Hello! I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, and I'm here with my colleague Dino Koff, director of financial aid. We're really excited to be spending the next hour with you answering your questions about college admissions—Dartmouth or more generally— financial aid, the weather, whatever it is you'd like us to talk about as we spend some time with you. It's going to be some fun times! So, we already have our first question that comes from Thui, who asks what is the early decision result date? So we are deep in the process of reviewing the early decision files. We begin our committee deliberations later this week and goal is to release our decisions on Wednesday, December 14th and and the first members of the Class of 21 will, be known *trails off* An exciting day, definitely. A financial aid question! We like that! From Emma from Delaware. How does financial aid work and Dartmouth? Now I could spend probably two hours speaking about this. This is exciting but we do try to make it as easy as possible and on our website is a checklist for people that students, applicants can log-on. We expect students to file, if they are US citizens, the FAFSA, the free application for federal student aid, the profile and we would like your parents' taxes and your taxes, if you file, and as we said we try to make it as easy as possible because sometimes dealing with money and numbers gets people stressed out and but it's a really easy checklist to be able to go through [and] submit your documents. If you're an international student, you don't have to do the FAFSA and again we have two clear paths on our website people can check out and apply for aid. A hundred percent of the money is needed based which means you do a great job marketing yourself, your GPA, your SATs, your recommendations your extracurriculars all that stuff is awesome and it stays with Lee and admissions and we go straight on the financial aid numbers and so all of our money is needed-based and Dartmouth doesn't have merit scholarships. Aright next question comes from Gordon in New Mexico, so joining us before dinner. Gordan says I haven't visited because I live so far away. What's it like in Hanover? It's a really great question and Gordon I am the newcomer to Hanover myself. I moved here this past summer and have found it surprisingly cosmopolitan and lively and when I was interviewing almost a year ago I was you know wondering what it'd be like to live in a college town and I have really loved being in this beautiful space where the campus itself is dynamic. There's lots going on. The town that's connected to campus has a great energy to it. I was talking to a student a couple weeks ago from northern New England and I asked how his first year was going he said "oh yeah it's so great to be in the big city which was funny. But it's relative to what you're used to but you know Hanover is definitely a place framed by nature, as our Provost often says. We're in the mountains and the Connecticut River really close by and you get this really striking sense of natural beauty but nestled between the mountains and the river is this really dynamic little college town that has a lot going on. Do you agree with that? You've lived here long than I have. I have. I think this place is definitely amazing A lot of stuff happens and the community is great but the campus offers a lot which is awesome. Yeah so our next question comes from Isabel in Texas and she wants to know how important are SAT scores and ACT scores? So let me use this as a offer preamble before I answer that question. So Dartmouth requires one, not both, so students can submit either the SAT or the ACT and have the option also submitting SAT II tests but for the big test is in the students like to call it, SAT ACT interchangeable. We don't have a preference if you submit both we will use whichever one is higher and the way we know that is our computer has a concordance table that tells the admission officer ACT, stronger result, than SAT, or vice versa and that's the one that goes into your record and the one we see and, you know, follow whichever one you think is the best format for you to give us your results. Alright Christos from Chicago. What advice would you have in order to stand out in the supplemental essays? Um, so I just wrote a blog about this so after we're done if you want to go on the Dartmouth admissions website you'll you'll see a blog called "Celebrate Your Voice" and it's some thoughts about how you use the supplement to bring forward your narrative and your voice, your personality in the more deliberate way. So at Dartmouth we ask you to answer two questions: the first is required wtih everybody and it's 100 words or less and it quotes Dr. Seuss who's Dartmouth class of '25 and the "Oh, the places you'll go" line is from one of his more famous books and we wonder what is it about Dartmouth that inspires you apply? How do you see our program, curriculum, culture, social experience helping you go where you think you'd like to be at this point. So that's that's the first question and the second question we give everybody a choice. There are six different options, you choose one, answer in 300 words or less. You take these two together and you probably text more words than that in a day so it's not an essay it's a long paragraph that gives you a way of sharing some, some additional incentives. So we have a question that says Kermit the Frog famously lamented "it's not easy being green," discuss. We have another question which is a quote from the novelist Henry James reflecting on the value of kindness and it says "Share a moment when kindness informed your actions." We have one that's proving to be popular in the ED pool which is "Celebrate a moment of outstanding teaching and the way it's shaped the way you think about that subject as you apply to college," and so all of these