Applications to Dartmouth

Applications to Dartmouth College February 12 Applications to Dartmouth College dropped this year by 14%. Bev Taylor, Founder of Ivy Coach, is quoted in The Dartmouth today in an article that discusses Dartmouths steep drop in applications this year.  Applications to Dartmouth are down 14% from last years mark for the Class of 2017. In all, 19,235 students applied to the College on the Hill this year. 22,416 students applied last year. According to an article on applications to Dartmouth in The Dartmouth, The College received 20 percent fewer applications from students living abroad, 15 percent fewer from students in the Northeast and 20 percent fewer from the Midwest. Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Maria Laskaris attributed the decline possibly to a demographic shift, with more folks moving to the South and West. We wanted to point out that drops like these happen sometimes. While it is indeed the task of admissions officers at highly selective colleges to get as many students as possible to apply (even if some say they dont encourage entirely unqualified students to apply they all do!), fluctuation is inevitable. What we can say for certain is that the drop is not attributable to the fact that Dartmouth is located in Hanover, New Hampshire because Dartmouth since its founding by Eleazer Wheelock has been located in Hanover, New Hampshire. So any suggestion like that as it has been mentioned - makes no sense to us. Maybe its attributable to fallout from an expose in Rolling Stone by a bitter student describing fraternity life at the College on the Hill. Maybe its attributable to Dartmouth sending out too many brochures this year or too few. Who knows! As Bev is quoted in The Dartmouth today, many students dont have Dartmouth on their radar, in spite of it offering perhaps the finest under graduate education in the land. Any speculation from the outside is pointless. The only folks who are going to be able to pinpoint rationales for the decline are the folks who are actually doing the postmortem those who are analyzing the data that only Dartmouth has. In times like this, it can be good to bring in data miners from outside the world of admissions to examine the data from this year as compared to preceding years. But we bet that Dartmouths already on it! Because they dont want what happened this year to happen next year. Applications to Dartmouth Applications to Dartmouth January 13, 2013 Applications to Dartmouth declined slightly this year. Bev Taylor of Ivy Coach was recently featured in an article of The Dartmouth which discussed the 3% drop in applications to Dartmouth. According to the article on Dartmouth apps, Around 22,400 students applied for admission to the Class of 2017, marking an approximately 3 percent decrease from last year’s pool, according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Maria Laskaris. Despite the drop, this year marks the second highest number of applications the College has received, Laskaris said.  The College aims to admit approximately 2,150 students, of which roughly 1,100 to 1,200 are expected to accept offers of admission, Laskaris said. The 464 students admitted from the early decision pool, which saw a 12.5 percent decrease from last year’s early applications, will constitute about 40 percent of the overall incoming class. In the article, the writer asks if any negative press coverage this past year (i.e., a hazing article in Rolling Stone) contributed to the 3% drop in applications. But historical data indicates that negative press coverage rarely impacts application numbers the following year. Winning a NCAA basketball championship, however, is another story. Schools that advance far into The Big Dance frequently see increased applications the following year (remember George Mason Universitys road to the Final Four?). If youre not sure about this point, just compare Duke application numbers in years they advance far in March Madness to years they dont. Anyhow, we expect Dartmouth application numbers to be back on track next year with a rise in the size of the applicant pool. Theyll send more brochures. Theyll advertise programs like The Tuck Bridge Program to appeal to minority students. Theyll tout how undergrads can now take business courses at Tuck for undergraduate credit. Theres lots they can and will do. Every school sees a slight drop now and then but the great ones like Dartmouth always bounce back.