Deferred ED Dartmouth-anyone ever admitted?

RaspberrySmoothie
Sat, 31 Dec 2005 16:33:08 +0000

I think the answer you’re looking for is that yes, it is possible to get accepted RD if you are deferred, but not without significant effort on your part.

First, you should call in all the favors you have. If you have Dartmouth friends who are students, administrators, alumni, ask them for advice on how to make your application stronger. Schedule an appointment with your guidance counselor to see if they have any connections they could use to see why your application wasn’t accepted, and if they can help send in additional information that would help.

By the way, your GPA should be at least an A- at a decent public school (higher at a poorer school, perhaps slightly lower at a competitive school) and you should have at least two or three leadership positions and the equivalent of a 1450+ (2250 maybe on the new one) on your SATs. Those are standard prerequisites. If your stats don’t match, then retake tests as necessary, or boost your grades as necessary.

Also it might be a good idea to write a letter to the admissions with your deferral card (if you haven’t already) reinforcing Dartmouth as your first-choice school and including any changes since your ED app, such as new awards, honors, or changes in circumstance. Think about asking for more teacher recommendations but only if you’re positive they’ll be RAVING about you.

What else? Consider more supplementary materials but ONLY if they’re relevant. A generic rec from a bigwig alum who barely knows you won’t help, and baking cookies doesn’t count as “supplementary materials.” Think music tapes, abstracts of scientific reports, photography portfolios, copies of a magazine you have articles published in, etc.

And then… that’s it. All you can do is sit and wait and know that you’ve done your best. There are plenty of good schools out there but hopefully Dartmouth will recognize your enthusiasm (shown properly, of course!) and change their decision come spring.