Skiing at Dartmouth

rightnotleft
Tue, 26 Jun 2012 21:06:41 +0000

The women’s points on the whole are a little higher than the men, but they also carry fewer members on the team. I would say to have a realistic shot of skiing in carnivals, you need to drop your points into the 50s at least. But it depends on the recruiting class. There are a few female skiers with points in the 20s-30s who’ve deferred Dartmouth a year or two to try and make the USST. Last I looked at the USST roster, they didn’t make the team (but who knows what’s happening with the Women’s D team…), so maybe they’ll be in Hanover in the fall. That would definitely hurt your chances of skiing carnivals. The women usually carry about 10 total alpine skiers, and with points close to yours it depends on NCAA roster spots, attrition from the last year, and the incoming recruiting class. It’s not clear, yet, how good of a recruiter Chip Knight will be, but given his Olympic credentials I think he has a good chance of being a good one.

That said, there’s a reasonably active club program at Dartmouth that covers skiers of all abilities (it’s had people who’ve never raced before to people with FIS points in the 60s, who either just didn’t qualify for the D1 program or who decided they didn’t want to race D1). It’s far under the level of the D1 program, but it’s fun and it’s still ski racing.

Academically you’re under the “average Dartmouth student”, but that doesn’t really mean THAT much. Half of the school is under the median scores. It depends on what else you bring to the table. It would definitely help you to improve your standardized test scores, but don’t forget about the rest of your application. The essay, your recommendations, etc. will play a role, as they do for all Dartmouth applicants. You probably won’t get a tip from the ski team, so it’s important that you make your application as good as you possibly can. I don’t know if you’ve tried to get in contact with the ski team (Chip Knight is the women’s alpine coach), but you definitely should. Chip’s a great guy, easy to talk to, and he’ll be honest with you. He’ll have better advice than anyone here will.