This year's pool of accepted early decision applicants is larger, more balanced in its gender ratio and boasts higher median Scholastic Aptitude Test scores than last year's.
The College received 120 more early decision applications for the Class of 1998 this year, resulting in a 12 percent increase over the number of Class of 1997 early applicants.
This year, the College reviewed 1,123 early decision applications, compared to last year's 1,003.
"The increases [in applications] came at the upper end in terms of quality," Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg said. For this reason, the committee accepted more students than it had planned to take.
Furstenberg said the Class of '98 is shaping up to be a very intellectually strong group.
The new '98s have higher Scholastic Aptitude Test scores than last year's early admits. The verbal mean score of the class is 643 and the math mean score is 700. The Class of 1997 early admits had a verbal mean of 628 and a math mean of 689.
Of the students admitted early, 172 were male and 170 were female. Furstenberg said that this one to one ratio was a great accomplishment for the admissions committee.
"This set of results gives us an incredibly good start on the class of '98," Furstenberg said.
Of those students whose high schools ranked their students, 92 percent were in the top tenth of their class. Twenty-four percent were valedictorians and 11 percent were salutatorians.
Furstenberg said he thought the increase in applications and the quality of applicants showed that Dartmouth's academic reputation is improving.
The application for the Class of 1998 is slightly different than that of the Class of 1997. While last year's application asked students to write about success, an influential person in their lives or a value they hold, the '98 application requires students to create their own essay question, and then respond to it.
Though this open-ended essay question has been used in past applications, it was not included in the '97 application. Furstenberg said he prefers this year's question because it gives "a really interesting candidate room to really do something."
Among the interesting candidates the Admissions office accepted is the inventor of the mini travel book light. Another '98 is a television news reporter in New Zealand.
The College's newest class also consists of an officer in the Norwegian army, a glass blower and several entrepreneurs and belly dancers.
In it's continuing effort to make the College more diverse, the Admissions office admitted 36 minority students, comprising 11 percent of the 342 students admitted.
Two percent of the early admits are African American and 14 percent are Asian American. Latinos represent 10 percent of the accepted students and Native Americans comprise 1 percent of the entering class thus far.
The majority of the students admitted early are from the Northeast. Thirty percent are from mid-Atlantic states and slightly less than 30 percent hail from New England.
From the lesser represented areas of the country, approximately nine percent are from the midwest, 12 percent are from the South and 15 percent are from the Western states. Four percent of those accepted early are foreign students.
The vast majority of the '98s accepted early come from public schools. Sixty-six percent attend public schools, 31 percent attend private schools and five percent attend parochial schools.
Fifteen percent of those students accepted under the Early Decision plan are legacies of Dartmouth alumni.
Furstenberg said that he was pleased with the results so far and hopeful about the regular admission applications. These results show that "successful students can be well rounded and I think that's what we're getting," he said.
