Dartmouth Early Decision Class of 2030 Official Thread

Colleges & Universities Dartmouth College
21

My daughter got in! She is so excited!!!

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22

For those trying to decide whether it makes sense to apply to Dartmouth, Iā€™ll give you the profile of someone who didnā€™t get in ED:

-Unweighted GPA 3.9+/Weighted GPA 4.4+

-All AP/IB classes

-SAT 1510+

-Varsity Fencing (4 years)/Team Captain

-Third Degree Blackbelt

-Concertmistress/Three Orchestras/Symphonies

-EMT

-Eagle Scout

-Research Intern at Molecular Biology Lab

-Entrepreneur/Owner of Apiary

-Strong college essays

-Native American

I say this because parents spend a lot of money on college applications, and you may be better off going a different route.

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23

D26 got straight up rejected, which was a little surprising to me. I expected her to get deferred because her stats are tip-top (4.0UW, top rigor, all 5s, 1550, 35) and I think everything else was strong if not exceptional. But oh well. Their loss.

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24

We had a similar experience last year with Cornell (except they deferred, then waitlistedā€¦ ugh). All you can do is recognize its outside of your control, and move on to other great options. Best of luck to you & your great kid!

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25

S26 rejected. Not totally unexpected but still a bummer.

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26

The top 10-20% of applicants all have similar or better stats.

ALL of them are applying to the same top 20 ranked schools with ED1 - Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT, John Hopkins, Williams, Northwestern, Amherst, Chicago,ā€¦If that does not work, then they ALL apply to same top 20-40 ranked schools in ED2 or EA - Georgetown, Boston College, Tufts, Middlebury, UVA, Wash U, Claremont, Colgate,ā€¦And if that does not work, they once again all apply to basically the same schools ranked 40-60 - U Maryland, Wake Forest, BU, U Richmond, William & Mary, Lehigh,ā€¦All these students have impressive credentials. There are just not enough spots available and so many variables that it is far from being a pure mediocrity or clear process.

All that hard work and great effort will serve her well soon enough.

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27

Thanks. Sheā€™s fine, except she is worried that there is something very wrong with her application because she was rejected rather than deferred.

She hears from two EA target/safeties in the next week so hopefully that will turn out well and she will feel more confident.

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28

Iā€™m sorry! I am sure she will land somewhere great. When I read your post it reminded me of advice I received a couple of years ago, so Iā€™m commenting here for others in the future.

When my oldest child applied to colleges a couple of years ago, several people recommended that she apply very early to a safety with rolling decision. By doing that you will almost certainly get an acceptance (and often a scholarship) before you start hearing from the reach schools. It sounded kind of silly to me at the time but my D24 and most of her friends did this and I think it was helpful.

Best wishes to your daughter!

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29

hugs! Thatā€™s rough to feel that way with such amazing stats. ugh. This process is so hard on people. I am confident the EAs this week will have much better news! :slight_smile:

30

There was just no school she wanted to go to that had rolling admissions. But perhaps she should have done it as a canary in the coal mine. Oh well.