@CCSenioritis I’m going to the 2nd Dimensions, but awesome! Are you in the Facebook group? You seem as enthusiastic as I am!
@coolestnerdever Nope im not on the FB group but I’m excited!
Is there a dartmouth waitlist thread??
@ThatGirlCoder it doesn’t appear there is an “official” waitlist thread for Class of 2020. Member @zizou2708 has been waitlsted and has reached out for advice and support if you would care to connect with them.
i was WL too
Was accepted but after visiting I can’t say that I will be attending. There’s not much to do, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and it gets so cold in the winter!
@teenagecrime Honestly not worth it… I just visited, there’s nothing there and nothing to do. Plus the winters are brutal!
@CCSenioritis have you attended Dimensions yet?
@marquessmith i’m from the city and i’m trying to have a change of scenery for a few years.
For those of you waitlisted: are you just uploading your letter to your portal thing under additional materials?
@ThatGirlCoder From Dartmouth’s website “Application Updates: Have important news? We hope you’ll let us know. You can send us an update by logging into our Application Management System and uploading a brief text file containing your news or additional materials (please don’t upload large files containing certificates or numerous images). At the foot of your application status page, you will see the heading “Upload Materials.” You should type the news of your updates into a text file—such as Word—then upload that file along with any further certificates or other digital materials, as appropriate.”
We also sent a short e-mail to the Admissions Officer for our area of the country letting her know that Dartmouth was the first choice for university.
I wanted to dispel the notion that legacies automatically get in. My son was waitlisted at Dartmouth. He is a legacy of a legacy (his father, grandfather, and uncle are all Dartmouth graduates). He is valedictorian of his class of 350 students with a GPA of 4.0 (unweighted) and 4.47 (weighted). He is NMF, 2180 SAT, 34 ACT, 800s on SAT II math level 2 and chemistry, 710 on US History, has 7 AP exams with six 5s and one 4, has 8 more AP exams planned for this year. He is a two sport varsity athlete who has gone out for both sports all 4 years. He is a two instrument musician (played one in orchestra and the other via private lessons). He had 3 great letters of recommendation and lots of school awards. I did not read his essays so I am not sure about them. He did not apply for financial aid. He is Caucasian and Asian, both of which probably hurt him. He did not get an interview and when he inquired, he was told not to be concerned because we just did not have a lot of interviewers in the area. We are from a less populated state. I thought that would help. I guess I was wrong.
I do think the process is difficult to figure out. If you read enough posts on College Confidential, you will see someone who does not look like he should get in, get in and others with great numbers who don’t get in. Some will get into Yale and Brown but are rejected at Harvard and Princeton. Then others get into Harvard and Princeton but not Yale or Brown. The truth is that these schools could fill their classes several times over with qualified applicants and they choose who they want. It isn’t like candidate #1 is better than candidate #2. Dartmouth may prefer #1 but Columbia and Cornell might like #2 better and Harvard may not like either one. I don’t believe there is a science behind it. If admissions thinks you can make it academically at the school, you probably have a chance initially. Then they will look at the ECs, demographics, and what else you would bring to the campus. With as many applicants as they get, they obviously turn down some very high quality students for one reason or another. It is hard not to take it personally, especially for the alumni whose child, grandchild or nephew got waitlisted.
@m22boys Thank you for a very helpful thread. I am very sorry that your son was waitlisted. I wish him the best of luck in getting off the waitlist. In any event, he seems very talented. Please update us on where he enrolls.
@m22boys Maybe Dartmouth was looking for an ED commitment from your legacy son? That is what Penn does. In any case , I am sure you are all disappointed, but your son sounds terrific. I hope he has some other great options.
@londondad Thanks for your well wishes. I will post when I find anything out for my son. In the meantime, we are in limbo as is everyone else waitlisted. He is applying very late for national merit schools and their honors colleges. Most give priority to NMF. They are either full tuition or full ride. Every school he is waitlisted at would cost us $65,000-$70,000 per year out of our own pockets. And we are being asked to beg and plead for the privilege to pay that kind of money. I know this is not the time for pride but it isn’t an easy pill for me to swallow. We have the money to fund it, but the money was hard earned and we spend money wisely. So, we just have to wait and see how things play out.
@desie1 I do think it would have helped to apply early. The ED admission rate tends to be about double the that of RD. If my son were 100% sure Dartmouth was his first choice, he would have applied ED. We thought his best chance would be Dartmouth given the legacy status and felt that if he did apply ED anywhere, it should be Dartmouth, but I didn’t want him to commit that early and then regret it. I guess he is not alone in his disappointment though. My husband is on some facebook discussion with his Dartmouth class (1990) and many have had similar experiences with their children. One person was upset because his son got deferred ED and had to go through the entire application process with other schools. The child was eventually accepted RD but they say it stung for a long time. There are many stories about legacies being rejected.
It may be that Dartmouth wants to break out of this tradition and have a different group of students with fewer legacies and more underprivileged – kids who are the first in their families to attend college. I know those kids are highly sought after applicants overall. It may not be what the alumni want for their institution but it is not up to them. It is up to the institution to decide what they want and what direction they want their university to head. Alumni can choose to support or not support their institution through donations or lack there of. I don’t see that alumni have much power otherwise.
They say that everyone winds up where he/she needs to be not necessarily where the student wanted to be. If an institution can’t see your merits and how much you would add to the student body/campus, maybe you do need to be somewhere else. Just my 2 cents worth from a parent who has been on this long, seemingly neverending roller coaster ride called the college admissions process!
Did Dartmouth fill all the places already?