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>> Dan Parish: Welcome to Dartmouth Direct Live.
This is our application tips show for the evening.
My name is Dan Parish.
I'm the Director of Communication and Recruitment
in the Admissions Office.
I'm joined by Maria Laskaris, who is the Dean
of Admissions and Financial Aid.
Senior Assistant Director
of Admissions John Beck is producing the show.
He's going to be answering some of your questions
in the text chat, and we'll probably have some students
in there helping answer questions as well and we hope
that you'll launch your questions into us.
We're going to do our best job that we can to try
to provide some advice, answer questions
and we'll keep going for a while here.
Why don't we just start with some basics
like when is the application deadline
and do you have any sort of advice off the top
as we get close to January 1.
>> Maria Laskaris: Sure.
Well, again, as Dan said I'm Maria Laskaris,
Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid.
It's great to be able to speak with you this evening
about our last minute application tips
and questions that you may have.
Dan asked about sort for the deadline and what to do
over the next 10 days
and so just a reminder our deadline is January 1st.
So that's 11 days from now.
I think probably the best advice is take a deep breath.
You have plenty of time and really just, you know,
hopefully you'll have a break from school,
you'll have a little bit of time to really focus on finishing
up your essays and making sure
that you've collected all the pieces of information
about yourself that you'd like to share with us
in the application and then, you know, take some time,
write a couple of drafts, take another deep breath,
take one more look at it and then hit submit
and we'll take it from there.
>> Dan Parish: When you hit submit,
it's out of your hands at that point.
So, you know, you can return to working hard in school,
doing a good job if you're finishing up your first semester
and do a good job finishing up that first semester.
There are some things at that point
that will be beyond your control.
So let those things go, control the things that you can control.
We've got some people already asking questions in the chat
so let's get right to that.
Somebody is asking about peer evaluations,
how they're submitted, are they required,
are they a critical piece of the application?
So, let's just start with, yes, we require them.
I'm going to give Maria a second here to think
about what we're looking for from the peer evaluation
and she'll talk a little bit about that.
Students, your peer evaluators, your friends
who write those references can submit them
by email if they want to.
There's a link on the Dartmouth admission's website
that says submit material.
We'll probably get that up in the chat for you.
The submit material link has instructions
for peer evaluators on how to submit.
They can also mail them to us as well.
We may at some point soon have a website
where your peer evaluator can submit it
but we don't have that today.
So, if your friend is ready to send the recommendation,
have them do it by email or mail and we'll get it into your file.
What do you tell people we're looking
for in the peer evaluation?
>> Maria Laskaris: Yeah, that's a great question.
We're going to hear a lot about you from teachers,
your guidance counselor, you'll tell us a little bit
about yourself through your essays.
We'll have a lot of data on you so your transcript,
the courses you've taken, grades,
standardized test scores, but I think one
of the most important things that we learn
from the peer evaluation is what you would be like as a friend,
as a classmate, as a teammate, as a member of a group
or organization at Dartmouth and what you would be like as a part
of our community from someone who is close to your own age
and who knows you in ways that teachers
and guidance counselors probably don't know you.
So it really gives us a sense of your unique qualities
and individual quirks and eccentricities
that make you the interesting person that you are
and we have a I think a really good picture
of how you might kind of enhance the Dartmouth community
by being a member of it and a great peer recommendation
or peer evaluation really brings you to life in ways
that I think teachers and counselors
because they don't know you in the same context
that a peer will know you.
So it's really helpful for us as we try
to make the very difficult
and nuanced decisions that we need to make.
>> Dan Parish: I always tell people that we're trying as much
as we can to get a well-rounded picture of who you are
so you tell us something, your teachers tell us something,
your friends come at this from a different perspective.
Somebody asked about the alumni interview, and I would add
that to our well-rounded picture of who you are.
It's another chance to get a different perspective on you.
This is a person who probably doesn't know you the way a
friend does and has just a short window into what you might bring
to your college experience.
We've got a question about whether students need
to contact us to request an interview, you don't.
Here's the way this will work.
We'll distribute names out to alumni around the country
and around the world in different places.
In many places, alumni will contact students
for an interview and set that up sometime between now
and the second week of February, but we need to let you know
that there are places where we don't offer interviews
particularly abroad there's some places we're not able
to offer interviews.
