<p>This might be a little bit late for some of you, but here it goes:</p>
<p>Dartmouth and other Ivy League colleges want excellent students. That is a given. They want high achievers, future world leaders, ambitious, intelligent, hardworking, students, yes. If this is all they wanted though, they could just give a standardized test like a million other countries and stop there. They could have you list awards and accomplishments and stop there. They could look at your grades and stop there.</p>
<p>But they also want good people. They want to know they're not educating a future Unibomber (Harvard grad, I believe). They want students who are well-adjusted, friendly, honest, thoughtful, in short: a good friend. An admissions officer once told me: "Once I get past the grades, the SATs, the awards, and all of that technical stuff, the final deciding factor is- would I want this kid living next to me in the dorm? Is he someone who will take advantage of all the resources there? Is he someone I wouldn't mind grabbing a bite to eat with, or borrowing laundry money from?" Subjective? Yes. But absolutely true.</p>
<p>I know it's been said, but it's worth repeating a thousand times: make sure your essays and recs tell the admissions officers what you are like AS A PERSON. Don't use them to expand on your accomplishments, or spit back what you love about the college to the adcoms. Dartmouth in particular emphasizes this- why else would they have a peer recommendation? Certainly not for heavy literature: they just want to see what you're like through someone else's eyes. My cousin is in the process of applying to college and she was recently venting about how difficult it is to sound sophisticated to the admissions committee. Know what I said? I said, "Cuz, don't even try. You're NOT sleek and sophisticated- you're silly and goofy and everybody loves you because you're always the glue of the group that helps us get along. Because admissions officers are people too. They appreciate the value of someone like that."</p>
<p>So pick a moment- a moment where you were you in your essence. A moment other people would say, "that's so typical of X!" And write about that- simply and with short words. In recommendations, remind teachers to include anecdotes about little things you did for class, like lead a discussion on the situation in Darfur, or made up a funny limerick to help the class remember the different chemical elements, or used 5 minutes in the beginning to recruit for a charity fundraiser. This is what they want to see. This is the final clincher: what will get you into college.</p>