Dartmouth is a highly-respected university in Hanover, New Hampshire, and member of the Ivy League. The college is best known for bringing together the triumvirate of college good times: exceptional academics, a fun culture that centers celebration and athleticism, and a close-knit community. Students who attend Dartmouth aren’t afraid of being hours away from an international airport, or of a good time. What they graduate with, though, is an iconic degree that kickstarts an outstanding future.
Getting into Dartmouth is hard, especially as the school is quite self-selective among its similarly prestigious peers. Most of the Ivy League, and Ivy-adjacent, schools are in large cities. Most of them are quite large themselves, and the students who are drawn to them tend to appreciate the benefits of the city as part of the college experience. Dartmouth attracts a different type of student. The idea Dartmouth applicant is most excited by the community a small, liberal arts school offers — but wants the most rigorous, selective, and prestigious version of that package. That, then, is Dartmouth.
Dartmouth has under 4,600 undergraduate students, and fewer than 7,000 total students including graduate students, but tens of thousands compete for those few spots. For the fall of 2024, Dartmouth received 31,656 first-year applications. Only 1710 were admitted, or 5.4%.
What is Early Decision at Dartmouth?
Dartmouth offers Early Decision ahead of the Regular Decision round, and it is aimed at students who know that Dartmouth is their first-choice and are comfortable committing ahead of even applying. In exchange for making a commitment to Dartmouth early, they give early decision applicants extra consideration. Ultimately, the ED acceptance rate is higher than the RD acceptance rate, which leads some to feel like it’s possible for a weak Dartmouth candidate to get in if only they apply early.
This, we’re sorry to tell anyone who believes it, is wrong. Dartmouth only accepts students who they feel can thrive in, and contribute to, their community.
We understand how the Dartmouth ED acceptance rate can be misleading for students, as there are many students admitted ED who were fairly certain that they were going to get in before submitting an application, such as athletes with coach support. These students may also have slightly ‘softer’ applications due to their athletic commitments, like fewer clubs during the seasons when they are competing or a missing class because it couldn’t be fit into their schedule.
We wish Dartmouth released an ED acceptance rate adjusted for this pool of applicants, as we wouldn’t be surprised if it were half the published ED acceptance rate. However, we do have some statistics to go on. Dartmouth did not publish their early admissions acceptance statistics for students entering in Fall 2024 in the Common Data Set, but we have some numbers to go on when assessing how to craft the strongest ED application for each of our students.
We know that Dartmouth received 3,550 Early Decision applications for the Class of 2029, “marking the College’s sixth early record pool since 2017.” ED Acceptance rate has been between 15% and nearly 20% in recent years.
There’s also a preconception that the Early Decision round favors those who are from wealthier families, but this isn’t exactly the case at Dartmouth. Dartmouth covers financial need of all admitted and enrolled students, including ED applicants, and prioritizes accepting students who have fewer support systems. For the Class of 2029, 18% of students admitted early decision and through the QuestBridge program were the first in their family to attend college, more than half applied from public or charter schools, and 10% came from high schools where a low percentage of graduates continue on to college. Year-over-year since at least 2021, Dartmouth has also been reducing the number of legacy students admitted ED. For the Class of 2029, 11% had a Dartmouth graduate for a parent.
If you are a legacy student, this can be disappointing news. You need to apply ED to get the attention of admissions and to gain the benefit of being a legacy, but that benefit is becoming less and less significant. This makes working with an expert more important than ever.
In this post, we’ll break down what you need to know about crafting a strong Early Decision application to Dartmouth, and what actions you need to take to improve your chances of admission no matter how much — or how little — time you have before pressing submit.
Building a strong application requires expertise. If you bring the passion, we’ll bring the years of proven outcomes.
Applying Early Decision is not for the faint of heart. Students need to be ready to work hard on school for years before submitting. Their applications, too, will take extra time and attention. But with the right guidance and hands-on support, it can (dare we say it) even be fun.
Why should I Early Decision?
Why should you take on this extra work? Well, when we broke down the statistics it shows that Early Decision applicants to Dartmouth have an increased chance of admission, even when we account for recruited D1 athletes. But to get the advantage to work for you, you have to be a genuinely strong applicant with an impressive application.
What can you do to increase your chances of admission Early Decision to Dartmouth?
To be a strong Early Decision applicant to Dartmouth, there are five boxes you need to check. Below, we dig into each.
Grades
An applicant will not, we repeat, will not, get into Dartmouth if they do not have a strong academic track record. Dartmouth has so many tens of thousands of applicants who knock it out of the park academically that they really don’t have time for students who haven’t pushed themselves in the classroom. What you’re taking, though, is more subjective.
Dartmouth does not require any specific courses for a student to be considered for first-year admission, but they do have some recommendations. Dartmouth recommends a fully-diversified course load with the equivalent of four years of experience in English, mathematics, science, foreign language, and social studies. The word “recommends” can be a bit misleading, and we understand student confusion. If you read “recommends” and took away from it that you can drop your weakest subject and not have it impact your chances of admission, that’s almost uniformly incorrect.
When Dartmouth assesses ED applicants, they look for outstanding students with both depth and breadth, highlighting a commitment to the liberal arts and interdisciplinary learning. And the grades across the board truly need to be next level. Dartmouth receives so many applications for so few spots, that being picky about transcripts is a filtering mechanism. If the grades aren’t there, the application isn’t considered, no matter what an admissions official may say on a podcast or in an info session.
Dartmouth wants as many applicants as possible lower their acceptance rate, so they don’t discourage students from applying even if they don’t truly have a chance. They aren’t trying to be deceitful, but they are playing the same game as all of the other elite colleges in the United States.