So if you're not contacted for an interview,
it's not a bad sign, it doesn't reflect
on the chances for your application.
We rely on volunteers to conduct interviews and we know
that we might not be able to offer interviews to everybody
in the applicant pool.
So if you live in an area where we have alumni doing interviews,
they will reach out to you and, again, if you think
about all the different pieces
in your application you've got teacher recommendations,
guidance counselor recommendation,
you've got your part of the application, the peer,
the idea here is to put together different perspectives
and that interview can be one
of those perspectives that helps out.
Oh, just one more note on the peer recs, somebody asked
if it should be typed because it's a downloadable PDF,
it's sometimes hard to fill out.
Here's the things it should be easy for us to digest and read.
So if your friend has wonderful, clear handwriting and they want
to go old school and submit it in writing,
that's fine as long as we can read it.
We'll take it in whatever form it comes to us.
>> Maria Laskaris: Exactly.
>> Dan Parish: Should students attach a resume
to the common app?
What do you tell people about that?
>> Maria Laskaris: Yeah, well, you know, it's a judgment call,
you know, the common app certainly provides I think ample
space to identify the major extracurricular activities
or part-time jobs or things
that you're doing outside of the classroom.
There may be occasions though where you feel
like you need a little more space
to perhaps fully flush something out.
We just caution students to really think
about that fine balance between just enough information
and too much information, you know, we do have a lot
of information on all the candidates who apply
to Dartmouth and I think it's your job
as you're preparing your application
to really help us focus on what's most important.
So, if you're thinking about an additional resume
or some additional statement to kind
of help us understand why something has been
so important to you.
The more you can do to be very concise and succinct and, again,
really focus our attention so whether it's, you know,
all the work that you're doing let's say with community service
or maybe a part-time job or maybe you're active
in your church or youth group or synagogue or arts activities.
Rather than many, many pages about that
if you can really focus it for us so we can say got it,
this is exactly what we need to know
about why these activities have been important to you
and also why perhaps they don't fit
in the spaces the common app has allotted.
So that's what I tell students.
I think it's really a judgment call for you as you think
about what is it that's most important
that you would like us to know.
>> Dan Parish: Yeah.
We've got a question from Stevie asking is it better to apply
as an undecided student or to a specific major even
if you'll probably change the major?
This is one of the pieces that might be a little different
about Dartmouth compared to other schools
to which you're applying.
When you apply to Dartmouth, you're apply to Dartmouth
and in most cases we're not paying much attention
to your expressed interest
in a particular major and I'll explain.
There may be some cases where we do, but we're not admitting you
into a major; we're admitting you to Dartmouth based
on the idea that you're a student who will thrive here,
a student who will contribute to the community,
a student who intellectually is a good fit for Dartmouth
and who will be able to find the interest that match well
and allow them to thrive.
So you don't need to worry about us sliding you into a major
when we make decisions
and it won't make your path more difficult to apply undecided
or to apply to a particular major even engineering.
We don't admit students into the engineering school at Dartmouth.
Engineering majors apply to Dartmouth, they're admitted
and they make that decision once they're here.
The students for whom the choice of major might have an impact is
where your choice of major is a major piece of your candidacy.
You really, really, really want to major in engineering
but math is a liability for you;
that's probably something we would notice.
You are passionate about classics, you've been passionate
about classics since 7th grade, it takes over your application,
we're going to notice that, but if you happen
to check off engineering, environmental studies
and English as three potential majors, we're going to think
about you as a student at Dartmouth and not worry
about what you've checked off as your potential major.
Marisa is asking is there a status check
for our Dartmouth applications to make sure that our scores
and transcripts were received?
Do you want to talk a little bit about online applicant services
and when we tell people what and how that's going to work?
>> Maria Laskaris: Exactly, exactly.
So, as soon as we receive your portion
of the common application and bear in mind
in the next 10 days we're going to be receiving a lot
of common applications.
Dartmouth does close for the holidays from the end
of this week through the beginning
of the New Year although we will have stopped working
in the Admissions Office downloading materials
from the common application, processing mail
that arrives kind of old school,
the old-fashioned way to our doorstep.
