"It is going to be the most competitive admissions cycle that we've ever gone though," Laskaris said.
While much of the data from the applicant pool is still being collected and analyzed by admissions officers, applications submitted by students of color are already 17 percent higher than last year's figures, according to the release.
Laskaris said this increase reflects the admissions office's efforts to recruit a more diverse group of applicants.
"We have invested a great deal of our time and resources into building a diverse applicant pool for Dartmouth and have terrific success in terms of the programs that we develop, particularly programs such as Dartmouth Bound," she said. "We've also been working with various community-based organizations that help students in communities around the country think about going to colleges like Dartmouth."
Dartmouth Bound is a program that recruits qualified high school students to participate in an extended campus stay, according to its website.
Laskaris said that the College began a partnership with Questbridge this year due to decreased budgeting for recruitment-related travel. Questbridge is a non-profit organization that connects low-income students to its 30 partner academic institutions, according to the organization's website.
"We began to think more about strategic partnerships since were weren't able to do as much travel ourselves," Laskaris said. "The Questbridge network provides us with another opportunity to reach another talented and diverse group of students around the country."
The average composite SAT score of the regular decision applicants, at 2075, is the highest recorded score to date, according to Laskaris.
"We are a couple weeks into the regular decision applicants and, as a staff, we are grappling with what it means to only be admitting one in 10, especially looking at the strength we are seeing," Laskaris said. "That means for us we are much more nuanced in terms of some of the distinctions we must make."
Applications from students living outside the United States are up by 14 percent, while applications from California residents have increased by 21 percent, according to the press release.
The increase in California applicants may be due to recent increases in the state's population, enthusiastic alumni in the state and budget issues for public universities in California, Laskaris said.
"We have a lot of on-the-ground recruiters from our alumni base who are doing a terrific job at recruiting top candidates to apply to Dartmouth," she said. "I surmise that some of the state's budget challenges particularly around its higher education options may be promoting more students to look at schools outside the state, particularly schools that have strong need-based financial options," Laskaris said.
In the past year, Katy Murphy, president of the Western Association for College Admissions Counseling and director of college counseling at Bellarmine College Preparatory in California, has seen a 30 percent increase in out-of-state college applications and a 10 percent increase in students who choose to attend out-of-state colleges at her school, following similar trends as other California schools.
"Students are applying to more colleges than they did five or six years ago," Murphy said.
Murphy said that increased activity of Dartmouth admissions officers in California schools and the budget cuts to public education resources in the last three years may have affected the number of Californians who applied to the College this year.
The number of Texan applicants has also increased significantly, while the number of applications from Massachusetts and New York did not grow as much as Laskaris had anticipated, she said.
Comparable higher education institutions also experienced a rise in applicants, according to Laskaris.
The total number of applications to the University of Pennsylvania rose from nearly 27,000 to 30,800, representing a 14 percent increase, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian.
"Looking back over the past few years, I think we've seen application numbers rising at schools around the country," Laskaris said. "It wouldn't surprise me to see other schools having another strong year."
While the admissions office has hired four to six supplemental readers for the application review process in previous years, the office brought on 10 additional readers to accommodate the increase in applications this year, Laskaris said. Six of the new readers have read for Dartmouth in the past, while others are admissions officers from other highly selective colleges. Many of the new readers worked as college and secondary school teachers in the past, according to Laskaris.
Dartmouth's rate of admission of legacy applicants is 2-2.5 times higher than that of non-legacy candidates, Laskaris said, which has not changed from previous years.
"We at Dartmouth have a very strong connection to our graduates," Laskaris said. "In addition to all that our alumni do for us and the way that they support the institution, we give legacy applicants which we consider sons and daughters of those that received an undergraduate degree an extra review in the admissions process."
Laskaris said that although legacy students benefit from three to four application reviews as opposed to the normal two to three reviews students with legacy are often outstanding applicants in their own right.
"We attract a very strong pool of legacy applicants whose academic credentials are every bit as strong as those of other applicants," Laskaris said. "Given our new level of selectivity, it will be much tougher for every applicant."
As in recent years, the admissions office will likely send two to three batches of "likely letters" letters to students who emerge early in the admissions process as exceptional applicants to potential members of the Class of 2015, Laskaris said. Laskaris does not anticipate a change in the number of applicants who receive these letters, she said.
"We will have a similar process and timetable as last year," Laskaris said. "It will be predicated on our ability to manage this volume in an efficient way."
Applicants will receive notification of their admissions status online on March 30, according to Laskaris.
