As Dartmouth has become more prominent and more varied over the years, the admission system has evolved to meet the growing competition among applicants and the institution's growing preference for diversity.
The College first established a formal application process in 1921. Before then, admission was decided through what history professor Jere Daniell '55, an expert on the history of Dartmouth, called "a very informal system."
Under this system, students "just showed up" on campus where they would be put to a verbal test in which they would present their credentials for admission.
Daniell characterized the early years of the College's new admission policy as an "adoption of hoops" through which candidates would have to jump to gain entry into Dartmouth, but he noted a lack of significant competition.
In addition to class homogeneity, even as late as 1900 most Dartmouth students came from northern New England -- Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts -- and there was little diversity among a population of only 400, Daniell said.
Dartmouth Goes National
This remained the case until the presidency of Ernest Martin Hopkins, class of 1901, who held the office from 1916 to 1945. Hopkins aimed to make the College a national institution by attracting students from across the country.
To do this, Hopkins made the requirement that applicants be familiar with certain academic subjects -- including Greek and Latin -- less stringent, because these subjects were not taught in areas of the country outside of the Northeast.
The College also promoted itself in national publications and adopted geographical distribution as a component in admission, Daniell said.
It was difficult, however, to attract students from varying areas of the country.
"There was a time when it was very unusual to go very far from home," said former Dean of Admissions Alfred T. Quirk '49, who retired in 1993.
Cultural Changes
Quirk cited a changing culture in College admissions -- increased travel, available information and appeal of going away to school -- as well as the greater physical accessibility of the College as explanations for today's geographically diverse student body.
According to Quirk, the Office of Admission used to consist only of the director and a committee of faculty and staff, which the director would consult to make decisions.
Those offered admission by the committee would virtually all matriculate at the College. When prospective students began to apply to multiple institutions, admissions staff became concerned.
The Committee on Admissions and the Freshman Year echoed this in their 1952 annual report, writing "There is much concern among the colleges about the continued increase of multiple applications and of the tendency to collect college admission and scholarships like trophies."
Quirk recalled how this led one flustered Director of Admission to admit, "We don't know what to make of all these boys who won't take yes for an answer."
Becoming Selective
This period in the early 1950s also saw increasing numbers of applications and a change in selectivity, as Dartmouth's growing appeal was met with a growth in competition for admission.
This increasing competition for admission occurred as the College became a more visible institution.
Among other factors, Dartmouth's physical surroundings were improved and prospective students no longer viewed the area as "depressed country," Daniell said.
Also, the College's entry into the Ivy League -- finalized in 1956 -- attracted more students to apply and led the administration to establish tougher standards for both incoming students and faculty.
According to Daniell, then-President John Sloan Dickey adopted this "self-conscious policy" to compete with other members of the newly formed Ivy League -- Harvard, Yale and Princeton -- in the classroom as well as on the athletic fields.
As far back as the time of Daniell's admission to the Class of 1955, the Admission Office used a rating system to assess applicants who were labeled with a number between one, for the best applicants, and five, for the worst.
That rating system has since evolved into two separate ratings out of nine; one for academic characteristics and one for nonacademic characteristics, encompassing special talents or personal attributes.
Dartmouth's increased popularity and selectivity also resulted in the requirement that applicants submit SAT scores, instituted during the mid 1950s. Scores consistently rose with each entering class from the mid 1100s to 1300 by 1970.
Adding Diversity
With the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, the College also committed itself to creating a more diverse class in terms of race and gender.
In 1968, the McLane Report was issued, urging the College to become more diverse, specifically by recruiting black students, Daniell said.
The faculty responded by voting to form the Committee on Equal Opportunity in 1969. Then-chairman of the math department John G. Kemeny was the first chairman of the committee. Daniell became the committee's second chairman after Kemeny assumed the presidency of the College.
The committee adopted a "basic policy of 'goals, not quotas,'" as they tried to recruit blacks, Native Americans and applicants from disadvantaged areas in Northern New England, Daniell said.
In fact, the Admission Office never established quotas, set amounts of places in each class for applicants from targeted racial or ethnic groups. Instead, they aimed to "attain a critical mass" of students from those groups, Quirk said.
Within its first three years of operation, the committee was able to increase representation of African-Americans from two to nine percent.
The efforts to recruit Native Americans were more of a struggle, said Daniell, beginning slow but gaining success over time.
Quirk pointed to the Class of 1973 as a defining one in diversity. Of the approximately 800 entering students, African-Americans numbered almost 10 percent of the class.
From that point on, the College met its goal for African-American enrollment, he said.
The McLane Report also led to the establishment of faculty committees urging that the College recruit and enroll more Hispanic students, Quirk said.
But Daniell maintained that this recruitment did not start until after he left the Committee on Equal Opportunity in 1976.
Women Come to Dartmouth
Perhaps the most defining change in admission policy overtime has been the College's decision in 1972 to become coeducational.
"It changed the institution immeasurably," Quirk said.
Alumni were concerned about the quality of Dartmouth athletic teams if women were admitted and took spaces away from male applicants, Daniell said.
As a result, President Kemeny adopted the year-round academic year and the Dartmouth plan, allowing class size to be increased by one-third and women to be admitted without decreasing the amount of men in the class.
From the first year of coeducation, there were many female applicants, and the number kept increasingly approaching gender parity.
The College, however, did not enroll a class that was half men and half women until the Class of 1999.