So it will take us a little bit of time because a huge portion
of our applicants do submit their materials and most
of the secondary school information arrives
around the deadline but just as quickly
as we can we will confirm for you
that we have received your portion
of the common application and in
that confirmation email you will receive instructions as well
as a login and pin where you can go online
to our online applicant services section of our website
and then you can check to see
when materials have been received, but I do just ask
for a little bit of patience.
It does take us two to three weeks once we return in January
to really work through the backlog of information
that comes in around the deadline.
It's totally fine that it's coming then, we know it,
we're prepared for it, we're ready to process it all,
but it does take us a couple of weeks at least to get
through material that's waiting for us when we return
from the holiday break so.
>> Dan Parish: So what you will see after you get
that acknowledgement
in the online applicant services page is just an announcement
that says we're processing materials,
here's some places you can find information
and when we're ready, when we know
that we've done the best job that we can to process as much
as we have, late January or so we will send a notice
out to all applicants that says, okay,
now you can check your status to see if there's anything
that has left your application incomplete.
So, really rely on that.
It'll take a little bit of time and in the meantime we're good
at this, we track lots of material.
>> Maria Laskaris: Right, right.
>> Dan Parish: And we're able to keep track of that
and keep a hold on that.
Bobo is asking what it means
when we defer an early decision applicant.
And so just a brief picture of what that looks
like you should know a couple of things
for early decision applicants who are deferred
to regular decision, a couple of things
about how the process works.
At the end of early decision, we deny the candidacies
of more students than we defer.
So there's a group of students who at the end
of early decision found out that their candidacy won't be
continued, but we still have a lot
of students who are deferred.
As we go into the regular decision application process,
we expect that among the deferred students the process
will be very similar to what it is
for regular decision students.
We'll let their application sit for a while while we're going
through the first review of regular decision applications,
we'll get mid-year reports, we'll collect new material,
and as we get into February and our second reviewing
of regular decision applications that's when we'll look
at deferred early decision students and the process
at that point is very similar to what it is
for regular decision students.
So the chances are similar.
Bobo asked whether there's no chance or a semi chance.
You still have a chance of being admitted
and being reviewed carefully but you also have to be realistic
and say, okay, Dartmouth is really highly selective,
it's hard to be admitted, I need to get my other applications
out the door, I need to do a good job on that
and frankly I need to consider what these other options are
because I know that it's hard to get into Dartmouth;
that's why it's called highly selective
and move forward in that way.
So does requesting financial aid
as an international student affect our chances of admission?
That's an easy short answer question.
>> Maria Laskaris: That's an easy one -- no.
[laughter] We're really fortunate at Dartmouth.
We have significant financial aid resources,
we are fully need blind in our admissions process
for all applicants whether they're US citizens,
permanent residents or international students.
That's something that we are so thankful for to have here
at Dartmouth that commitment to affordability and accessibility
and to admitting students based on their ability
and their accomplishments rather than their family's ability
to pay for the education.
Maybe it's a good point also here to just pause and say
that to remind folks that all of our financial aid that we offer
at Dartmouth is based on your family's demonstrated need
but also very, very importantly we guarantee
that we will meet 100% of your family's need
for all four years.
So, for us financial aid is a critical part of our commitment
to ensuring access and affordability to students
from around the country and around the world.
So it's really I think we're very excited to be able to say
that being an international student
in no way your chances are not negatively impacted
if you're applying for aid.
>> Dan Parish: We've got a couple of questions coming
in from PKN and ARC0928 a couple of questions about credentials
and about materials that'll come in
and whether they'll be important.
The last few days
in the Dartmouth Direct Facebook page we've had a bunch
of questions about testing.
So just to make it clear Dartmouth requires the SAT
Reasoning Test, the big SAT or the ACT with writing.
So you can submit the SAT or the ACT and we'll swap
out one for the other.
Then all students should at some point submit two SAT subject
tests and if you haven't taken the subject tests
by this point we will accept the test from the January date.
We can also review your application
without the subject tests if you don't have them.
We'll make an admission's decision
and then before you enroll with Dartmouth next fall,
you'll receive notices about completing those tests
in the spring, but really the required pieces are SAT or ACT
with writing and then subject tests are a second piece.
There's been some confusion about that
and then there's a question about senior grades
and we will receive those as we're reviewing.
>> Maria Laskaris: Right.
