Following a 10-percent budget cut, the admissions office has turned to new, lower cost recruiting tools and initiatives to increase outreach to prospective students, according to Dean of Admissions Maria Laskaris.
"We need to be strategic and more innovative in using our resources and in the way we communicate with students," she said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
The admissions office has reevaluated its travel plans and expenses in light of the budget cuts. Admissions officers still visit as many cities as in past years, but they now spend less time in each place, Laskaris said.
"Our focus of our travel this fall has shifted to spending less time in individual cities but having larger events in the evening and having events for guidance counselors during the day," Laskaris said. "We're more focused on these very specific events for students, alumni volunteers and guidance counselors."
The admissions office has also increased its use of online tools to communicate with prospective students, an initiative that stemmed from the need to reach students who cannot visit the College or who cannot be reached by admissions officers, Laskaris said.
The "Discover Dartmouth" Facebook group is an entirely student-run endeavor that seeks to "connect prospective students with current students to learn about Dartmouth and the Dartmouth experience," Laskaris said.
In late summer, the admissions office also launched "Uncommonly Asked Questions," a blog that allows prospective students to ask specific questions about the application process and receive answers from Dartmouth admissions officers.
Since approximately 95 percent of each applicant pool applies online using the Common Application, Dartmouth, for the first time this year, did not print and mail paper applications, Laskaris said.
"This is a decision that we were on the way to making before the budget cuts had us reevaluate a lot of our decisions," Laskaris said.
The admissions office, as it did last year, will only mail letters to accepted students, Laskaris said. Students not admitted to the Class of 2014 will receive an e-mail.
"We thought about our budget implications, and it looked like a good time to make the switch," Laskaris said.
All applicants will still able to access their admissions status online.
Dartmouth's peer institutions have also changed their admissions processes. To cut costs, Harvard University and Yale University will no longer mail rejection letters if a student has checked their admissions status online within 72 hours after the decision is posted, according to the Yale Daily News.
Columbia University has begun accepting increased numbers of students to try to alleviate financial losses, according to an article in the Columbia Daily Spectator.
The Dartmouth admissions office hosted its first major on-campus fall event over Columbus Day weekend, attracting more than 1,000 students for a Dartmouth "open house" that featured tours and panel discussions, Laskaris said.
"We know that campus visits are an important experience," she said. "We really thought about creating admissions programs that really focused around the holiday weekend. We thought about the Dimensions model and how successful it is."
