Dartmouth is an Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire. The university has 4,458 undergraduate students from 64 countries, and is considered the Mountain Ivy as the most rural of the Ivy League schools — it is based in a town of about 12,000. The core of the university is a liberal arts philosophy and a passion for the environment that is deeply informed by the setting in the Northeast. Dartmouth experiences all four seasons hard, and the students who thrive there love that about it. They relish opportunities to engage with art, agriculture, food, the outdoors, and the unique small businesses that make the area a joy to live in. The school also has a unique academic calendar with four 10-week sessions each year, and students can choose when to take time away from campus for vacation, work, internships, service, or study abroad. The acceptance rate is 6.4%.
There is a deep passion for Dartmouth among its students, and a strong alumni network that continues long after graduation. As you consider applying, you should know that Dartmouth is test optional, but with a twist. You are requested to submit your scores if you have taken the ACT or SAT, but you can select for them not to consider the scores for anything other than data collection reasons. So, yes, you do have to send them — but they don’t have to consider them. A little weird? Yeah, but we get it. The team at Dartmouth is super thoughtful, and they are probably trying to figure out whether they should have test requirements in the future or not. They’re equally thoughtful about their supplement, which is intense. We break it down below.
If a mountain school with a global mindset sounds awesome to you, send us an email. We help students find their perfect match.
The Dartmouth supplement is intense, so we recommend getting started on it well in advance of your application deadline.
Dartmouth celebrates the ways in which its profound sense of place informs its profound sense of purpose. As you seek admission to Dartmouth’s Class of 2028, what aspects of the College’s academic program, community, and/or campus environment attract your interest? In short, why Dartmouth? (100 words)
This is the shortest of the Dartmouth supplements, and they want you to get to the point. In about six sentences, you’ll need to explain, in clear detail, why Dartmouth is the place for you. To pull this off in so little space, you need to be specific. Name your prospective major, a professor you want to study under, a program (on campus, research, or study abroad) you feel would augment your experience, and a potential minor. Also name a tradition that you feel connected to, and why. We love the sound of Winter Carnival, which has been happening for well over a century!
Required of all applicants, please respond to one of the following prompts in 250 words or fewer:
Below are two options you can pick from for a 250-word response. They are very similar, but with an important nuance.
Option 1: There is a Quaker saying: Let your life speak. Describe the environment in which you were raised and the impact it has had on the person you are today.
For this prompt, you’ll be writing about childhood. This is a particular perspective, and we only recommend picking this option if you have a significantly unique or abnormal story to tell that would be deemed notable by an application reader and that would shine a light on parts of your application that may otherwise go unexplained. For example, we’ve found that this prompt is especially applicable to students who have been homeschooled or unschooled, or who are from families in non-traditional communities (such as co-ops or communes). Students who have diverged from their families ideologically, spiritually, culturally, or politically can find particular success with this prompt. For example, if you grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family, that may have significantly impacted your educational opportunities. If you’ve had a more standard upbringing, option number two, which we’ll dive into next, would be best for you.
Option 2: “Be yourself,” Oscar Wilde advised. “Everyone else is taken.” Introduce yourself.
For most applicants, this prompt makes the most sense because you can write about anything. But this can also be crippling because you can write about anything. So, it helps to narrow your options down.
Unless a story immediately comes to mind, let’s filter some stuff out. First, look outside of school. You should also exclude anything you’ve already mentioned anywhere else in your supplement or main application essays. And yet, it still has to be a story that illustrates who you are at a deep level, so we recommend looking for something small, detailed, and everyday. If you want an illustration of exactly what we are talking about, check out the egg essay. While this was a main common app essay, it is amazing inspiration for this supplement.
After reading it, identify something that is particular to you — dance parties, babysitting, tutoring your younger sibling, pasta night, fishing on summer weekends, something — and tell that story.
Required of all applicants, please respond to one of the following prompts in 250 words or fewer:
Unlike the above, these prompts are not at all the same. But they are all super fun, and there isn’t any “right” choice, although we do have strong preferences (but that shouldn’t come as a surprise). Below, we break down the options.