options and there's a couple of others are ways of saying bring a little bit more of your personality into this file. Let us understand what makes you happy, what makes you tick, what makes you think forward about your goals, where you come from. You know, if you're a punk rocker, tell us that. If you are a political activist who worked on one of the presidential campaigns, tell us that. You know what we're looking for in the supplement is not a right/wrong, it's a deeper definition of your persona so that as we move into the part of our process where we're shaping the class and really giving it a broad personality, the question we ask is what voice do you bring to this group of 1125 students we're drawing together as Dartmouth Class of 21. So Tessakiree wants to know do "I need the writing portion of the ACT in order to apply?" Yes the writing portion is required for those of you being the ACT. Erin wants to know, "are interviews required and how do I get one?" So Erin, the way this works is once you apply you will get contacted by one of our alumni interviewers who are located worldwide and they will reach out and invite you to have an alumni interview. It's not required, but eighty percent of our pool typically have one but that's totally up to you and it's really an opportunity for you to sit down with someone, have a conversation, learn more about Dartmouth and their experience at the college but but also bring your kind of personal piece into the mix in a more direct way than just what you've written and had other people write about you. The next one is for Dino. Got the financial aid! Life is good! Mariah from Connecticut, "my parents are divorced. How will this affect my financial aid application? So great question Mariah, we actually get that a lot and something to do is just so you know it's the same process in terms of filling out you still have the FAFSA to apply. You'll use to apply for financial aid, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. You'll do that with your, you'll do that with your custodial parent and and you'll submit that but the profile will ask for your non-custodial parent and they have definitions to help people decide which family member is custodial and what is non-custodial. One great thing about Dartmouth financial aid is that we're accessible and so many times we get questions from parents who are filling out forms and and wanting help navigating the process and it is an easy phone call or an email away that we can help fill out, help you fill out the forms or answer the questions. Every situation is unique and there are different text boxes on these forms. Also, in the emails that we receive, we encourage you to tell us the situation because not all situations are the same and so if you think that you have a unique situation we would love for you to share that so we can help navigate and get the best financial aid package. Okay Sophia from Quebec. Our first international! Asks, "if I studied one or two years of English before applying to Dartmouth, do I need to take the TOEFL?" So TOEFL, the Test of English as a Foreign Language, is required of all applicants for whom English is not the first language. Now if you've studied in an English-speaking classroom, this is less of an urgent issue but if you live in a country where English is not the native language or it's not the native language of your family, then the TOEFL exam gives us way of understanding your ability to perform in English-speaking classroom. So it's measuring your listening skills, your reading skills, your writing skills, your oral skills, so that we are trying to guarantee, for you, that when you get here you are you can listen and respond and perform in a fast-paced English language curriculum. So, you know, if you think it's not necessary you'll score really well. Your English experience is so strong it's probably not gonna be a factor for you either way but for those of you for whom English is still a second language that's the point of the TOEFL. Okay Kevin asks, "SAT II subject tests are recommended not required, what does that mean? So what it means is, you have a choice. We, like I said, require the SAT or the ACT and you have the option of submitting two subject tests of your choice if you think they're a useful way of showing your mastery of that particular subject. So which two, that's up to you. Whether you include them or not, that's up to you. Where it's helpful is it gives us a way of looking at your performance and comparing you across a national/international landscape of students who took a similar course so maybe you got a B+ in your biology course but the teacher had a really aggressive tough grading scale and that B+ was harder and you learned a lot. The subject test gives you a way of saying "look my 750 shows that I've got a pretty deep understanding of biology based on this exam." So that's how we use it. It's a way of cross checking your grade and what you learned in a way that crosses high schools because when we pull together the class there will be hundreds of high schools represented in our first year class and our job besides just admitting you is to certify for faculty that your comparably prepared that's one of the ways we help ensure that for the faculty. Greg from Miami ask, "Does financial aid go abroad with you?" It's like a passport. It is! Life is good. So great question and I'm excited to answer that you our goal here is for you once admissions opens the door our job is to help keep the door open and fund your Dartmouth experience and part of the Dartmouth experience is a study abroad and whether that's abroad, I should say study away from Hanover, because we have many different terms that you can do both domestically and internationally and if there are programs, if there are programs that you're going to study, our aid travels with you so that you know that