@4junior, Thanks.
I know some top private schools locally that do that as well. How about public schools? Anyone?
Small private that ranks. Val was just accepted ED. Maybe applied because Dartmouth has predilection for top students?
Yes, i know a number of students in a few public schools in NYC accepted ED who are not Val/sal
Some years back our HS had 7 attend Dartmouth, so likely more were accepted. By definition not all could have been val or sal.
7? wow. Dartmouth never accepts more than 1 from our public school. Well, I am in the South.
Dartmouth just released the ED numbers. Applications were up 13.5% over last year. Acceptance rate for ED was 24.9%. the lowest since 2010. Vals/Sals were 105 of the 565 accepted. Average SAT 1460. Average ACT 33. There you have it.
Thanks, @letour
The scary thing is that this is ED, where 60% is legacy, sports recruits (as I read somewhere on CC) who typically are not Val/Sals. Taking away students from private feeder schools as shown above (#23) and those students who did not submit ranks, the number of Val/Sal is still that high. I do not think I have a chance if I am not a Val/Sal 
I canât deny that the statistics seem to show a bias for valedictorians/salutatorians, but I will say this-- Dartmouth seems particularly good at holistically reviewing applications. I say this because our dean of admissions, Lee Coffin, came to Dart from Tufts. I observed a mock admissions panel at Tufts and was thoroughly impressed by how the applications were reviewed-- thoroughly, with consideration of contextual background, and stressing the importance of qualitative factors (essays, recs, etcâŠ). I would assume Lee Coffin would employ the same strategies at his new position at Dart. A strong sense of community is very important at Dartmouth, and subsequently character truly matters for applicants; itâs why we ask for peer recs! Further, I know plenty of kids in my freshman class who didnât have âperfectâ applications (no or âweakâ SAT2 scores, a weaker grade in al particular class in high school, etc.) who are here at Dartmouth anyways (and thriving!). Finally, the statistics seem daunting, but I doubt Dartmouth is exclusively handpicking vals and sals. Like it was mentioned before, Iâd guess it was more correlation than causation. If youâre providing rank and fall within the top 10% of your class, Iâd say you have as good a shot as a val or sal.
Iâm biased for sure, but Iâd encourage anyone whoâs interested in Dartmouth to apply! It is a truly incredible place.
@dart21, Thanks. Lee Coffin was hired 2016. It takes time to change culture.
I understand the correlation argument. Top colleges will have more Val/Sals simply because of their quality. However, the odd of a non-val/sal to make it seem too daunting. I actually had Dart on top of my listâŠ
As reference points, Brown has about 45% Val/Sals, Penn has about 35%. Pomona has 30% among ranked students. Dart has more than 50%. I could not find data for other schools.
One last statistic somewhat related to this thread. There are 37,000 high schools in the U.S. The ivies enrolled 14,400 freshman last year. That means that the schools could fill their freshman classes five times over with only vals/sals. Just to put it in perspective.
@hou2019 Well, heâs still dean of admissions! He is undoubtedly the most influential person in the admissions office. And Dartmouth has always been concerned about the character/holistic view of applicants. The peer rec isnât anything new! As for the statistics, I do urge you to remember variances in students reporting rank and the number of applicants to each school annually. Plenty of factors could contribute to the admittedly very daunting statistics youâre pointing out. That being said, I havenât analyzed the data myself so I suppose I canât say anything one way or another.
I guess what Iâm trying to get at is that Iâd hate to see someone genuinely interested in Dartmouth decide not to apply solely because they think they need to be a val/sal to get in. I wasnât the perfect applicant (definitely not my schoolâs valedictorian or salutatorian) and I almost psyched myself out of applying. Everyone told me not to apply to Dartmouth, I was entirely convinced I would never get in, but I impulsively decided I had to take a chance. Iâm glad I did. But, of course, where you decide to apply is entirely up to you.
In fact, insisting one needs to be Val/Sal isnât the sort of thinking any tippy top holistic is looking for, in the first place. Itâs too limited, you miss the rest of the qualities and actions they do value, what some of us consider the real trump cards.
Trying to take one metric and extrapolate is just faulty. These tippy tops arenât holistic cuz they thought it up last year or some dean came from another school and decided to suddenly implement it. Itâs been the practice a long time.
If your hs realized some gross calculation error and you suddenly found yourself Sal, you wouldnât be any closer, without understanding more.
Your whole app pkg needs to be on the mark. Try to know what that means and how one shows it or not. Take that hyper-focus off rank and stats and more fully âmatchâ yourself. If theyâre looking for qualities X, Y, and Z and evidence of the right patterns of action, do you show those? Do you have an idea what they are? For real, not hearsay or assumptions.
Thanks. I envy your optimism.
@hou2019 trust me, I wasnât always this optimistic. I applied ED despite my college counselor telling me I had a very slim shot at getting in and my mom urging me not to waste my ED application on a school Iâd never get into. Life surprises you sometimes, though. Best of luck wherever you decide to apply! Reach out if you ever have questions about Dartmouth or want advice; Iâd be happy to answer.
Iâm rank 6 and got in ED
ironically you miss the point that most Val and Sal are not awarded until the end of Senior year, well after Dartmouth has made their decision. One canât be an average student to get into Dartmouth- so it is expected that the admitted students would be near the top of their classes anyway.
Thatâs not a valid point. Your rank is known at time of the application, which could change in senior year for sure but not much.
All top colleges have their fair share of Val/Sal, no doubt. I am just saying Dartmouth favors the top-ranked students more than other colleges do. It is understandable because class rank was used as a major factor in most colleges in the past. Many colleges have moved toward more holistic approach (class rank still important but not as critical). Some just move slower and the data shows that. One example of the slow-moving institutions is UT Honors. One of the honor program states that they âoften admit the top 5 positionsâ - note it is not top 5 percent.
According to CollegeData, Dartmouth considers class rank as âvery important,â along with standardized scores, GPA, essay, character, etc. A lot of âtopâ schools, like Harvard and Emory only âconsiderâ rank while others like Yale, Tufts, and Duke also consider it âvery important.â But that doesnât mean they only accept vals and sals! I think it means that it really matters to those schools how your GPA compares to the rest of the kids in your school, thatâs all.
No school, including Dartmouth, just wants a class of valedictorians.
Ivy league admission committees are an inconsistently funny bunch of squirrels. Grades and stats matter, but most of the real selection criteria is completely subjective. In the end, our economy is diverse. Most high paying jobs are not run by ivy league graduates, which includes most fortune 500 CEOs. Many bright, hard working graduates choose scholarships instead because it allows them to start a career debt free.