‘Though I graduated in '89, I remember being 18 well enough to know the program as proposed by the Admin would’ve bored me to tears. Truly, I watch in astonishment the decisions the College makes and wonder if any in charge are under the age of 75…

To address admission declines, the administration only needs to look in the mirror. Very few people are going to chose Dartmouth over a significantly cheaper Princeton! Even at equal price, Harvard will win out over Dartmouth – the employment outcomes are superior at Harvard. In order to get more cross-admits, the administration should focus on 1) driving down costs and 2) making Dartmouth more marketable after graduation. These are the two things that matter most. To do so, shifting money away from administrative positions and into professorial positions would be a good start. As would working to bring more companies to Dartmouth for corporate and non-corporate recruiting. If the administration engendered the same loyalty from current students and recent alumni, Dartmouth’s brand would be even stronger and it’s admissions correspondingly stronger as well. Instead we get Wes Schaub telling people they can’t wear AXA hats. We get Sylvia Spears holding up a Phoenix cane at graduation. Charlotte Johnson announcing unannounced walkthroughs of private residences. If the College cannot offer superior value to prospective students and it alienates its best ambassadors, recent and current students, it’s no wonder numbers are down. But it has nothing to do with Dimensions…

Does “Lest the old traditions fail” now apply to silly student shows that are barely 10 years old? Step off the ledge. Dimensions can evolve and Dartmouth can do better.

It takes a particular type of bright-eyed, excitable, dumb prospie to be taken in by Dimension’s particular slate of transparent lies. And Fat Brisc beats up dumb kids and sends them limping to Princeton.

Yawn.

I’d like to add the obvious fact that student insight is mostly not worth it. Take a break from the nightly caffeinated shits you call a daily newspaper and try reading the thing on occasion. You’ll get a sense of my meaning.

I never went to Dimensions myself, as I was an early decision admit, so I can’t really comment on what Dimensions should or shouldn’t be.

However, I can’t help but wonder if this move on the part of the admissions office isn’t necessarily to get a higher yield, but a different one.

Maybe, just maybe, the folks in the admissions office doesn’t like you. Maybe they have buyer’s remorse on the current student body, and they don’t WANT the people who were convinced by Dimensions as it has been run up until now. Maybe they think that if they change the Dimensions experience, they’ll wind up with a student body that doesn’t have hazing scandals or bias incidents or whatever this week’s cause for alarm is. Or maybe they want a student body that doesn’t WANT to wear AXA hats or dye their hair pink for Winter Carnival as a ski team bonding incident, and won’t complain about walkthroughs. Maybe this is a means of trying to change the chemistry so that Dartmouth winds up with a bunch of good little boys and girls who do what they’re told.

I’m not sure exactly what the motive is, but consider this: Maybe, just maybe, the admissions office that told you how wonderful and diverse and talented you all are really believes deep down that you really are the “Worst Class[es] Ever.”

And if that’s true, for the record, I disagree.

The problem with Dartmouth College is that it has become Harvard north annex. The teaching is all leftwing all day long. The administration is full of committed lefties, the faculty is full of committed lefties and whoever is running the Board of Trustees are pansy leftist dummies with money. The other problems are the outrageous tuition, room, board and fees and the massively worthless bloat of the permanent administration bureaucracy which is accountable to no one and from whom you will never get a straight answer. The College needs a complete overhaul. Maybe Phil Hanlon can and will do it.

To the first commenter— how does Sylvia Spears holding up a Phoenix cane fit in with your other examples of alienation of current and past students? From my understanding, Phoenix is a student organization, and has always been made up of current students and alumnae. That example stands out as one that represents solidarity with Dartmouth and its students, not an attack on things we hold dear (which, granted, are nowhere near homogenous across the student and alumni body, but clearly a student organization should count as being representative of at least some student and alumnae interests).

Johnson and the administration are tearing away the very core of why I chose Dartmouth in the first place. I had been on the fence for a while, but here come the transfer applications…

@E04 – Totally nailed it.

This move is part of what I can only (and hesitatingly) conclude is a concerted effort to break the Dartmouth spirit as it currently exists, and engineer something else, perhaps more in-line with our so-called “peer institutions.” I don’t know if this reflects some sort of insecurity among administrators among THEIR peers, and/or even (I hope not) an animosity of some kind of animosity towards the Dartmouth undergraduate community. In theory, they are hired as custodial administrators, to interpret and execute upon the aims and goals of the Dartmouth community (via Alumni and the Board). Either there is (I hesitate to say) a conspiracy among the Board to radically change Dartmouth – and sincerely I pray that this is not the case – or they are inept. Or both. But let’s hope it’s the latter.

Sorry, guess I don’t think a small, exclusive, single sex, secret organization represents “solidarity with Dartmouth and its students.” But to each her own!

The purpose of college is intellectual development. College life is a bi-product, albeit an important one. There is no need to “highlight” the “intellectual side.” That can be done by eliminating the number professional academic administrators who once cared about their own intellectual development and now just enjoy the sinecure of academia, e.g. Folt. If you are not in the class room, laboratory and not active in your discipline, you shouldn’t have tenure.

Hey! Anyone with legitimate complaints about the College! The legitimacy stipulation thus ruling out many but not all of you!

Stop the boogeyman shit. College administrators can’t hear you out when you’re degrading them as individuals and relentlessly shouting shoUTING SHOUTING.

Administrators like Johnson and Folt and Nathan Miller have our best interests in mind. All my extensive experience as a student leader and student employment has borne this out. We OUGHT to be properly debating whether Folt et al. are acting on our interests in the best manner. Instead we carry on with this entitled whining bullshit tinged with the Ivy League’s unhealthiest status quo bias. We move nowhere nohow with self-righteous screeds. Cut it out already. Let’s shush the quaking infant inside us bawling out, “MOMMY FOLT TOOK AWAY MY RATTLE!” and play like we’re adults for one goddamn second.

But then I expect some of you enjoy screaming for its own sake. In which case, the exit is this way, transfer apps are in the desk’s top drawer. Slam the door behind you if it makes you feel better.

Hey student leader: if you think that “Johnson and Folt and Nathan Miller have our best interests in mind” — you should realize that bureaucrats have other interests in mind, too: money, careers, their own sense of a place when it is different from that of students.

These guys all continue to make stupid decisions, and they should be called out for their stupidity.

Don’t be so naive. Just ‘cause they stroke you on occasion doesn’t mean that they are competent.

@Anonymous

Hey man have you ever read comments on this website. Calling out administrators for their stupidity is not the issue. Personally I see no reason to keep piling on.

At a fundamental level we just disagree and that’s OK. I think admins are people with humanity acting in good faith – You choose to neither respect their humanity or allow that they do anything right. That’s a shitty opinion, but hey, you keep doing you.

Protip: unaimed self-righteous indignation feels good and does nothing. Stop hiding behind your laptop screen, get off your ass and do something.