Starting in the fall of 1995, the College will accept the Common Application, a standard form used by more than 130 universities nation-wide, in an attempt to reach more high-school students and to make the admissions process more "egalitarian."
The Common Application includes a personal section, a school report section and a teacher evaluation which an applicant can fill out once, photocopy and send to any of the 137 schools that accept the form.
Mostly smaller, less-competitive schools use the form, but schools which accept the application, like Duke University and Amherst, Swarthmore, Wesleyan and Williams Colleges, directly compete with Dartmouth for students.
Dartmouth is the second Ivy League school to announce it will accept the standard form. Harvard University will begin accepting the form this fall.
Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenberg said the Common Application allows Dartmouth to reach more students and to make the applications process more fair.
"The Common Application expands our reach to students around the country," he said.
Since the Common Application is available in most high schools, Furstenberg said it reaches more students than just those who request the College's application.
He also said the Common Application "simplifies the process" for students who do not want to write out separate applications for each of the schools to which they are applying.
In addition, Furstenberg said the form makes the application process "more egalitarian" for disadvantaged students who do not have access to the services, like books and computer programs, which help students with the application process.
"In the last two years there has been a huge increase in all sorts of [application] services," he said.
But, the College will not eliminate its own application form, Furstenberg said.
"I don't want to lose that uniqueness," he said.
Students have the option of using the Common Application, but the College will still keep its own application form.
For students using the Common Application, the College will also send a supplementary information packet, which might include a peer recommendation sheet.
Furstenberg said based on his own experience he expects the Common Application to comprise only 10 to 15 percent of incoming applications.
Furstenberg added that since the Common Application is very similar to the College's current application, it will not drastically affect the admission process.
"The way we read applications is pretty neutral to the actual format of the application," he said.
The basic objective information required is the same in both Dartmouth's packet and the Common Application, he said, including "a student's academic record, extracurricular activities and what other people think about the student in recommendations."
The main difference between the two forms is in the personal statement.
Dartmouth's long essay requires the student to formulate and answer a "thought-provoking and reveling question of collage applications."
The Common Application's essay requires the student to respond to one of three statements: "Evaluate a significant experience or achievement that has special meaning to you;" "Discuss some issue of personal, local, or national concern and its importance to you;" and "indicate a persons who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence."
Harvard, unlike Dartmouth is completely replacing its own form with the Common Application. In its admissions packet, Harvard will mail out the Common Application and its own supplement.
"They've totally given up their application," Furstenberg said. "That's a pretty big leap."
Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of admissions for Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, said Harvard decided last winter to accept the form.
"Schools keep telling us, and we have long believed, that the amount of time and effort that students and candidates spend on those applications is excessive," she told The New York Times last Friday. "Quite frankly they could read a book in that time."
She said the supplement Harvard mails out will help it ensure that it gets all the information it needs to make decisions about a student, like academic, career and extracurricular interests.
"We don't lose the benefit of all our idiosyncrasies. I would love to know what books they have read, but if we want to know more, we can always call and ask," she told The Times.
Besides Harvard and Dartmouth, other Ivies are considering accepting the form.
The University of Pennsylvania's Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson said he does not think Penn will accept the form.
"We don't make our decision based on what Harvard does &emdash; we do what's best for Penn," Stetson told the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, last Thursday.
"Our application is one of the more challenging ones that allows us to assess students more thoroughly than any Common Application," he added.
Although he said, "We're still going to take look at it," Stetson told the Daily Pennsylvanian, he called the Common Application "a shallow way of reaching people" who do not want to fill out multiple forms.
"When Penn is thrown onto a list of many institutions, it does not necessarily stand out," he said. "If we have our own application, with letters written in them from me, we improve our chances of attracting students."
Yale University, Brown University and Columbia University are still considering accepting the Common Application according to employees in their respective admission offices.
Officials from Cornell and Princeton Universities could not be reached for comment.
