Dartmouth College Early Decision for Fall 2024 Admission

Colleges and Universities A-Z Dartmouth College
1

This is the official thread for those applying ED to Dartmouth College.

List your unweighted GPA, any SAT /ACT scores, and ECs. What majors are you going into?
Ask your questions, the CC community is here to help!

3

Hi, I’m a HS senior from the great state of Texas and I’m hoping to apply ED to Dartmouth this fall! My high school circumstances are a little weird though and there are a few problems in my application that I feel could really hurt.

I go to a very small K-12 charter school affiliated with a UT school in my area. I had few opportunities through my school to do extracurriculars, but I did everything I could. I wasn’t offered any AP classes but I took all of the dual credit classes I could. I have really good relations with my teachers and peers so I should get awesome rec letters, but there are a few things I am concerned about.

Stats:

GPA - 3.9/4.0 uw, 4.1/5.0 weighted, 2/19 class rank (estimates)

SAT - 1520, 1500; 1550 superscore

ECs -

Speech & Debate club, I’m president this year and I won 2nd in LD Debate in Texas last year. My school isn’t affiliated with any national debate associations, so state is as high as I could go
Conducting research on how human development affects soil quality through GLOBE program, will hopefully be published by NASA this year
Went to a pre-law summer camp this summer and did well in mock trial
Went to state for a civics competition
Anchor on school news team for two years
NHS, hoping to start a program to give kids at my school free breakfast

Intended majors: Poli sci, History, Public Policy Analysis, Journalism (preference in this order) and hoping to go to law school after completing my undergrad

Questions:

Should I report unweighted or weighted GPA?

How big of a deal is it that I’m not first in my class? I feel like not being 1st with such a small class size will make the admissions officer throw out my application, but I could also see them overlooking it because of holistic review.

Does Dartmouth / CommonApp do SAT superstore, or do I need to report 1520?

Are my extracurriculars kenough? I feel like they are relatively weak, but I was really invested in debate and I think I could make that clear in my application, plus that is in line with my intended major.

There is a section on CommonApp to describe how COVID impacted me. I did virtual learning for my entire freshman year and didn’t do any extracurriculars, so should I use that space on CommonApp to disclose that?

If you read through all of that, thank you so much! Sorry if it’s a bit jumbled, I’ve been feeling really anxious about this whole process, and any advice you all have to offer me would be greatly appreciated!

2 Likes
4

I sent you a message with some thoughts. Overall message is it’s a holistic process and neither a Rank of #2 nor a 1520 will be negatives! Those are both great. Focus on really understanding the school/fit, being impactful with your activities this year, and thinking about what you want to highlight in your application. Look for the message I sent for a few more thoughts.

1 Like
5

Would appreciate some feedback on my S24’s profile for ED.

  • Strong public high school in the midwest but only sends zero, one or, max two kids to each Ivy

  • 4.0uw/5.0w; 4 APs - all 5s; taking another 4 this year; SAT: 1560

  • Speech/debate with some decent but not exceptional national competitive success (big part of the draw for Dartmouth)

  • NM semi-finalist

  • Planning on engineering

6

The ED acceptance rate is misleading. For example Dartmouth had ED acceptance rate last year at 19%. But if you look at the breakdown, 49% of those went to people of color, 15% are in the first generation of their family to attend college, 14% of the incoming early decision class are the children of Dartmouth alumni, 7-10% athletes. Now let us look at breakdown in numbers:

Total number of students admitted in ED: 578

49% people of color: 289

15% First generation: 87

14% Alumni: 81

7-10% for Athletes: 58

Total admitted with hooks: 289+87+81+58 = 515

Students admitted with no hooks = 63

Acceptance rate for ED with no hooks= 2.1% (Total# of students applied to ED=3000).

7

I don’t buy your analysis.

I don’t think it makes sense to include either people of color or first generation. They’re in the regular pool too (unlike athletes and legacies). So it’s 439/3,000 = 15%.

Total applications are 18,336. Take out ED apps, so RD apps were 15,336. A total of 1,808 were accepted. Take out the 578 accepted in ED, so a total of 1,230 were admitted in RD, or 1,230/15,336 = 8%.

So ED odds are 2x better than RD.

1 Like
8

Actually legacy applicants apply both ED and RD so I’m not sure you can throw them all into the ED pool. Likewise, not all students of color apply ED. Unless these numbers were put out by Dartmouth I wouldn’t put a lot of stock into them. Recruited athletes are the one category where this does make sense - they are typically required to apply ED as a condition of coach support. Our GC told S24 (not EDing Darmouth although it is on his list) that ED does NOT give unhooked students at elite schools a big advantage but that it may increase odds of admission slightly. It certainly doesn’t double your odds - ED pool is typically stronger than RD in addition to including a lot of hooked students so it makes it very competitive.

9

I agree about students of color which is why I pulled them out of @sethbadri analysis. I think legacy’s should remain in the analysis because even if some do apply RD, the fact that they are a legacy becomes meaningless. So, like athletes, legacy’s DO have an advantage in ED if they apply in that round.

