A flood of admitted members of the Class of 2008 has already descended on campus to experience Dartmouth life first-hand, although the College hopes that the Dimensions of Dartmouth weekend will not include fraternity basements and trips to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
Dimensions weekend commenced Thursday when more than 500 of the recently regular-decision admitted '08s arrived in Hanover to attend panels, receptions and information sessions and to stay with student hosts in College dormitories.
Current students residing off-campus or in Greek houses are not eligible to host prospective students.
Assistant Director of Admissions Lauren Foley '03 said that although many early-admitted students will also be on campus for the Dimensions weekend, housing arrangements are only provided for regular-decision accepted students.
This year's particularly large group, approximately 150 more than last year according to Foley, almost resulted in a hosting crunch.
"There was a point last night when we didn't have enough student hosts," said Foley, "But we sent out a blitz to the '07 class and got a massive influx of blitzes back. The Class of '07 has majorly stepped up -- we actually now have a waitlist for hosts."
Even though hosts are only required to provide sleeping arrangements, some also plan on socializing with their prospective.
But prospective students won't likely be searching for ways to stay occupied, as the weekend is packed with events to inform '08s of Dartmouth's offerings.
Workshop open houses, presentations such as the "Five Dimensions of a Dartmouth Education" and a reception with President Wright at the Top of the Hop are only a few of the events scheduled.
And what would the Dartmouth experience be without a taste of the Greek system?
Prospectives will have two opportunities to attend non-alcoholic fraternity parties this weekend -- one tonight at The Tabard coed fraternity, and another Saturday night at Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity. Neither will serve alcohol, in compliance with underage drinking laws.
The best efforts of the administration and Greek houses, however, may not be enough to deter determined '08s from the lure of the "Animal House" mentality. David Wolkoff '05, Publicity Chair for the Interfraternity Council, said Greek houses would do their best to keep prospectives out, despite their "notorious reputation for climbing through windows."
"Our policy is always not to allow prospectives into frats simply because they're underaged," said Wolkoff.
"We do the best we can to enforce this," he continued. "We station people at doors and check for Dartmouth IDs, and if someone looks young in the basement we'll card them."
Despite the restrictions on fraternal activity this weekend, Wolkoff said the Greek system is valuable to Dartmouth's admission efforts.
"The frat social scene is a boon," said Wolkoff, "The College definitely uses it as a recruiting tool. One thing we have over a lot of other schools is that students here are normal and go out."
According to Foley, the first-hand experience of Dartmouth that Dimensions offers '08s gives Dartmouth an edge over other schools with similar weekends.
"A selling point of Dartmouth is the sense of community, the sense of spirit, of place, and of each other," said Foley. "Upperclassmen are really excited about new students. If we can get someone here [at Dimensions], we can really stand out."