Option 1: What excites you?
Any response to this prompt should be specific, small, and ideally academically related to what you want to study — but not in the classroom. Let yourself dive into your enthusiasm here, and really show who you are through what you find joy in, whether it’s noticing new buds on a morning walk with your dog or planning the perfect summer firework show. Whatever it is that gets your brain and heart going, tell that story.
Option 2: Labor leader and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta recommended a life of purpose. “We must use our lives to make the world a better place to live, not just to acquire things,” she said. “That is what we are put on the earth for.” In what ways do you hope to make — or are you already making — an impact? Why? How?
We love this prompt, but not for the reasons you may think. Yes, you could write about volunteering, but we think that’s actually a lost opportunity. If you choose this prompt, we want you to write about a relationship or relationships, you’ve formed with those around you and how, together, you’ve changed things for the better. Maybe you joined student council and found a way to hear more student voices, or maybe you are training the next generation of young babysitters to be first aid-trained and CPR-certified. Whatever you pick, focus on the relationships you’ve formed with others and take a storytelling approach. Consider trying to work some dialog in, for example.
“One, two, three, four,” I count the beats as the students mime chest compressions…or something like that.
Option 3: Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Geisel of Dartmouth’s Class of 1925, wrote, “Think and wonder. Wonder and think.” As you wonder and think, what’s on your mind?
Oh, the places you’ll go! If you pick this prompt, we want you to have as much fun with it as Dr. Seuss would have. Respond in a way that is earnest in content, yet playful in form. Perhaps a poem, a scene, a mini-screenplay, or a short story is your preferred form. Whatever it is, lean into it. Challenge yourself to take a risk. Dr. Seuss didn’t shy away from trying something bold, and neither should you.
Option 4: Celebrate your nerdy side.
This prompt is a riff on what excites you, so option 1 and option 4 (this one) are sort of interchangeable. The only difference we see is that this prompt is academic-focused, but that isn’t even really true because nerdiness doesn’t need to be constrained to the formal school environment. If you really want to pick this prompt over option number one, we recommend nerding out on something that takes a lot of thought, but that you didn’t learn in school. For example, you could share the best bait and casting techniques for catching lake trout at the height of summer, or the geometry of wakeboarding (if you didn’t notice, we have water on the mind).
Option 5: “It’s not easy being green…” was the frequent refrain of Kermit the Frog. How has difference between a part of your life, and how have you embraced it as part of your identity and outlook?
While we said earlier that there is no “right” choice, we do consider this one to be our least favorite of the bunch and we recommend passing on it unless you really have something that jumps to mind to write about. If this is the case and you’re just itching to dig into this prompt, you’ll need to tell a story that illustrates a big-picture point through a time-constrained narrative and a close lens.
Option 6: As noted in the College’s mission statement, “Dartmouth educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership…” Promise and potential are important aspects of the assessment of any college application, but they can be elusive qualities to capture. Highlight your potential and promise for us; what would you like us to know about you?
This prompt is really alluring, but it can be a trap. It invites you to write hypotheticals, dreaming about your potential future, but then all you’re writing about — if you’re not careful — is a potential possible future that may or may not be realized, not who you are and where you are right now. Some other students hear this prompt and think, “yes! Now I can write about the most impressive thing I’ve ever done!” While that can be cool, it can also be really boring to hear a seventeen-year-old brag about how great they are…so you need to pick a story about that massive accomplishment that has some stakes to it. The reader should believe, at some point, that things may not turn out. The story must show resiliency, and be more than just you bragging for 250 words. If you tell a story that has ups and downs and that draws the reader in, this could be a slam dunk.
The Mountain Ivy isn’t named for how hard it is to get into, but the moniker applies. If Dartmouth is your dream school, make sure to give yourself plenty of time to draft, edit, and refine your supplement before pressing submit.
If you’ve caught the Dartmouth bug, send us an email. We know what it takes to get in.