if London is going to cost an extra 11 hundred dollars compared to your term in Hanover with airfare and maybe housing differences, know that that financial aid will travel with you. So if you're an aided student you can still have those same experiences as you study abroad it's really important to know that this Dartmouth experience that you're applying for has has so many different options and we want to make sure that the aid is there to help you achieve all these experiences and have some great time. Okay Pete wants to know, "what can I do to make my application stand out? Is there a specific thing I should be writing my essay about?" There's no correct answer to this question. So your application and the essays or short responses that you prepare should focus on you. Don't wonder what would a guy in a bow tie likes to read. It's not about what I like to read it's about showing your personality, your story. You know when we put the class together one of the goals is, because it's a residential experience, is to create a peer group that will be interesting, that will have lively conversations in class, in the dorms, in the dining hall. So one of the things were reading for as we meet you in the application is you know what perspective, what voice do you add to the student body? So as you're thinking about the different questions and the way you might answer them each piece of the application introduces another part of you that I don't know what I'm going to find until I start reading and so you know how do you stand out is to be authentic and to be clear about what you've done, what you're thinking about now what, your hopes are going forward, how Dartmouth can help you explore these ideas. So if you have a really specific interest already an academic area, are you talking about that? I read one the other day where the student really lightly mentioned some really interesting interest in archaeology and Latin America and Women's Studies but they never talked about the rest of the application and when I got to the end of the file I thought I wish that had been a topic somewhere because it it was intriguing when I saw it mentioned but it hadn't been developed and I think you want to be asking yourself as the reader moves through this file "what is she learning about me?" As we distill the application into our evaluation form, what do you want us to know and remember? And I often say to students my work is like being a lawyer representing you in court and the jury is the admission committee and my job is to present your evidence to them and get them to say yes and I can only make your case if you give me the details that helps me make it. If you leave me asking questions and or if my fingers aren't moving on the keyboard as I read then that's a missed opportunity for bringing your candidacy to life in an important way. Alright Phil wants to know about transfer applicants do they have interviews? No. The interviewing round is for first-year students only. Wow Northern Ireland. Francesca from Belfast. Alright I love Belfast. "In the admission process, do you prefer to see a well-rounded student with a range of interests or one that is passionate in one particular area of study or a ctivity?" Either is great. Again back to my answer to Pete. If you have represented yourself authentically whether you're well-rounded or deep that's going to be compelling as we come to meet you. So to give you an example of a more specific, maybe your cellist and you spend a significant number of time playing the cello, practicing ,performing with an orchestra, or an ensemble and you write about music and you're starting to think about the way the brain and music interact that's a really specific narrative that that focuses on something really important and passionate. That's great. Now you might be a cellist in the orchestra and an ensemble who's also doing community service and working part-time at a coffee shop and volunteering and the hours per week might be even across these things that's well-rounded and that's also compelling because you're moving among different ways of being engaged. So the key piece here is engagement, not volume. It's not, you've done six things and you've done two. It's what's the depth? What's the enduring commitment of passion? When you wake up in the morning and you say, "Dino! I'm so excited I get to go to soccer camp today or you know I'm working this mural in my studio and I'm so excited to have it in the gallery. You know the answers can go in lots of different directions. It's how you share them with us that helps us get excited about what you're excited about. Gina. Gina, "I didn't do as well in high school early on but improved since then." Is Dartmouth out of reach?" No. I mean we...the word, I haven't used it yet, but the word we use in reviewing your file is holistic. So we're looking at you as the sum of lots of different components and your transcript is a big component and your performance from ninth grade through your senior year is something we study quite carefully and you know you're a high school students and some of you will get off to a slower start than others and what's important as you move from nine to twelve is as you get into your junior year and your senior year, have you have you found your academic stride? What courses are you taking, how are you doing, what are your teachers saying about you and I think to your question about a slower start, is there a teacher who can speak to what you were like in the classroom in ninth grade and what you're like today and how that transformation came to pass. That's where you use the teacher rec as a really important supporting example of of your growth. Alright Fernando asks, "how do you assess students with various high school education? What if I went to multiple high schools?" So this is common actually where a student will start in one