Chance me at Dartmouth RD

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I am planning on applying to Dartmouth A&S as a Government major.

Objective:
SAT I (Superscored breakdown): 1500 superscored (790 Math, 710 Reading & Writing) best sitting: 1460
SAT II: 680 US History, 700 Math I
ACT: Will not be sending
Weighted GPA (Out of 100): 94.45

Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): N/A
AP (place score in parenthesis): APUSH (4), Lang (4), Chemistry (3), Calculus BC (4), Biology (4)
Senior Year AP Course Load: AP Lit, AP Gov, AP Physics C, AP Statistics, AP Euro
Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.):

Subjective:
Extracurriculars (place leadership in parenthesis):

4 years of Debate Team (3rd place speaker overall at one tournament)
2 years Student Council (Class President Freshman year and Student Body President Senior Year)
Founder of Young Moderates (Founder and President)- political involvement club at school
4 years of Crew Rowing (State Champion, Varsity Letter, multiple medals)
4 years of volunteering at Strings Camp (Volunteer and Counselor-In-Training)
Cello (10 years in school)
Seal of Biliteracy in Spanish
Volunteer on a Gubernatorial campaign

Essays:
Common App: Great
Supplemental: Okay

Teacher Recommendation:
AP Bio and World History/APUSH Teacher: Both should be great. My Bio teacher is also my coach, and my History teacher is the advisor for my club.
Additional Letter of Rec from Cornell Summer Program professor: Good
Counselor Rec: Very good

Other
State (if domestic applicant): CT
Country (if international applicant): US
School Type: Public school
Ethnicity: Asian (Indian)
Gender: Male
Income Bracket:
Hooks (URM, first generation college, etc.):

2

The scores seem to be on the lower side but your EC’s look great. The problem is the RD round is more competitive because Dartmouth fills approx. 50% of the their class in the ED round.

Based on their numbers the remaining spots (before RD yield) is not that much based on approx. 19,559 applicants.

Last year RD pool:19,559

Last year acceptance ED+RD:1,925

This year ED acceptance:574
This year RD acceptance (assumed):1,351
RD Legacy (approx.):138 13%
RD First Generation (approx.):170 13%
RD Foreign Citizens (approx.):130 10%
RD Native Americans (approx.):49 4%
RD URM (approx.):114 10%

Remaining pool (male+female):750 4%

At the end of the day the very selective colleges are looking for a match based on their pool for that particular year and there are so many factors that are not in your hands. I wish you the best of luck and hopefully the application outcome will be what you hope it will be.

3

Not to be a Debby Downer OP, but you will also be handicapped by the fact that you come from an over-represented state. No harm in applying to Dartmouth, but you should do so with realistic expectations. As the numbers presented by FoundDad make clear, no matter how good your EC’s and stats, unhooked kids face daunting odds when applying to Ivy level schools, particularly in the RD round.

4

@TheBigChef is right - the numbers are daunting and as such your expectations should match not because of shortcomings but rather based of the number of applicants all vying for limited spots. With the SCEA and ED process, most of the very selective schools fill up a big portion of their incoming class.