Try as they might, kids cannot find easy way into Dartmouth
There are high school kids who would kill to sit where you are right now. On the "Gold Coast" of Connecticut, parents are paying $5,000 for 40 hours of coaching to raise their child's scores on the Scholastic Achievement Test. In New York City, North Carolina and London they are paying consultants $2,500 to better their chance of getting in schools like Dartmouth. One applicant tried to impress Dartmouth admissions by baking a cookie three feet wide, decorating it with green and white icing and sending it special delivery to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg. "It didn't work," Furstenberg said. Every year it gets harder to get in -- this year Dartmouth accepted only 19 percent of 11,398 applicants. In the words of Ben Mason, an independent college counselor in Burlington, Vt., "Nobody's getting in Dartmouth anymore." In a world where many people believe an Ivy League diploma is the key to power, prestige and, perhaps, a Mercedes-Benz, Dartmouth has the luxury of not only accepting, but also rejecting the very brightest.