school the family moves or they'll leave a public institution maybe go to a boarding school or an independent school and you might have nine and 10 in one place 11 and 12 another lots of different combinations. We'll look at you in those respective components so nine and ten at school number one, eleven and twelve at school number two. What was the translation from one to the other? Was it steady performance was there a dip and then a rebound, no change? So don't worry about having multiple institutions particularly when that choice wasn't yours either your family moved or you sought out a different academic experience. If you're moving around a lot because of some disciplinary issues that's a different question that maybe we'll talk out later, but to the spirit of your question multiple schools will be evaluated in each component piece. OK, Priya asks, "to what extent is a student's aspirations contingent on getting admitted? Does my intended major matter?" Your intended major of matters to a degree. So I think most admission officers in a liberal arts college expect high school seniors to be broadly undecided and I would say as an academic advisor for many years I hope you're broadly undecided that you come into the first year start experiencing your courses and remain open to subjects that your high school did not offer. Then having said that, most of us have organic parts of the curriculum that that flow out of our own ways of learning and who we are, you know, I was a humanities person who really favored English and history and languages, you know, I had a friend when I went to college who was math, economic, you know, much more point than I was. If you have that as a high school senior tell us that. So when the Common App asks what are your academic interests there's not, again, a right answer or a wrong answer. You can write undecided and just leave it at that or you can say religion, chemistry, political science, Italian, you're undecided but you've given the admission officer some really interesting ways of learning about you what you're thinking about and do those interests come back in other parts of your application? What are you thinking about? And if you really do know, I mean, as you move around your college search and you're at this last stage of it in the next few weeks, what you should be thinking about is which colleges have the programs your'e most inclined to study? So if you're thinking you're going to be a marine biologist, you should be looking for programs that offer that. You know, if you know you know you're an engineer you love robotics and you've been taking things apart and putting it back together again since you were five and you're looking at the Thayer School, you know, you're not admitted to Dartmouth into the Thayer School of Engineering. You declare a major in that by the end of your sophomore year but if you have an engineering instinct in the file and you're talking about, I read one this morning where the student was talking about chemical engineering and really hoping to use that to find renewable energy sources and in water purification systems. That was really specific it it kept coming up. A teacher talked about a research project they had done that was great. So again there's not a correct answer to this. If you really are undecided I would say poke that a little bit and ask really? Drama or physics? And if the answer is no no no never physics then oh, are are you an art student. I mean more broadly what division of the curriculum are you leaning towards. That's helpful. Dino's turn again. Right, yeah. Daniel. Alright. So Daniel from Montana, "I come from a middle-class family. What does tuition-free mean for Dartmouth financial aid?" So we have a financial aid initiative for families who make under a hundred thousand and have typical assets and what this means is that for families that qualify this year in the class of 2020 we had 203 students who qualified in the class which is great and the average grant for average scholarship for these students was over 59,000 dollars. So with tuition being in the 49,000 dollar range, we're covering fees and part of room and food for families and so it's a great initiative and so you just apply for financial aid like you were going to apply. You don't have to apply for this initiative. If you meet the criteria, under a hundred thousand with typical assets, we place you in and you qualify for this initiative. So, Dino, then let me ask you a follow up and jump in and say "Lee asks!" you realize you're literally from Connecticut, you from Hanover said. So twice you reference typical assets, yes, what does that mean? Typical assets we don't publish it *both laugh* So, we would like families, so for instance if there's a family that has 74 thousand dollars and and has 1.8 million dollars in assets, that's probably not typical for a family making 74,000. So that person still may qualify for aid but may not receive, as I said the average was 59,000, may not get that type of the grant but the initiative does cover a hundred percent of tuition which is great, right. Alright Jake, "is there a specific date plan to announce acceptances for early decision applicants?" December 14. Be there. Oh alright, so Kandie has heard the term prior-prior what is this all mean? Yeah, so I made visits this year to New York City and to Los Angeles, in Boston to some different schools and different programs that Dartmouth put on and I was amazed at how many families, counselors, students, understood prior-prior because it has rocked the financial aid world. Basically what that means is President Obama about 18 months ago signed an executive order that changed the tax year for financial aid. So for instance for the word year 16-17, that's the year we're in right now, students apply would apply for financial aid and they would use their 15 taxes. So remember