With an 11 percent increase in applications, Dartmouth awarded early admission to 400 students. Dean of Admissions Maria Laskaris '84said this year's early decision was "more selective than it's ever been."
Out of the 1,428 early decision applicants, the 201 men and 199 women admitted -- 28 percent of all applicants-- comprise what Laskaris called "an academically accomplished, diverse and multitalented group of students."
Early admitted students represent 37 percent of the expected Class of 2012, with the rest of the class admitted through regular decision in April.
In a memorandum sent to the applicants' guidance counselors, Laskaris said that of the 1,428 early applicants, 526 were deferred and 471 were denied admission. Seventeen other students were notified that their applications were incomplete. The memorandum did not account for the additional 14 students. Laskaris could not be reached for comment on the additional applications by press time.
Although deferred students will be reviewed again with the regular decision applications, the memorandum noted that in recent years less than 10 percent of deferred applicants have gained admission to the College.
Laskaris noted that this year's accepted students were among the strongest she's ever seen.
"I was so impressed by the academic strength of the admitted pool," she said.
Twenty percent of the students admitted are the valedictorians of their high schools and 11 percent are ranked second, consistent with past years. Eighty-nine percent were ranked in the top ten percent of their classes.
The middle 50 percent of accepted students' SAT scores were between 640 and 760 in Critical Reading, 670 and 770 in Math and 680 and 760 in Writing.
53 percent of those admitted attended public schools, up from 50 percent in 2006. 42 percent attended private schools, while five percent attended parochial schools.
Sixty-five admitted students are sons or daughters of Dartmouth alumni, a slight increase over last year's 58 percent.
Most of the accepted students were from New England, the mid-Atlantic and the West, Laskaris said. As more than 60 percent of the Class of 2012 has yet to be admitted, Laskaris said this distribution could change after the regular decision process.
This year marks the first in which some of Dartmouth's peer institutions, including Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia, have not offered early admissions programs. In past years, Princeton and Virginia offered early decision programs, and Harvard offered a non-binding early action option.
Laskaris did not attribute the rise in Dartmouth's early applications to these changes.
"Because our early decision program is binding, I don't think that our increase in applications was a result of Harvard and Princeton's decisions," she said. "Students who apply to Dartmouth early do so because they are ready to make that commitment, regardless of other schools' offerings."
Yale University, the only remaining Ivy League school to offer a non-binding early action program, saw its early pool for the Class of 2012 rise 36 percent over last year. Georgetown University, which offers a similar program, saw a 30 percent increase in applicants.
"I think a greater number of students this year applied to non-binding programs because they wanted to get an early read but weren't ready to commit to a specific school," Laskaris said.
Other institutions still utilizing binding programs for early admission saw a normal increase, Laskaris said. Brown University, which accepted 22.6 percent of its 2,461 early applicants, saw a six percent increase in applications, while Duke University's early pool increased by five percent.
In the wake of other schools' decisions to discontinue their early programs, Laskaris said that Dartmouth considered following suit, but ultimately decided to keep its early option.
"As our pool grew this year, we had some conversations about the future of early decision," she said. "We just kept coming back to the sense that it works really well for Dartmouth. With 37 percent of the class admitted early, we don't want to go beyond that, as we want to preserve space for the regular pool, but for students with a clearly defined first choice, the process works well."
The 400 admitted students are the first group admitted under Laskaris' tenure as dean of admissions. Laskaris succeeded former Dean Karl Furstenburg.
"I definitely was very excited to be going through the process for the first time," Laskaris said. "I really thought about each student that we admitted and the potential and promise that they would bring."
Laskaris said she was most excited about notifying students of their acceptance.
"It hit me most as I was signing the acceptance letters," she said. "We sent a hand-signed letter to each admitted student, and as I signed them, I remembered things about each student's application."
Regular decision applications for the Class of 2012 were due on Jan. 1. The Admissions Office plans to release admissions decisions and financial aid awards to those applicants on Apr. 1.
