Last night approximately 14,000 high school seniors learned whether they had been accepted to the Class of 2010, as decisions were posted Thursday evening on the College's website in Dartmouth's most competitive year in admissions thus far.
Of the 13,937 applicants to the class of 2010, a record low of only 15.4 percent were offered admission, which surpasses last year's previous record-low admission rate of approximately 17 percent.
Of the 2,150 students offered admission this year, 398 were accepted as early decision applicants back in December.
"It was the most competitive year ever," Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg said. "Not only is the pool getting bigger, but the pool is getting stronger."
Furstenberg attributes the increase in the number and strength of applications to Dartmouth's broad outreach and recruiting efforts and the College's growing reputation. In addition, the growing high school age population and the ease of applying electronically have also led to the increase in applications. More than 10,000 of this year's applicants applied electronically, Furstenberg said.
Furstenberg noted the steady growth in applications over the last five years. Applicants for the Class of 2006 numbered 10,193 compared to the near 14,000 applicants for the class of 2010.
"We've made a lot of progress over the last five years and that to me is what's really significant," Furstenberg said.
One measure of the strength of the applicant pool is in its SAT averages. Of the total applicants, about 2,200 students had received an 800 on either the verbal or math portions of the SAT, more than the total number of students ultimately admitted.
New changes to the SAT structure implemented March 2005 make it difficult to determine how the test results of the Class of 2010 compare to those of previous classes. With so many high scores, Furstenberg insisted that SAT results were just one factor among many taken into account in the admissions process.
SAT scores were placed under particular scrutiny this year after technical problems at The College Board caused errors of up to 100 points in reported test scores. About 4,000 students who took the SAT last October received test scores lower or higher than they earned.
The scores of 57 applicants to the College were affected by this technical error, but the vast majority were only incorrect in the range of 10 to 20 points, Furstenberg said. After learning of this error, the admissions office reviewed the applications of the affected students to make sure that the score change did not affect any applicant in a significant way.
Furstenberg believes that the Class of 2010 is comparable to recent years, noting no dramatic differences between this year's admitted pool and previous classes.
Of particular interest, women dominate the largest ever proportion of admits at 51.4 percent with 62 more females admitted than males. Furstenberg attributes this increase to the greater growth of applications from women.
Also of note, 93.8 percent of students were ranked in the top 10 percent of their high-school class, and 40.6 percent were valedictorians, both up from last year's percentages.
International student acceptances dropped slightly from recent years, with foreign students making up 7 percent of the admitted class.
Admitted students exhibit a strong minority representation, with 39.5 percent of admits being students of color, up slightly from last year's 38.8 percent.
African American students held about steady at 9.6 percent of admits, as did Latino and multi-racial students at 7.6 and 1.0 percent of acceptances respectively.
Asian American students made up 17.7 percent of students and Native Americans 3.6 percent, both up slightly from last year.
At a five-year high, 67.5 percent of admitted students come from public schools, with the number of students from private and parochial schools down to 28.7 and 3.8 percent respectively.
There has also been a modest shift in the geographic mix, with slightly more applicants from the Northeast than there were a year ago and slightly fewer applicants from the South and West. Numbers from the Midwest stayed consistent at approximately 240 admits.
While financial aid figures have not yet been finalized, Furstenberg expects about 45 percent of the incoming class to receive scholarship assistance.
Approximately 147 students, or 6.8 percent of admits, are Dartmouth legacies.
"Beyond the statistics there just are a lot of interesting people who have done a lot of interesting things," Furstenberg said. "We've admitted a great group of students, and now the challenge is to convince those students that Dartmouth is the place that they have to go."
As part of the attempt to compel students to attend Dartmouth this September, the College will be host to approximately 450 to 500 students at its annual Dimensions of Dartmouth weekend at the end of April.
In the weeks ahead, 1,752 students will begin their deliberations and have until May 2 to secure their spots in the 1,075-person Class of 2010.
Furstenberg anticipates a 50 percent yield, consistent with that of recent years.
Although the ever-increasingly selectivity in admission to top colleges has allowed Dartmouth to choose from a larger and stronger pool of students, there are also some downsides to this trend, Furstenberg said. Among these are the increased pressure upon high school students, along with resulting anxiety to gain admission to top colleges, which Furstenberg sees as counterproductive to high school education.
"We've reached a point where the selectivity is getting kind of ridiculous," Furstenberg said.