you're applying for financial aid as a first-year student in in February of 2015. Well how many families have taxes done? Not too many. And so as the year went on you would get more families who have taxes done and they would send them in but it was always a stress for families because so many times they were filing extension. Well now this is supposed to make it easier and so far families have the feedback has been very positive where families instead of using prior-year taxes are now using prior-prior, like two years ago, Correct, instead of last year. So life is good that families now hopefully have their 2015 taxes done. October 1st this year the FAFSA database opened up so you can go to the FAFSA website. The profile opened up and if you have 2015 taxes done you can apply for financial aid and you don't have to wait to get your next year, the prior-year taxes, because we're using what they say prior-prior. Or two years ago *laughs* Yeah so my tech helpers here wanted just to let you know that we're getting lots of great questions. We're going to try and get as many of them as we can tonight by 8pm. If we don't answer your question we will post a blog later this week where we will put out answers to try and cluster some of the questions together So short commercial break there just to say if we don't get to every question you're not done. I mean people are hitting home runs with these questions. Yeah these are doing well. Zoe wants to know, "what system does Dartmouth use to go through all of those applications most efficiently and effectively?" So that's a question I get a lot from parents who say things like so you get 21,000 applications and you have a set number of days to read them and my answer to, my friends always say you know I disappear into a bunker and don't come back out until April, and it's true and what happens is we just start reading and the system we use, we do a read first by geographic territory so every admission officer is assigned in part of the world and so we spend the first phase doing preliminary reads, setting up your file, understanding your academic background. We go in and we do a full read holistically all the pieces of your file summarizing it giving evaluations the value of comments and then as we're doing that the reader starts to direct the files some come directly to me because they're quite strong and the readers saying this is a clear admit. And the Dean can see it and just sign off some of them go the other way where we're reading it's clear this person isn't competitive and they get routed to another cue where they're evaluated and the decision is made to stop the evaluation but most have been go through a full read, a second full read, and then wind up in committee and so we're sitting at one of the committee tables right I don't know if it's visible on the screen but sit around a table like this and we talk about you one by one that's what happens with early decision starts on Friday we will be presenting like I said to our peers hoping to get a two-thirds vote from the committee to say yes and it's labor-intensive, Zoe. The best way to describe reading season to someone who's not an admission officer would be to imagine studying for final exams for 13 weeks in a row. It's my favorite part of the admission process but it's a lot of work that we read and we evaluate and we meet and we read and we evaluate and we meet and then it starts going over financial aid and they start doing their work which is separate. So, you're reading? I'm reading now yeah I came in earlier today I did not look like this when I first arrived for this chat thinking chat was typing not talking and I looked like a lumberjack and Mariah who is our social media coordinator sent me home and said go put on a suit so the fact that I was I was in more reading wear today as I was trying to finish my own reads for early decision and get things done. So it's not very efficient, Zoe, that's the sad long-winded answer. It's because students are complicated. Dartmouth is very selective. We have to make really fine distinctions among of a big pool of people who are compelling and so the efficiency goes out the window as we read you one by one and make some informed decisions about it but there's a system that we use it's always a happy day when we hit the send button. OK, Anna, "does Dartmouth encourage students to pursue double majors? I have a great passion about the arts and sciences and would love to make the most of my interests." Yep you can do a double. Dartmouth allows you to do something called a modified major where, in your example of arts and sciences, lets say you're doing studio art and biology, you might do biology modified with studio art and look at, you know, anatomical drawings perhaps or looking at the history of anatomical drawings through time. That's actually a course that we offer in medical anthropology, but you're able to take two disciplines and combine them not into a double so much as a major that's got a more specific flavor to it. One of our colleagues in Admissions was a history major modified by religion and his focus was on the history of the Middle East and his history courses were doing a deeper dive into Islam and the role of religion in the Middle East and, you know, he was a history major but he had a more specific focus of what he did so that's a great option that we offer. Alright Ellen from Limington, "how much money do you give out?" That's a great question, Ellen. 