So, you can’t drop a subject and you must have the grades. “The grades,” means almost entirely ‘A’ grades, if not a clean sweep. The statistics underline this reality. 99% of admitted students for the fall of 2024 were in the top quarter of their high school class, and 93% were in the top 10th. Dartmouth didn’t report the GPA range, but it’s safe to say that, while there is no minimum, a 3.7 is the functional minimum unless there are extreme mitigating circumstances. Being at a rougher or less-resourced school isn’t an excuse, either, because it may actually be easier to get As as a high-achieving student in a low-achieving school than it would be at a more highly-resourced school with tiny class-sizes and lots of teacher attention on your work.
Achieving these impressive outcomes and pulling together an outstanding transcript requires years of commitment and hard work. We like to start with our students as early as possible such that we can be part of their journey and provide support along the way.
Scores
Like most institutions of higher education, Dartmouth went test-optional as students faced the challenges of COVID. Unlike most other schools, though, they launched swiftly into proving (by their measure) that being standardized test optional was a bad idea. So, they recently brought required standardized test scores back and now all applicants must submit an ACT or SAT to be considered for admission. Beginning in the fall of 2025, a standardized test score is once again mandatory for consideration as an applicant — ED or otherwise.
Dartmouth knows, though, that different students have different resources when it comes to test prep. While most students who are accepted by Dartmouth submit standardized test scores in the 75th percentile or above nationally, they assess the scores within the context of each student’s location and educational resources. Dartmouth does not have minimum scores, and they know that having access to prep services can drastically impact outcomes. Not having a tutor isn’t an excuse for a bad score, just as acing the SAT doesn’t overshadow less-than-stellar grades. It's all about the whole package.
A nice thing about standardized testing is that preparing is, in general, a short-term endeavor. While a strong transcript takes years to build, a strong SAT score could be achieved with a few months, or even weeks, of focused effort. It’s hard work, but high returns if you focus and pull it off.
Activities
Dartmouth is a school obsessed with team-based fun. The college is known for matching top academics with top athletics, especially in winter sports, and the non-athlete student body isn’t about standing on the sidelines. They want to see applicants who throw themselves into the action and get involved to get things going. What does this mean for Early Decision applicants? It means that you can’t expect to sit in the middle of the pack, even of a winning team, and get brownie points for participation. Dartmouth wants to see applicants who lead, who strive, and who are keenly attuned to how they can use their skills to lift up those around them.
All of this might sound a little, well, athletic, but we actually aren’t talking entirely about sports. Most successful applicants to Dartmouth are not going to play a sport in college, but do have experience on a team, whether it’s athletic, academic, or even a workplace environment.
To craft a strong Dartmouth application, we work with our students to develop their academic passions outside of the classroom across three categories: team-based engagement, organized work, and service.
Team-Based Engagement is a broader category than it may seem on its face. Yes, you could join an academic competition team, like robotics, math, or quiz bowl, but an editorial team for a school publication also counts.
Organized Work includes internships and employment — and yes, we encourage all of our students to get real jobs. Sometimes the job is directly relevant to their academic interest, and sometimes it’s more abstract. Working as a junior camp counselor shows communication schools. Working in service builds patience and strategy. It doesn’t need to be glamorous to be an application-building story.
Service means volunteering with a non-profit or initiative more than once. Serving dinner at a soup kitchen is great, but if you only do it once doesn’t make for much on your application. Instead, Dartmouth looks for long-term engagement with a cause or issue you care about. Aim to build a true relationship with a program such that your role can grow over time, highlighting development and commitment.
Essays
Each of the types of activities we broke down in the previous section serves a purpose beyond simply filling up your activities section. Ultimately, they become stories, and those can be developed in to essays and supplements.
A great Dartmouth essay is grounded in narrative. They want to see you do things, not simply talking about what you want to do in the future. We start laying the groundwork for our student’s essays years before they even start writing. This is all part of the process of application development. You don’t want to wait until the supplements come out in late summer to think about what you have to write about. Instead, beginning to develop stories today means that you’ll have awesome things to write about tomorrow.
For example, a student we worked with on an ED application to Dartmouth focused his essay on a series of linked experiences that began early in high school. Each layered on top of the other, leading to a powerful story of strength and resilience. If he hadn’t had his application in mind throughout the process, these narratives may have slipped through the cracks. Instead, they were noticed, written down, and turned to as valuable material when it came time to write.
Beyond telling your story, Dartmouth also wants to see you envision yourself on campus. Take the time to do a ton of specific research before you begin drafting anything. Googling, “cool things about Dartmouth,” is not, for the record, research. It’s lazy. Truly dig into the program and faculty of your prospective major, and get to know what makes it special so that you can speak to it specifically. Even as an ED applicant, Dartmouth still needs to be convinced that you know the school and truly want to be there.
Last, Apply Early
Now this should be obvious, but if you want to apply Early Decision to Dartmouth, you need to actually press submit. However, if you are nervous that your application may not be completely ready, please ask for help. Applying to Dartmouth ED is often your best chance of admission, but that boost is completely thrown away if your application isn’t the absolute best it can possibly be.
Work with Us
Whether you are years ahead of submitting and want to get a firm foundation for the best possible outcomes, or the due date is in just a few weeks, we can help. We’re phenomenally good at getting kids into Dartmouth. Getting into a top school requires a top strategy, especially with an ED acceptance rate in the teens. We can’t make you get an A in chemistry, but we can help with just about everything else. From picking extracurriculars to planning summers to selecting courses to an overall strategy, we support our students in developing their passions to increase the authenticity of their application and launch them on their best possible path in life — possibly, at Dartmouth.
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