the increase was marginal, though the percentage of the early admissions made up by minorities dropped from eight percent last year to seven percent, he said was happy with the final figure.
Females comprised 48 percent, or 208, of the 433 students accepted, which Furstenberg said was an early decision high, though the percentage of the class made up by women was 51 percent last year.
SAT scores did not change significantly since last year -- accepted students scored a mean of 703 on the Verbal section and 712 on Math -- compared with Verbal and Math scores of 705 and 709 respectively for the Class of 2001.
Eighty-eight percent are ranked in the top ten percent of their high school classes.
The College received about 100 fewer early applications than it did last year. Furstenberg attributes this to the College's increased selectivity in the past few years.
"We have become so selective in terms of percent admitted and credentials expected, that some of the average applicants are falling out of the pool," he said.
He also said numbers have dropped off because of Stanford's recent addition of an early decision plan.
