Blourring
Although our kids have graduated, Menloparkmom and I both have kids who were accepted to/attended Dartmouth. I do totally agree that Dartmouth uses a holistic process when reviewing applications and admitting students. However, the other side of the coin is if you are a low income student, there really was not a barrier to you taking the Test because if you were eligible for fee waivers for the SAT and the ACT, you were eligible for fee waivers for the subject test (so in a way, this really may not have been a financial hardship for you the way it could be for families who make just above the fee waiver cut off and had to pay for everything).
While CC is not representative of all of the students who apply to Dartmouth, I really don’t remember a student here on CC who was accepted without SAT II scores (I go through the college process every year in my non-CC life, and I have never had a student accepted without SAT II scores). Submitting scores gives the school another piece of information. In addition, you may be able to use your SAT II scores for placement.
While you wrote
Dartmouth also said
if you are applying RD then you can do the January placement test without having to pay the late fee, which the fee waiver does not cover.