95 million dollars we give out in scholarship aid. We don't just give that to one student we sort of spread it out which is a good thing. Our average scholarship is around 47 thousand dollars so just below the full cost of tuition which is great and this year we had about forty six percent of our first year class receive free money and so as opposed to loans so it's actually, it's wonderful to be able to be need-blind and even though we're friends we really don't talk about students in the sense of we are need-blind so we don't look at the the financials until the admissions decisions are made and then the other part of that is we meet full demonstrated need. We're able to do that with the type of budget that we have for scholarships. Mary Alice wants to know, "should I have a Coach/employer/Dartmouth alumni write for me?" Sure! You know, we require recommendations from your guidance or college counselor, a teacher. We have an optional peer recommendation and so some of the people Mary Alice is thinking about could be a peer rec. Peer does not just mean a biological peer, doesn't have to be your classmate or sibling. Could be a sibling, could be a coach, it could be a co-worker, it could be your priest, it can be anyone that you see in that kind of broadly-defined peer capacities. That's another option we offer which I love because when I get to the peer rec component of the read the way your peers describe you makes you 17 in a really vivid way and their endearing and earnest as they present you as a candidate for admission and often show us a part of you that might not a bubbled out. Sometimes the alumni interview does it too so the peer rec is another opportunity for you to have someone who's not a teacher or guidance counselor offer some words of wisdom on your behalf. "What is the one part of the application that perspective students often overlook?" That's for Michelle. That's a great question, Michelle, and so I think there's two there's two ways to answer this I think the biggest boogeyman that haunts you as prospective applicants is procrastination. Say that again for the parents watching. The biggest boogeyman that haunts prospective applicants is procrastination. What does that mean? You wait until right before the deadline and treat the application as if it's a text message as opposed to a document and they're different and you can't do it well if on December 31st you're pounding out answers to these questions with the clock ticking towards the deadline. I never did that well you know, I didn't like all-nighters in college just not my thing. I'm not an owl. So procrastination is one thing but I guess the deadline is what's overlooked people don't realize how quickly it approaches but the piece of the application that they think has the biggest impact that we don't all talk about that much is the teacher recommendation and the person who spent many days with you in a classroom sharing an intellectual journey that's often a very rich opportunity not to just say I gave Dino a B+, as supposed to an A, but this is how he behaved in my classroom, you know, what kind of questions did you ask? What kind of papers did you write? What was the class like when you were absent? In that teacher recommendation, so you have the choice, who gets that form for you? You know, we we advise you to use a junior year or senior year teacher. If you insist on someone from freshman or sophomore year I would say, has that person been in the classroom with you since then or kept in touch with you because what you've learned who you are today is different than it was two or three years ago and I think the teacher recommendations would be an overlooked asset and I think the supplement is something that has more power than you might realize. Those questions that each College asks in addition the Common App are designed by that admission office to elicit from you something really specific to this place. So when you read the questions, you know, what we're asking is something that's important. So that would be my answer. Chris, "what if my school doesn't provide quarter grades if I'm an ED applicant?" So Chris, if you don't have quarter grades which we just requested from your guidance counselor you obviously can't be punished for that you know we welcome a progress report from your senior year. If you don't have any grades we can't evaluate them. We will ask, let's be optimistic, you get accepted, we will ask ED admits to submit their mid-year grades and we will verify your performance at that step and we will do that again the end of your senior year and the letter that will have my name on it says this offer is made with the expectation that you maintain the level of academic achievement that distinguished you as an applicant. That's called the escape clause. *laughs* So you know if your grades falter between the point of admissions and matriculation we will revisit you and say, hey, let's talk, Chris. You don't want that, you don't want that. So we do for all of you who just went "oh no," we do follow-up and want to ensure that senioritis hasn't grabbed you. Alright, Josh! No, Dan! The questions are flying in so this is great everybody so thank you very much. It's not game show this is great *laughs* Let's go to Dan from New Jersey "I filed my FAFSA but I haven't submitted my CSS profile. Is it too late?" So Dan, that's a good question and if you're an ED applicant definitely file the profile ASAP because we are starting to look at files and I think that's really important that all that material is complete. If you are an RD it's great to get it done. It's regular decision. Excuse me if you are a regular decision pool. I know the admissions *inaudible* pretty good, right? So you definitely have a little bit of time but you do want to get in because you do want your file complete and so hopefully once you're admitted you're ready to go on the financial aid side. Peter wants to know, "if we consider geographic diversity in the admission process." Yes. This is a national, this is an international student body so one of the goals not the top goal but one of the factors we look at is where were you raised and to what degree does that inform the person you are? So it's not just a zip code. There's not a certain quota. This person from