Updated March 28, 2019 at 9:47 p.m.
Dartmouth offered acceptance to 7.9 percent of applicants for the Class of 2023 — a historic low and 0.8 percent decrease from last year — marking the third consecutive year that the College’s acceptance rate has decreased. This year also saw the highest number of applicants in the College’s history, 23,650, which is a 7.3 percent increase from last year. Fifty-one percent of admitted U.S. citizens are people of color.
A record 16 percent of the admitted class of 1,876 prospective students are first generation college students, and about 40 percent come from low or middle-income families. The Office of Admissions defines a low or middle-class household as a household with less than $200,000 in annual income, according to vice provost for enrollment and dean of admissions and financial aid Lee Coffin. Ninety-two of the accepted students matched with Dartmouth through QuestBridge, a program that helps low-income students find post-secondary educational opportunities.
“We were deliberately focusing this cycle on socioeconomic diversity as a way of syncing up with the capital campaign and its commitment to broader access,” Coffin said.
Seventeen percent of admitted students are projected to qualify for Pell Grants and 48 percent to date will receive scholarships from Dartmouth. The average scholarship was greater than $53,000, which is a record high.
Nine percent of accepted U.S. citizens are legacies, and 49 different faith traditions are represented among the accepted students.
All 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, Guam and Washington D.C. are represented in the admitted students pool. Nineteen percent of all accepted students are from New England, 13 percent are from “rural America,” and 41 percent are from southern or western United States. The five states with the highest number of admitted students were, in order, California, New York, Massachusetts, Florida and Texas.
Twelve percent of all admitted students are citizens of a foreign country. Sixty-nine countries are represented, with the highest numbers of accepted applicants being from the United Kingdom, China, Canada, Brazil and India in decreasing order. Of the 69 countries, applicants of 63 have been offered financial aid.
The admitted students of the Class of 2023 also had a mean SAT score of 1501 of 1600, the highest ever.
A full story will be published in the near future with more information.
Wally Joe Cook is a freshman from Breezy Point, NY and a graduate of Regis High School. Wally Joe plans to major in Government and Economics at Dartmouth, and decided to join the D because of his interest in politics and journalism. Before joining the D, Wally Joe wrote for his high school newspaper and Politico. In his spare time, Wally Joe likes to ski and play Spikeball.