>> Dan Parish: So, do you want to talk about as we go
from first reviewing applications
in the first review we might not have seen your grades what
happens after the first review before the second review
and we pick up information?
>> Maria Laskaris: Sure, yeah.
Well, our process is one
where we're constantly updating your applications
with new information.
As we receive, again, whether it's mid-year grades
or maybe you have some late testing that you're sending
to us or the recommendations as they come
into our office are being added to your application.
So, after we've had a chance to do the first review
on every application, we will then have a period of time
where new information is collected and primarily
for most students this would be their mid-year grades and/or an
alumni interview.
Those things tend to come a little bit later in the process.
Most of the recommendations,
the evaluations certainly you're part of the application tend
to arrive on or about our deadline.
So, again, it takes us a little while to process everything
but as we move to our second review stage or part
of the review process, we typically are waiting to begin
that process until we have the grades from your first semester
or end of the second trimester depending
on how your school calendar is set up
and then hopefully an interview as well.
>> Dan Parish: Right.
Right. Monica is asking if you can send
in additional letters of recommendations?
And the short answer is, yes, you can, but we also want
to provide some caution to that and talk a little bit
about the role that those letters might play.
So, the required recommendations are the guidance counselor
recommendation or counselor recommendation that goes
with your school report; two teacher recommendations
and then that peer evaluation.
Any additional recommendation you should set a pretty high bar
for that.
>> Maria Laskaris: Yeah.
>> Dan Parish: And you should really think
about is this a recommendation that will add a new perspective?
Is the recommender somebody who knows me well
in a setting that's maybe different
than my high school teachers.
So the idea here is that this is a person
who knows me really well, who is going to talk about me
in a setting that's really important, and is going
to bring me to life in a way that's a little different
than what the admissions committee is already hearing.
Just piling more additional teacher recommendations
in your application doesn't make sense and asking
for a recommendation from somebody whom you perceive
to be a very important person but doesn't know you well,
that's not a great idea, but your Rabbi or clergy person,
the scout master you've known for five years
and worked very closely with, an employer who's seen you
in the work place and really knows you well,
that's a perfectly appropriate extra recommendation
and one is probably a pretty good number.
>> Maria Laskaris: Just like with the resumes focus.
Help us focus on what's most important.
>> Dan Parish: Right.
Tess is asking a question we get a lot, is there any way
to distinguish your application as a student
who really wants to attend Dartmouth?
How do you express that interest?
What do you tell people in response to that?
>> Maria Laskaris: Well,
you know it's interesting we do get asked
that question quite a bit, you know,
we don't have a why Dartmouth kind of essay
or supplemental essay on our application.
To be honest, I think that if you're in our applicant pool,
you have an interest in Dartmouth and if we admit you,
you better believe we're going to do a lot to convince you
that Dartmouth is the school for you.
If there are things that you would like to share with us,
however, the common application does have space
for additional information.
You could also choose to make that, you know, you ask a peer
or if it comes up in your alumni interview, you could use some
of those avenues to if you want to convey your interest
in Dartmouth in that fashion,
but I think in our process we're not driven by yield in terms
of really thinking about we only want to admit students
who have already decided Dartmouth is their clear
first choice.
We have a small early decision process that allows us
to do some of that but we know that the vast majority
of our applicants and our class will come
through the regular decision process.
So, if we think you're the kind of student that we'd love to see
at Dartmouth, we'll do our best to convince you of that.
So, we're excited that you're in our applicant pool.
There's certainly opportunities if you'd like to send
in an additional note with your application, let us know.
We'll certainly include it, but it's really not something
that we are asking students to do at this point.
>> Dan Parish: Right.
Right. I can't even pronounce this user name, dekogeko?
All right.
Is asking about submitting supplemental materials
for either a fine arts review and I'll add into that solo,
vocal or instrumental performance
and so the simple question is what weight is that given?
And I can talk a little bit about the details
of how those submissions work, but do you want
to talk a little bit about a portfolio or performance,
what does that add to somebody's candidacy?
>> Maria Laskaris: Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think it's a way for us to really appreciate the depth
of your accomplishment
in a particular visual performing arts.
