The 15,700 applications received to date for the 1,080 spots in Dartmouth's class of 2012 has set a College record for application volume. This year's application total, an 11 percent increase over last year's, may grow even higher as regular decision applications are processed in the coming weeks, according to Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Maria Laskaris '84.
This year may be the most competitive in history for applicants to Dartmouth, Laskaris said. Last year, 15 percent of those who applied as members of the class of 2011 were offered admission. This spring, Laskaris predicts, the admissions office will admit a smaller percentage of the applicant pool -- likely about 14 percent -- in order to reach the target class size of 1080 students.Despite this year's increase in applicants, Laskaris said that estimates of the College's ultimate yield are tentative.
"Yield will be more difficult for all schools to predict this year, given the changes in early decision [and] early action programs, changes in financial aid programs and higher application volume," Laskaris said in an email message to The Dartmouth. "There may be a bit more use of waitlists across our peer schools, given the many changes that have impacted the current admissions season."
Additionally, national trends have shown that students applying to highly selective schools apply to more institutions than ever before, according to the New York Times. Students often submit applications to 10 or 11 schools instead of the previous standard of five or six. As a result students admitted to the College as members of the class of 2012 may be weighing more college options than in previous years.
The College's record-setting application number is a continuation of Dartmouth's increasing selectivity, as application volume has grown 34 percent since members of the class of 2008 applied to the College. The increase also mirrors record application growth at a number of selective colleges and universities.
Though this is the largest increase Dartmouth has ever experienced in terms of raw numbers, it is the second largest percentage increase between two consecutive classes. In 2000 Dartmouth saw its highest percentage growth, as applications increased 13.8 percent, from 10,006 for the class of 1999 to 11,389 for the class of 2000.
The demographic profile of this year's applicant pool has not been finalized, as the admissions office is still processing applications, Laskaris said, though preliminary numbers indicate that women constitute 50.9 percent of this year's applicant pool, outnumbering male applicants for the second year in a row.
Numbers also suggest that the diversity of Dartmouth's application pool has increased, particularly among Latino, Native American and international students, Laskaris said. As in past years, statistics show that the greatest numbers of applicants from the U.S. come from New England, the mid-Atlantic and the West, and that about two-thirds of applicants are public school students.
The academic credentials of this year's applicant pool have also risen slightly, with mean SAT scores of 683 critical reasoning, 704 math and 688 writing. It remains to be seen how this increase will be reflected in the scores of the eventual matriculating class, Laskaris said.
Dartmouth's increase in application volume was not as drastic as that of some of the College's peer institutions. Other highly selective schools reported a greater growth in applications, including Harvard, with a 19 percent increase, followed by the University of Chicago at 18 percent, Amherst College at 17 percent and Northwestern University at 14 percent, according to the New York Times.
Competition for admission to selective colleges is not expected to peak until 2009 when 3.2 million high school seniors, the most to graduate in one year in U.S. history, will apply to college, the New York Times reported.
