<p>We are now all entering the belly of the Dartmouth ED beast. Before the institutional digestive juices curtail, once once and for all, any glimmer of consciousness, random thoughts flicker across my addled brain. </p>
<p>I recall from past ED cohorts that roughly 1/3 get in; 1/3 get deferred; 1/3 get rejected. Does anyone know or is anyone willing to speculate as to what percentage of those deferred eventually get in? And if one is deferrred, does it help one’s case to reinterate one’s special interest in D again in the RD process?</p>
<p>Also what percentage of those rejected in ED are way off the beam in terms of qualifications (i.e. underqualified applicants hoping their strong interest in D will cover a multiple of sins, underqualified legacies, athletes and URMs unable to come close to a somewhat slighly lower bar)? My guess is that that accounts for about 20% of the total applicant pool. The rest of those in the rejected pool are comprised of those candidates whom Dartmouth sees as not a “fit” (e.g., better at MIT, better at Berkeley, better at Columbia, better at an institution different in “character” than Dartmouth).</p>
<p>The accepted pool has the truly outstanding candidates whom Dartmouth knows would be a near shoe-in at some of its competitive peers (HYPS) and thus wants to take them “off the market”. The accepted pool will also include decently qualified recruited athletes, legacies, the URMs and other speical preferences, which, as many others have mentioned, leaves precious little room for anyone else. Those become “the deferred”.</p>
<p>To extend my silly metaphor, some of us will be excreted, some of us will become part of the sinew and muscle of the beast and some of us will uncomfortaby subsist in a kind of limbo, stuck in some intestinal pocket, awash in gastric acid, awaiting the beast’s ultimate decision on our fate.</p>
<p>I just want to wish all of you good luck!!!</p>
<p>And BalletGirl you are accurate in your analysis where Dartmouth accepts the “qualified” ED candidates since Dartmouth knows these students could well be accepted into the other ivies (take them off the market). Plus these candidates showed that they indeed love Dartmouth applying early instead of “hedging” their odds by applying to all the ivies and top schools during RD, not showing any love for any particular school.</p>
<p>I feel the need to throw out a cautionary comment to all applicants. There are many, many bright and talented kids applying to schools like Dartmouth, that I think it is dangerous to call anyone a “shoe-in.” </p>
<p>I have a child in the class of '09. He is a wonderful, talented young man with many gifts. Yet his equally talented/gifted buddy from his prep school was waitlisted at Dartmouth, and now attends a different Ivy. At the time, I was flabbergasted – how could any school not clamor to accept this young man? But these stories are very common. If any student questions this, you should do a search on CC about Andi’s son. </p>
<p>As parents, we tend to be protective of kids who post on CC. You ARE wonderful kids, and any school will be LUCKY to have you join its student body. But you never know what makes a difference in admission to any college. Do your best, put together the best application you can, and please have alternative plans if your first choice doesn’t work out.</p>
<p>I agree with sjmom that nothing is a shoo-in. Over the past 5 years of activity that I have seen on this board there are always a couple of students who I would have thought would have been a shoo-in and were straight out rejected during the ED process. I think that the process is really hard on people coming from NY, MA, the rest of the Northeast and CA because there are a lot of applicants from these areas (and they end up comprising almost have of the admitted class).</p>
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<p>To be totally honest with you, I haven’t see in either my professional life (which involves a lot of students in the college process) or in the 4 years that my D has been in attendance met any students that fall with in this category. While stats are important dartmouth does work very hard to build a cohesive class. </p>
<p>I also have only seen a small number of students who were deferred ED and actually picked up during the RD process (keep in mind that ~10,000 applications are coming during RD so there will be plenty of room for people to be knocked out of the box). There was one person on Cc over the years who was deferred, waitlisted and picked up from the waitlist (he’s a '10 because he deferred a year). I think there are also going to be a lot of other variables that come into play that may affect admissions; a new admissions dean who will be crafting her first class, the class of 2011 being over enrolled, Princeton, Harvard and UVA no longer being in the early pool.</p>
<p>I recently read an article posted about the gender imbalance that had a quote from CC’s Sally Rubenstone:</p>
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<p>So now that the applications have been submitted, all you can do is let the process play it self out and wait for the outcome.</p>
<p>How many of you early decision applicants have visited the campus?</p>
<p>I spent three weeks in Hanover this summer and fell in love with Dartmouth. The funny thing is that it was raining almost everyday, yet Dartmouth’s splendor shone through the rain, and told me that there is no place in the world I would rather be than Hanover, New Hampshire.</p>
<p>Dartmouth admissions told us that 10% of deferred candidates are accepted. My S was in the 90% of deferred candidates who was not accepted. However, he was accepted at Williams and Brown RD and very happy with his choice.</p>
<p>So don’t obsess too much. The problem with the ED route (and I went through it twice, once with each kid) is that you have only one school to think about so it assumes a looming importance. </p>
<p>If you are competitive for Dartmouth the chances are excellent that there is a wonderful institution that will accept you.</p>
<p>I know that yesterday when CollegeGameDay came to Williams and Williams beat Amherst 20 to 0, that even though my kid isn’t a sports person, he was so excited he didn’t give Dartmouth a thought, nor has he since the day we sent in the deposit to Williams.</p>
<p>Good luck to all of you, but give yourselves a little breathing room too.</p>
<p>Unless something has radically changed over the past years, Williams does not require a deposit (at least it did not when my D was accepted)</p>
<p>However, I still get your point that at the end of the day everyone will end up where they need to be whether it is Dartmouth or somewhere else and this whole ED process will be a distant memory.</p>
(at least it did not when my D was accepted)</p>