this state and this guy from this country but when we look at the geographic background, how has that place informed who you are? There's another way to think about that. At my last institution we had a question, so there's a Quaker saying "let your life speak" and you know what does the place where you were raised say about who you. That Quaker phrase is a really rich opportunity to think about you know, I grew up in the city and this is the way it informed my perspective about sociology or economics or urban planning or architecture. I grew up in Montana in this big open place and how does that inform my understanding of environment, of Agriculture, or Native American history. What do you bring into your story based on where you were raised. "How prominent is the Greek life at Dartmouth?" Greek life is a part of our undergraduate experience. I would describe it as an element of a broad, eclectic social experience for students who choose to be part of that experience. I know many colleagues here at Dartmouth who were in fraternity or sorority and it was a deep meaningful experience with a peer group that I don't think they would trade and then I know others one of our tour guides is working over the break is not and he said you know I move freely among all the different social groups on campus. I participate in the Greek experience when I choose to and when I don't, I'm not hindered by it. So I think like lots of places where there are Greek elements to the undergraduate experience, you can make of it what you wish but you're not defined by it or its absence. Nick wants to know how the size of his school and the admissions process. What if I go to a large school with hundreds of students in the senior class versus what I go to school with a very small senior class?" It's not really an issue that we spend a lot of time talking about. I mean if, just to use one of the statistics that the guidebooks use, the top 10% obviously the top 10% of a class of 60 is a smaller cohorts in the top 10% of class of 600. So you know there's differences of scale. For students in smaller places sometimes that brings more limited opportunities by way of the curriculum or extracurriculars and so we note that when we're looking at the other parts of your files so you know if your senior class is really tiny and they can't offer many advanced courses because there just aren't enough students to run the course, we can't expect you to have taken that course. Some of the bigger places will have a more plentiful set of options and we look at students choice in that land of plenty and wonder like what did you take relative to what was available. So another way to answer this question is you are each evaluated one by one in a local context so we start reading, I mentioned our territory managers first, when we go into each file, the first thing we're doing, is by way of setting up the file, is what we call the content, the context box, so you know, where are you? What's your family background? What percentage of the seniors in your school typically go to a four year college? What kind of courses are offered? We're documenting the landscape before we evaluate you in that landscape. So that's you know, size would be one of the factors we look at when we're setting that up. Gabe wants to know, "what's the best part about Dartmouth and is Dartmouth gay-friendly?" So, I'll answer the first part, sorry, the second part first. So Dartmouth has a gay Dean of Admissions. I would say you're friendly! *both laugh* What's the best part about Dartmouth? You know, I have found it to be, as a newcomer, a place with a really rich classroom experience. The excellence of undergraduate teaching at Dartmouth is superb and that's what attracted me to this place as an admissions officer. It's what comes back to me when I talk to students about alums, about what they experienced. It's dynamic. It's experiential. It's personal. It's interdisciplinary so it teaches you how to move between the traditional windows and see how these things blend together What would be your favorite? I would definitely say that I've never seen a place offers so much. This is just an incredible socially, academically, it's just there's so many different opportunities for students to take advantage of and I think it just creates an incredible environment. Nina, "how does my racial, ethnic cultural background factor into my admissions evaluation?" So your personal background, however broadly or narrowly you want to define it, is one factor among many. So just like geography, as we're meeting you, one of the questions were asking is you know, who are you and how do you bring that background, that perspective into this student body? And how does it inform the way you think, what you want to study. So it's not, there's not "a" piece of you that is the most important part. We don't say well she's from Ohio or she's Hispanic or she's female or male or transgender or, you know, those questions are not the the salient pieces. How does that collection of parts of you inform the rest of you and the goal, really, when you think about it, you're Class of 21, you know, our goal as we set up the first-year class is to create an undergraduate experience that that, to the best of our ability replicates the world you will join when you graduate, when you start working, having or raising a family or traveling like what's the interconnected-ness, the multicultural dimension and how do we make this undergraduate experience as rich and dynamic as the world that surrounds us. So that's that's how your personal story kind of comes into this conversation. It's another advertisement time. Yeah several questions about essay writing and other topics. And, so, essays. Your essay, we'll talk about the Common App essay, the long-form, personal statement, one piece of writing goes to multiple institutions and don't