We have colleagues on the Dartmouth faculty in music,
studio art, film and television studies, dance, who have agreed
to help review these materials for us
and so we will actually give your materials to them
and they will have a chance to look at them
and then send us back an evaluation in a sense
of how well they think you would do
at Dartmouth whether you decide to pursue the arts
as an academic discipline or as a co-curricular activity.
Again, I think like with other parts of the application,
you know, we're looking for students
who have made a real commitment and have really given
of their time and energy to these activities
and I think particularly if you're going to go
through the trouble of putting a portfolio together
or putting together, you know, an MP3 or a CD
or a music supplement or dance supplement,
you know I think our faculty are really excited to take a look
at that but I would ask that this be something that you see
as a clear academic or extracurricular passion.
So something you do want to continue while you're here
because I think we definitely are looking
to create a community at Dartmouth that is very vibrant,
that is very diverse in its interests and talents
and experiences and we know
that students learn tremendous amounts from each other
and so the presence of students with real passions, again,
whether it's in the arts or the out of doors
or anything I think really makes us an interesting place.
So, we're excited to see that, but, again,
ask that if it's a passing interest
or you're thinking maybe this will be the one thing
that gets me in but I don't really want to continue
in that vein when I get to Dartmouth,
I suggest that maybe you don't need to send that,
but if it's something
that you're really thinking it's a pursuit you'd
like to continue, then we'd love to see that.
>> Dan Parish: Right.
And you don't need to be planning to major
or minor in that area.
>> Maria Laskaris: Right.
>> Dan Parish: But this is something
that you've poured a lot into in your high school experience
and in some ways it helps us understand, you know,
what shape that's taken on the other side and so as you come
to us, you may decide that it's not an academic pursuit
but you want to participate in the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra
or the Barbary Coast Jazz Ensemble and, great,
you don't have to be a major or minor to do those things.
There's a link again
on our website the submit materials link
and I think it's been posted on the text chat or it will be
where you can learn about how Dartmouth faculty members want
to receive those materials and it's important to pay attention
to that because our departments some
of them mirror what the common application art supplement says
and some don't.
So, pay attention to that website
if you want those materials to be reviewed because it has
to come in the form they ask for it.
Charles is asking whether you can send other supplemental
materials in and so we'll receive a lot of material,
newspaper articles that showcase things that people have done,
other kinds of things like that and so it goes back
to what Maria said earlier about being concise.
We don't want to sound as if we're not flexible,
but if we have to, if we're reviewing somewhere north
of 23,000, 24,000 applications, we need to make sure
that the material that comes in is pertinent to your candidacy.
So, supplemental materials beyond those portfolios
or performance tapes that are being evaluated should
be concise.
They work best usually when they're attached as part
of the common application and there is,
you do have the ability to do
that through common app online now.
So you can include things like a concise resume,
a reproduced newspaper article or something like that.
If you've done a research project,
a significant research project,
you can submit an abstract attached
to your common application.
Don't submit the entire research project.
We won't be able to digest that, but a piece that's concise
and highlights something that's related to an interest
as Maria said that you're going to carry
on into your college career can be really helpful.
>> Maria Laskaris: Yes, that's very helpful.
>> Dan Parish: And can help us understand how you're going
to pursue that when you're here.
All right let's see what else we have.
Does Dartmouth have a quota to fill for the number
of students from each state?
Go ahead.
>> Maria Laskaris: No.
[laughter] That's another easy one.
You know, we travel nationally, we travel internationally,
we're here chatting with you and you are all around the country
and all around the world, you know,
our job is to admit the students that we feel from the applicants
that we receive this year are the ones
that we think will contribute in unique and interesting ways
to the Dartmouth community both in the classroom and out
of the classroom regardless
of which states they're coming from.
Now, our pool because it is a national pool we do see students
from every state, but we are not looking to make sure.
Most years we get pretty close to all 50 states,
but it's not something that if we don't get all 50 states,
you know, that's okay.
I think we are looking for the students
that we feel have really distinguished themselves
in the context of the applicant pool that we're looking
at that year regardless of where they're coming from.
>> Dan Parish: And, again, that's a piece
that might be a little different about Dartmouth.
Dartmouth and some
of our closest peers the applicant pool is
geographically diverse.
So, we don't have to worry too much about dumping students
into categories by zip code and saying we're only going
to take this number of students from this area.