I am always fascinated when college counsellors say one thing or another. Prove it. With what data? @sethbadri put up some numbers, and I had a different take. So people can argue the data or the methodology but not the conclusions.

Look at it this way. Every contract is a an agreement between two (or more) parties who each think they’re getting something of value. In an ED contract, colleges certainly get something of value. They have more certainty in forecasting and can manage yield. And the student gets…what? If there was zero upside, why would anyone in their right mind ever make such a committment for nothing in return? So, I agree, wile there is a very wide spectrum of how big that advantage is (from slight to significant), in order for someone to claim that is is no or almost no bump in odds, it would imply that every cycle thousands of rational people are acting irrationally.

10

Please google below you can see the Dartmouth college link, Please read through it:

578 students admitted into Class of 2027 with all-time low early acceptance rate of 19%

1 Like
11

I’d agree there are flaws in that analysis because there are also overlaps in the groups noted yet the numbers have been added together as if mutually exclusive.

Quick note - I think you have the wrong numbers for RD - off by about 10,000 applications. According to this article from Dartmouth Class of 2027 Selected From Record Application Pool | Dartmouth, the number of applicants was 28,841 (not 18,336).

3009 applied the in ED round.
They say that 1173 were admitted RD. So the RD acceptance rate was closer to 1173/(28841-3009) which comes to 4.5 rather than 8%.

1 Like
12

Ah. My mistake. Apologies. So RD is 4.5%. So one can bicker over what adjustments to make to the ED admit rate but I think it’s hard to conclude that it’s an immaterial boost.

13

But how much of a boost is it to unhooked students? It’s a boost to legacies, donor kids, and most definitely to recruited athletes (the group most likely to be accepted) but it is hard to suss out how much of a boost it will be to unhooked kids. I think “slight” or “somewhat” of a boost is probably realistic for that group - I certainly don’t think you are doubling your odds if unhooked.

14

S24’s ED app is in! We’re very excited!

Now we wait. Good luck to all.

1 Like
15

Demographics: African Male Applying From the Middle East

Intended Major(s): Engineering Sciences, Biomedical Engineering/CS

EFC: 35k more or less

SAT: 1510 (780 M, 730 EBRW).

GPA and rank: 95.2 G9, 97.7 G10, 97.9 Grade 11, School does not rank.

Coursework: School does not offer honor programs, AP classes, or anything actually (lmao). Only 1 advanced class available in the whole school and I’m in it (Advanced French, ps: i’m fluent in french). Non feeder school.

ECs:

  1. Research Assistant at -redacted- . Worked on 9 biotech projects, presented 4 proposals, and published 3 papers.
  2. Independent Music Producer named -redacted- on Spotify and SoundCloud. Accumulated 8,000+ followers, composed 7 songs and 4 albums, with 250k+ streams.
  3. Self-Directed Research in Math & Informatics. Worked on dynamic programming and graph theory, published 2 papers. (won’t go much into detail cuz it’s boring asf)
  4. Summer School at -redacted- (MIT’s RSI Sistership Program) . Authored a paper on applications of informatics in Math Olympiads and presented to 6 PhDs and 40 students including the IMO coach for bulgaria
  5. Founder & Lead Developer of -redacted- . Published 4 games on steam and â– â– â– â–  and managed a team developing multiple games and getting 50k+ impressions
  6. Lead Programmer & Assistant Designer for -redacted- and -redacted- .Led projects receiving national press, presented innovations to Fortune 500 CEOs. Joined WRO, robotics team national
  7. Web Developer for -redacted- (top 1 tunisian NGO) & -redacted- . Developed websites, increasing NGO engagement by 200% and boosting business clientele to over 2000 TND profit
  8. COO for -redacted- . Scaled membership to 300+, conducted live coding sessions, and mentored upcoming game studio founders.
  9. Software Engineering Intern at -redacted- . Engaged in app development, collaborated with astro department, and assisted in design. Published app on google play store
  10. Mentor & Lecturer during Mawhiba Week. Taught game development, recognized as a top presenter, and mentored robotics teams to national achievements.
  11. Student Council President & Vice President— 11th + 12th 4 hr/wk; 50 weeksRaised $1000+ via games for renovations & water coolers. Campaigned to win the Presidency, 400+ voters. Lead 30+ member council.

Awards:

  1. Published Researcher @ -redacted- (1.2 IF) & -redacted- (Q3) & -redacted- Journals 11th + 12th
  2. World Robotics Olympiad KSA (WRO); #2 + #9 /8000+; Senior Open Division - Teams (My Robot My Friend) 11th
  3. -redacted- (city name) Student Consultants (1 of 2) for Robotics; Helped teams earn #2 & #9 in National WRO 12th
  4. Student of the year award for junior year + highest french test scorer (perfect scorer, first and only in school history)
  5. Varsity basketball and football and voleyball
16

When will Dartmouth ED start Alumni interview? Did anybody receive interview invitation?

17

Not yet.

18

Thanks!!

19

My kid received his interview invitation today. My understanding is read NOTHING into it. It’s purely based on availably of alumni in the particular geography.

1 Like
20

Thanks for the information. Wish your kid the best of luck! Hope receiving my invitation
soon. Will every Dartmouth applicant be interviewed?