overthink it. Don't overwrite it are my two don'ts. Use that space to draft a statement that introduces you to us on whatever term you want us to know you and the more people you show that document to and the more edited or scrubbed it gets, it starts to lose your voice. So having someone edit your work that's always helpful but over editing can sometimes disrupt the impact of a piece of writing that can often really add an important dimension to your candidacy. What are the best traditions at Dartmouth? I'm amazed at how many traditions there are Whether it's the pre-orientation trips, Students are constantly talking about that. People who are not water people and they ended up, sorry I mean they are water people, but not, you know, they tried whitewater kayaking or they did for their first ever time they went hiking and they talk about these experiences and the amount of people that come back for homecoming and they run around this huge fire, bonfire. Huge! And they're running around it and it's just incredible! There's just there's a profound sense of place at Dartmouth that students and alumni really embrace. It's unlike anything I've experienced in my career before Dartmouth. It's like this deep vivid affinity to Hanover, to the Upper Valley which is the surrounding region, Vermont and New Hampshire and the traditions that flow out of that. Dino's named a couple but there are many many. Winter Carnival, where people, you may hear it's 78 degrees and sunny year-round. That may not be the total truth and they have this frozen pond that they cut a big hole in and one of the traditions is that people jump into this pond like a polar plunge. Did you do it? I watched it. Dino would be someone to do a polar plunge. One day. Not me. Peter wants to know, "how does Dartmouth promote student- professor interactions?" So it's organic. 60-plus percent of our classes have 20 students or fewer in them. So you think about that. I mean most of the courses you will take over the four years of your undergraduate experience are in a small room where it's a discussion-based, interactive learning experience and the faculty-student relationship grows out of that place. You're not one of a couple of hundred people in a large lecture hall. We have those courses but they're not the norm. What's more typical is this learning space we're just like Cheers, everybody knows your name. You're not anonymous at Dartmouth and that size differential is a really important part of our identity. You look at some of our peer institutions in the University scope, we're small relative to that and that gives us the benefit of really close student-faculty interaction that you can't force, it just happens, right. As I met faculty I've been struck by how they know their students. They can refer to specific people and specific classes and remember conversations and papers and multiple courses that students have taken with them so it goes back to what I said the best part of Dartmouth. It's like this is a teaching-centered place. It's not uncommon that you may if your skier be on the chairlift going up with somebody who just taught your class or taught your class last term or you might be sitting at the Hop, at a theater with them. I mean the interactions are incredible. It might be un-planned but we're a small community and there's also planned—where faculty are having students over for dinner many times and that's what the alums talk about a lot. Pedro wants to know, "as the new Dean of Admission, what is my vision and how's it different?" Oh, Pedro, that's hard. So my vision is not really the key piece here. My road at Dartmouth is to work on behalf of the faculty in arts and sciences and engineering to bring the best students from around the world to this campus to make that classroom experience I just described as powerful as we can make it. So that's that's the vision I guess which, I approach this work from a very faculty- centered, intellectually-based place and but from your side you know what I've always done in my career is really emphasize student narrative and the idea that you bring lots of different qualities to your undergraduate experience. Your academic performance, critical, fundamental, non-negotiable, but and what you do outside the classroom in a space like this also makes this experience that it is. So your enthusiasm, your curiosity, your adventuresomeness, your kindness, your support for your peers, are all things that make a college like Dartmouth work. So that's what I bring to the role. My new colleagues will tell you I'm making them read slowly and deeply and really bringing your story to the table so that when we meet, we know who we're meeting and so that has been my enduring philosophy. I got into this work many years ago because I was the first in my family to go to college and I knew that college, and not just college, but for me a liberal arts college, transformed my life and so I see what it does when people have access to this kind of place and so leading a team that you know does outreach whether it's social media like tonight, whether it's we're in your hometown visiting school, whether you're on campus and we're meeting you, you know, how do we give you as much information about this college as we can so you can make an informed decision about is this the right fit for you. Can you see yourself here and do we offer what you'd like to study. So Mariah, our director is giving us the wrap it up signal. This has been phenomenal. So again there's a blog on our website that I wrote last week offering some thoughts about adding your voice to your supplement and common app so take a peek at that. We will be posting this video on Facebook later this week as well as the answers to some of the questions we didn't get to. So thanks for joining us. If it's dinnertime, I hope it's good. If it's homework time get it done. Goodnight!