We have a lot more flexibility to think
about our students' perspective than to say, wow,
this is somebody who has really got a different view of things
and whether they live in a zip code that starts with 01
or 02 something or 92 something or they are outside
of the country, we've got a little more flexibility
to not worry about that and, you know, some years we're going
to have students from 50 states, some years we're only going
to have students from 48 states and that's going to be okay.
We're also lucky in there's a question from Corina
about whether we take only a certain number of students
from each school and, again, the size of our applicant pool means
that we have a little more flexibility than a lot
of places do to be able to not worry
about capping the number we take from certain schools
and I'll tell you we've got schools in the applicant pool
that have, you know, one student applying and we have schools
in the applicant pool that have 60, 70, 80 students applying
and it wouldn't serve us well if we came to the 11th student
in a school and said, oh, we're not going
to take this one even though they're a great person.
So, because of Dartmouth's,
the size of Dartmouth's applicant pool, we don't have
to worry too much about managing a school group
and keeping it small because that'll work itself out.
We've got some flexibility and don't really have to worry
about putting people into categories
and instead can think a little bit more about your talent,
your perspective and where that really comes from
and maybe it comes from where you live
but it might come from something else.
So, [inaudible] asks the question that we always get
and do SAT scores weigh a lot?
We're getting lots of questions about testing, what's the role.
I know that some folks in the chat have been putting up links
to just the requirements and all of that,
but we just put testing into context.
>> Maria Laskaris: Yes, absolutely.
>> Dan Parish: We talked about getting lots
of different perspectives, we never talked about testing.
So where does that fit?
>> Maria Laskaris: Yeah.
Well, you know, we are going to collect a lot of information
about you and some of it, again, is very qualitative.
So recommendations, interviews, the peer evaluation,
your own essays, your own words.
I mean that's very qualitative and we'll spend a lot
of time looking at that and trying to read it,
understand it, and get a really good picture of you.
We also have parts of the application
that are very quantitative so transcript
and test scores are two great examples, you know,
specific to test scores it's really one of sort of 7
or 8 pieces of your application that we're looking to assemble
and our job is to look at the entire application.
So we talk about holistic admissions
as Dan said it's a holistic admissions process.
We're thinking about you as a whole person
so test scores are not more important than your transcript,
they're not more important than your essay,
your recommendations, peer evaluation,
it's how the whole picture comes together for us and so obviously
because we asked for testing we do think it's an important part
of the process but it's not a driver of our decisions.
There are no scores above which a student is
so automatically admitted or below
which a student is automatically not considered.
We will evaluate every single application that we receive
and we approach it in a way that says first
of all who is the student?
Let me understand a little bit
about home communities, school communities.
So we call this context really understanding who you are,
what kind of school you're applying from,
what kinds of opportunities and resources you've had available
to you within your secondary school, your home environment,
and then we see how all the pieces fit together and we think
about you again as an individual not as a test score,
not as a grade point average, not as a list of activities
but it's how all these things come together
and for every applicant that balance or that picture
that comes together will be a little bit different
because your strengths will be different
from the next applicant's strengths
and so we want a process that is flexible enough
to really appreciate how we differ from one another
and that also recognizes accomplishment
and potential beyond just what a test score might tell us.
>> Dan Parish: So that process
that Maria just described I mentioned earlier
that we're really lucky that we have a geographically very
diverse applicant pool and we're getting a lot
of really good questions about race and ethnicity and,
you know, there have been some really good articles
in the press lately about this, some are accurate, some are not
and so I go back to what I said about geography in thinking
about race and ethnicity we're really lucky
that the applicant pool is internationally diverse,
it's geographically diverse within the United States
and we're pulling students from a lot of different directions.
Students who self-identify around race and ethnicity
in a lot of different ways.
Students whose interest are really mixed up and, you know,
that's part of being a highly selective nationally known,
internationally known institution.
So that gives us a little flexibility
in the selection process not to have
to put people into categories.
So, students don't usually believe me
when I tell them this, but we don't shake the applicant pool
out before we start reading.
We're lucky enough to not have to kind of put students
into geographic boxes or separate students up by testing,
we don't kind of do that before we start reading,
we don't separate you all by race
and ethnicity before we start reading.
So, when we get into the reading process, we open up your part
of the application first and start thinking
about what do you do beyond the classroom?
