The Dartmouth Trials

By Leslie Ye, The Dartmouth Staff

Published on Friday, August 10, 2012

• Print
• Report an Error
• Share

At Dartmouth, we like to win. It’s no secret — we were all the best in our high schools and we all want to be the best now. Everything, it seems — intramural sports, a volunteer event like the Prouty or the chariot races — comes with a prize, whether it’s money, a T-shirt or even just bragging rights. You can’t always win, but The Mirror is here to help. We’ve compiled a list of the most important things one needs to do to win Dartmouth, year by year, complete with a point system. Don’t forget to count repeats!

QUALIFYING ROUND (freshman year) — 40 total points to advance • Go on Trips, make frandz!: 2 points • Fall asleep in your freshman seminar: 4 points • Go to a Tri-Kap/Chi Gam dance party: 1 point • Avoid getting mauled: 4 points • Buy your class jersey at the Co-Op: 1 point • Touch the fire: 5 points • Rush the field: 2 points • Abandon the superiority complex you had in high school: 5 points • Find a club you love: 5 points • Play pong: 1 point • Polar Bear Swim: 3 points • Make your parents take you to Murphy’s over First-Year Family Weekend: 1 points • Put EBAs in your phone: 2 points • Host prospies, share infinite wisdom: 3 points • Pretend to be a prospie, hide infinite wisdom: 3 points • Submit your D-Plan on time: 2 points

QUARTERFINALS (sophomore year) — 90 total points to advance • Lead a Trip, mold young minds: 2 points • Join/don’t join a house because you want to, not because you think you should: 5 points • Room with a friend: 2 points • Make time for your un-affiliated friends during pledge term: 5 points • Take EARS 6: 3 points • Heckle at the bonfire: 3 points • Go to the Fort: 4 points • Streak something: 5 points • Hand in your major card on time: 4 points • Have an existential crisis, can’t decide on a major: 4 points • Discover how much better going out is as a sophomore: 4 points • Make rude comments about freshmen, forget you were the same way: 4 points • Host prospies again, realize how little you knew last time: 5 points

EXHIBITION ROUND (sophomore summer) — bonus points, good for medal round totals • Ledges/Copper Mines/Mink Brook: 4 points • Ledyard Challenge: 5 points • Get owned by Kohn: 4 points and a sympathy Keystone • Do a circuit: 3 points • Instagram everything: 1 point • Go to the drive-in: 3 points • Resolve to meet new people and actually do it: 5 points • Play in M@sters: 3 points • Win M@sters: 6 points • Build a chariot for Fieldstock, everyone survives: 5 points

SEMIFINALS (junior year) — 150 total points to advance • Go abroad, have a “life-changing experience:” 5 points • Gile Mountain fire tower hike: 5 points • Collis Ray knows your name: 5 points • Lament about how you peaked during sophomore summer: 4 points • Actually peak during sophomore summer: -3 points • Throw tennis balls at Princeton: 5 points • Take a random class, discover a new passion and your new minor: 6 points • Get tapped: 2 points • Stop saying things like “A-side:” 4 points • Cement your claim to your favorite study spot: 5 points • Discover that off nights are better than on nights: 4 points • Abandon your FOMO: 5 points • Tell sophomores you are jealous of all that lies before them: 4 points

MEDAL ROUND (senior year) — 35 credits and 225 total points to advance • Come back early for Orientation: 6 points • Every night is an on night: 5 points • Finally take that swim test: 4 points • Remember you’ve taken zero PE classes, go ice fishing and camping: 6 points • Have enough credits to graduate: 3 points • Remember to finish your major: 4 points • Finish your thesis, stay sane: 6 points • Get a Last Chances match: 6.9 points • Watch the sun rise with your best friends during Senior Week: 5 points • Teach your parents how to play pong: 5 points • Carve your name into the wall on the Bell Tower tour: 6 points • Bequest your possessions: 4 points • Become gainfully unemployed: 5 points • Get a job: 5 points • Graduate: 10 points

GOLD MEDAL (350+ points): Congrats kid, you’ve won Dartmouth. You bleed green and white and will be an inspiration for generations to come. Your kids will probably come here and you will marry a Dartmouth alum. Get excited!

SILVER MEDAL (200-349 points): You may not have passed the Dartmouth Trials with flying colors, but you made a valiant attempt! You are graduating with a well-rounded experience and will have plenty of great stories under your belt to look back on fondly when you are gray and boring.

BRONZE MEDAL (50-199 points): Maybe you’re involved in some areas of campus with which The Mirror is not terribly familiar or maybe you just slept through college. Either way, better luck next time! At least you medaled.

HONORABLE MENTION (0-49 points): Um… do you go here?