The announced retirement this past week of College Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg after 17 years at Dartmouth marks the end of a successful career. While in past years the admissions office has been a center of controversy -- most notably as a result of Furstenberg's remarks about the Dartmouth football program -- as The Dartmouth reported earlier this week, Dartmouth flourished and our applicant pool expanded in both numbers and diversity under Furstenberg's leadership. The Class of 2010 is the strongest yet in terms of SAT scores, diversity and includes more women than men. If trends continue, many classes to come will feature such strength in academics and diversity.
Furstenberg's departure comes at a crucial time in the history of college admissions. With Harvard's recent decision to end its early action program and the remarkable speed with which Princeton followed the leader, the controversial systems of early decision and early action are once again in the limelight. While proponents of early admissions see it as a way to ensure that incoming class of a school is composed of qualified students who want to be there, opponents see it as a tool of the privileged that disadvantages those without the resources to commit unequivocally in November.
Furstenberg has come out on record to say that Dartmouth currently has no plans to end our early decision program. The editorial board of The Dartmouth supports this decision not because of the inherent value of early decision but because it recognizes Dartmouth's unique nature among the Ivies. As a small liberal arts college, we have a different pool of applicants and different set of needs than our larger peers. To blindly follow for the sake of appearances or trendsetting would be a disservice to the school. Rather, Dartmouth as a College and a community should carefully weigh the arguments on both sides of the issue before a more permanent decision is made.
The question of early decision is not one that the administration can answer alone -- it must seek student and community input. To involve the bright and talented Dartmouth students whom Furstenberg attracted and admitted to Dartmouth in a vital question about Dartmouth's future would be an effective way to honor him and maintain his legacy.