What opportunities have you had and what obligations do you have
and how have you taken advantage of those?
Have any of those rubbed off on you?
And the truth is if you live in the United States and probably
in other parts of the world, your race,
your self-identification around race
and ethnicity may have a real impact
on how other people interact with you, have a real impact
on how you interact with other people and that's what we start
to try to get at to try to understand the lens
that you're going to bring to Dartmouth and, again,
if you think about the geography question
around this do we limit numbers we take from certain areas,
we're trying to think about perspective, added perspective
to campus and, you know, there are times
when your cultural values, your self-identified race, religion,
where you live may have a really big imprint on what you bring
to your college campus.
You're really proud of being from South Texas,
that's a big part of who you are
and then there are other cases where it may not.
You may not talk a lot about that but what makes you
who you are is that you're an artist, you're a dancer,
you're a really good runner, you're a, I don't know,
whatever you edit the newspaper and you do it better
than anyone else so it's trying to grab
onto that perspective what will you bring and so it would be,
you know, it which be naive, it would be dishonest to say
that race and ethnicity don't play a role
in college admissions.
They play a role but you have to,
it's not the box that's checked as much as us trying
to understand perspective that people bring and, again,
that might be a little different at Dartmouth and at some
of our peers in other places
because our applicant pool is a little different, it's bigger,
it's pretty diverse, it's pretty eclectic,
it's hard to categorize.
>> Maria Laskaris: Right.
And we spend a lot of time reading the materials
that you send and really understanding you
as an individual.
I often think about it as it's an individualized review process
and we want to understand who you are as a unique individual
and the things that matter to you, the influences
that have shaped you into the person that you are, your hopes,
your aspirations, and that's going to be different
for every single person and we have
as Dan said we're fortunate we're able to spend the time
to do that and we think we make better decisions
because we take the time to get to know you
as a person beyond just test scores and rank
and grade point average, but all the things that go
into making you who you are are important to us.
>> Dan Parish: All right.
Some more good questions just
about specific pieces of the application.
All right.
I'm in a specific academy within my high school
that has uncommon classes and course work should I send
in a detailed description of the academy?
Should I trust that my school report will suffice?
This probably also goes for students who are
in magnet programs, specialized schools.
>> Maria Laskaris: Usually your high school's school report
or school profile does I think a really good job of explaining
to us if your school is offering any of these sort
of special academies or magnet programs or schools
within a school, but I think, you know,
as a first step take a look, ask your guidance counselor
or principal if you could see a copy of the profile.
Hopefully it's something they share with students and parents,
but I think that's a good first place to look and if you feel
like the profile does a good job of explaining, which I think
in most cases I think they actually do a really good job
of explaining these unique features of secondary schools
to us, then I think it's probably plenty of information
for us and it may also be something that you decide
to address in one of your, maybe in your main essay
for the common application
if you have a really unique educational opportunity
that you've taken advantage of within your school
and why that's been important to you,
I mean that could be a really terrific essay topic
or maybe it's something that comes up, again, your letters
of recommendation if your counselors
or particularly teachers who are part
of this program can give us some sense of why this program exists
and why you've chosen to be a part of it
and what you've contributed to that program.
So, there are a lot of ways we can know
about these unique features of secondary schools
but certainly my first suggestion would be just take a
look at your school's profile
and usually I think it's pretty well articulated for us
so that we can understand fairly quickly the unique feature
of your secondary school.
>> Dan Parish: And that goes for grading systems
that are a little different and things like that.
>> Maria Laskaris: Right, right.
>> Dan Parish: Most schools are really good at describing
to colleges what we need to know
so that we can evaluate your transcript because, again,
you know, it goes back to what Maria said
about how we make admissions decisions.
It's not a formulaic process.
We know that for every high school
from which students apply there will be something different
about the last high school and so as we get
to your school report, we look for those cues
for the guidance counselor there, there are easy ways
for counselors to express that in the school report.
If you're applying from an international school,
there are easy ways in the international supplement
and then most schools have a profile that just lays it out
and says here's how the grading works, oh,
by the way we have this magnet program within the school
or special academy and they do a good job of explaining that.
[Inaudible] is asking
about whether a high-class rank would make up for a low GPA.
>> Maria Laskaris: Depends how low.
