<p>"Early Decision applications to the College rose by 8.7 percent over last year, marking for what Dartmouths top admissions officer called the busiest year ever.</p>
<p>The Office of Admissions received Early Decision applications from 1,397 high school students across the country and the globe an increase of 8.7 percent over last year and the largest number of early applications ever, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Maria Laskaris said. The applicants included 686 men and 710 women.</p>
<p>Especially notable, Laskaris said, was the sharp increase in applications from outside the United States; 169 international students applied early this year, 36 percent higher than last years 124. She attributed this increase to strong summer and fall outreach programs by admissions officers."</p>
<p>I assumed that there would be an increase. It was unfortunate that Superbad was so popular. Dartmouth got a lot of exposure with high school kids with that movie. If you factor out the international students since they will hold constant the number that are accepted the increase was only 6%. When you consider that Harvard and Princeton both did away with early decision or early action this increase is not that bad. Yale received a 30% increase in it Early Action applicants due to Harvard and Princeton not having this available. Stanford was up over 25% and so was Georgetown. It would be interesting to know how much of the increase was from legacies and atheletes. Girls it would appear would be at a disadavantage to some degree unless the skew was in the international pool.</p>
<p>Just a quick correction. I stated that Stanford's SCEA's were up 25%. Stanford's numbers are similar to last years with no appreciable increase. Sorry for the incorrect data.</p>
<p>I agree with Redondo Dave that the increase is rather modest, given the loss of EA/ED at other schools and the larger increases reported at Yale, Georgetown and Notre Dame, according to yesterday's Wall Street Journal. </p>
<p>A decent part of the increase is in the international pool. The ratio of women to men is relatively the same as previous years.</p>
<p>It could have been worse. Anybody chance a guess at what the admit rate will be?</p>
<p>Makes sense to see dramatic increases at the EA schools, they definitely benefit the most from the drop at Princeton and Harvard. My bet (we'll see) is a similar increase RD, with an overall accept rate of 13.5ish% this year.</p>
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Wouldn't last year's over enrollment suggest that the number of ED's admitted this year may increase slightly, so as to better predict yield?
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<p>Nope, because unlike other schools Dartmouth is committed to admitting only about 1/3 of the class ED, where other schools admit 40 to 50% of the class ED. MY guess is that the largest tip in ED will still go to recruited athletes and legacies as the school will know will attend.</p>
<p>I agree with bulldogbull that the # of overenrolled students from the class of 11 will affect the class of 12 especially is housing is guaranteed for both freshmen and sophomores .</p>
<p>Here's the details of the wall street journal article: </p>
<p>"Yale University so far has received 4,820 applications to its early-action program this year, up 36% from last year. The University of Chicago has received 4,349 applications, up 42% from last year. Georgetown University says it has received 5,925 applications, an increase of 30% from last year. The University of Notre Dame received 4,247 early-action applications this year, up 12% from last year. Boston College says it is expecting about 7,000 early-action applicants this year, up 16% from last year. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is expecting that once applications have been counted, it will see a 10% increase from 3,493 early applications last year."</p>
<p>Dartmouth doesn't seem to have got its fair share.</p>
<p>What you must also keep in mind that the majority of the schools where applications have gone up (and the subject of the wsj article) are schools that have early action plans where the students are not committed to attend so they can still hold out on hopes of being admitted to Harvard,Princeton & UVA (which ended their early programs. Those who apply ED to Dartmouth are students who are pretty committed to attending and not using hte school to hedge their bets until the decisions from Harvard and Princeton come rolling in April 1 (late march).</p>
<p>With the exception of Princeton, no other school has plans to expand their incoming freshman plan. So the only thing the increase of applications really mean that it will be harder for students applying EA because there is no real commitment to attend and Yale may end up having another replay of the "Yale Massacre" of 2004 where a ton of students were deferred only to be rejected after being held in limbo for months. At least at Stanford if you are not straight out accepted, there is only 10% being deferred from the early pool so everyone else can just move on.</p>
<p>"Those who apply ED to Dartmouth are students who are pretty committed to attending and not using hte school to hedge their bets until the decisions from Harvard and Princeton come rolling in April 1 (late march)."</p>
<p>Not sure where you got that part, but it is definitely interesting to know. To me, how many early action applicants will be committed to a school can only be known at the end of the whole process.</p>
<p>The whole concept of ED is that in exchange for an early decision, if accepted you commit to attend the college and the student withdraws any outstanding application(s) and does not make any new applications where as EA (early action) is a non binding agreement where if a student is accepted, they are not committed to attend the school. So any student admitted ED, is "committed" to attending unless there are some extenuating circumstances and the school releases the student from the agreement. I also think that Dartmouth has more of a self selecting group of students that apply who want to actually attend vs. students that attend because it is a back up to somewhere else.</p>
<p>I think since Harvard and Princeton are now out of the early pool I think that some of the increased number applying to Yale are some of the students that would have applied to Harvard early and probably are looking at Georgetown/Notre Dame as match schools to assure themselves of knowing that they have "somewhere" to go. </p>
<p>I am curious to see what the #s are going to look like now that "everyone" is applying at the same time.</p>
<p>ajayc.... while it's not official, Dartmouth tends to respond about a week early. They still say that you will know by Dec. 15th, but at least for the past three years, it has been around Dec. 7th or 8th. Who knows what an increase in applicants would mean tho.</p>