Next year's freshman class could be the largest in five years, despite the fact that it had the lowest number of admittances for that time period.
The new class currently has 1,136 students -- 579 men and 557 women, the largest female contingent ever.
Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg said the number of students who intend to enroll typically drops by about 60 people over the summer, as students defer enrollment or change their college plans for other reasons.
He said the College admitted fewer students than in past years, and this year's "yield", the number of students who have decided to attend the College, is very high in comparison with other years.
"We've had an incredibly good year. The quality and mix are exceptional," Furstenberg said.
This year's figures include an unusually large number of students admitted under the early decision program. The 420 students accepted to the College under this program in December are required to attend.
Furstenberg called this year's overall yield a very positive statement for the College.
"It's better than even I thought," he said, "It's what you want to have happen."
Several other Ivy League universities have had to admit students from the waiting-list, as fewer of the students they admitted decided to enroll, Furstenberg said.
In contrast, the College will not have to use its waiting-list this year. Furstenberg said the new financial aid packages offered by Princeton and Yale did not affect the number of students who chose to enroll at the College.
Geographic representation and the numbers of students from public, private or parochial schools are about the same as in past years.
Although most minority representation remained constant, there was a 4-percent drop in the number of Asian-American students who decided to enroll. Furstenberg said he did not have an explanation for this decrease.
Furstenberg said he thinks the minority and affirmative action laws in California have not had an impact on the number of out-of-state minority students applying to the College, but said they might cause minority enrollment in future years to increase slightly.
Students hail from every state except Mississippi, which Furstenberg said is typically not represented at Dartmouth.
The class will also include 57 international students, 28 students from New Hampshire and eight Wyoming women, an unusually high number of enrolled students from that state, Furstenberg said.
As usual, he said, New York, Massachusetts and California are the most highly represented states. Twenty students from Stuyvesant High School in New York will attend Dartmouth next year.
Seventeen percent of the enrolled students are recruited athletes, 29 percent are strongly involved in music and 10 percent were editors of a high school publication.
Members of the incoming class will include a volunteer fireman, an auctioneer and a hypnotist, to name a few.
Furstenberg said Dartmouth's combination of a small-town location and a strong Greek system concerns some students and has been the source of the most common questions from incoming students.
Furstenberg called the academic achievements of the class "staggering" -- 139 students scored 800 on the verbal part of the SAT, 120 scored 800 on math, and the median SAT scores in both sections were higher than in recent years.
The class of 2002 will be receiving $7.4 million in scholarships, most of which will come from the College's endowment, Furstenberg said.
Furstenberg said this year the College has "taken more students away from our biggest competitors, which is the only way we can get better."
Furstenberg said he is very pleased the College is becoming increasingly competitive.
"Dartmouth is more on the map of the national consciousness of colleges than five to 10 years ago, and it pulls in more great kids," he said.