[laughter]
>> Dan Parish: Yeah, but the short answer would be yes
because we're thinking about the context of your grades.
So if you attend a school where, you know, grading,
there's not a lot of grade inflation and you're
in the top handful of students in the class but being
in the top handful of students in your class means
that students have A's and B's, a mix of A's and B's
because those are the highest grades offered in the school,
then the context, we understand the context for your grades
and there may be another school where having all A's or a mix
of A's and B's doesn't put you towards the top of the class.
So we'll get those cues from the profile.
We'll understand how to better understand your grades
by looking at, you know, the kinds of courses offered,
the details and information in the profile
so that'll help us get a good sense of that.
Does Dartmouth opt out of seeing self-reported test scores
on the common application?
We don't do we?
>> Maria Laskaris: No.
If you, we have score choice.
So, you choose which scores you would like to be submitted
to Dartmouth from the college board or the ACT and I believe
on the common app you choose which scores that you want
to self-report and so if you only give us your three test,
you know, your SAT, critical reading, math and writing,
from different test administrations sort
of mimicking what you would send
through score choice; that's all we'll see.
So it's really up to you.
If you provided the scores on common app, if you self-report,
we will see them but for us we also asset all scores
that are reported officially through the common college board
or the ACT and then if you use the score choice option that's
all we'll see.
>> Dan Parish: Yeah, and the one thing I'll say
about that score section on the common application
if you haven't already submitted your part
of the common application, if you have future test dates,
you took tests in December but those scores haven't been sent
yet or you're going to take tests in January,
it can be helpful to list those test dates
because then we'll have a queue for looking out for
that information to come later.
If you've already submitted your application,
it's not a big deal.
I mean we're going to get those scores and process them,
but knowing that there's more testing to come can be helpful.
It's not critical but it can be helpful.
So, let's talk a little bit about what's going to,
we're getting close to end time, we may be able
to answer a few more questions, but before we get
to that point just to talk about what happens from here on out.
So January 1st is our application deadline.
We know that you're going
to do a good job submitting your materials.
We know that there are some things out of your control.
So, if you learn that your secondary school report came
to us a few days late, don't worry.
We're going to handle that.
If you learn that one of your teachers left on vacation
and forgot to hit submit on the common app or something,
it's okay, you know, the more materials that get
to us earlier the better but don't worry
if some things are a few hours late.
We're going to be reviewing applications
in January, February and March.
Decision date will be in late March, March 29th, March 30th
or somewhere around there.
We should know this, but yeah.
And what else, what other details do we cover
as we're wrapping up?
>> Maria Laskaris: We will spend the next
about three months really just devoting our full attention
and energy to the application review process.
It's really the heart of what we do.
I think we are very excited to see who is interested
in attending Dartmouth.
We will have another video chat for folks in early January,
on January 5th, at 8PM.
So that will be something to look forward to.
I think a lot of people will also have questions
about the financial aid process
or financial aid deadline is the first of February.
So we will also have information up on our website
about financial aid and I think for me the most important thing
that we want to convey is over the course of the next two
to three months if you have questions about the process,
about your materials that you're submitting, you know,
feel free to reach out to us through the Facebook,
through email, be in touch with our office via phone,
and we'll do what we can to answer your questions
but really appreciate that you are interested in Dartmouth
and that you are submitting an application.
>> Dan Parish: Yeah.
Dartmouth Direct on Facebook is a great way
to get your questions answered.
We may, I should give you just a warning we may be slower
to respond between now and January 3rd or 4th.
We're going to have a lot of Dartmouth students back here
in January and we'll have folks on there answering questions
and then as you are learning more
about Dartmouth the Dartmouth admissions website can be a
really good practical place to get information,
submit materials, ask questions on there
about the admission's process
and then Dartmouth Direct is our website
where you can really just access student generated content
and obviously this broadcast comes
out through Dartmouth Direct but blogs and other information
that we'll post up there so use those resources,
there's a lot you can connect directly with Dartmouth students
in a lot of ways and get, you know, good, honest answers
from them about what it's like to be a student here.
So, take advantage of that.
All right?
I think we're all set.
Good luck with the application process.
Thank you for joining us and for all of your questions
and we look forward to reading your applications
over the next few months.
Thanks again.
>> Maria Laskaris: Thank you.