In less than two weeks, most Dartmouth seniors will take final exams just as they have since their freshman fall. But years ago, from 1929 through 1967, seniors were required to take special comprehensive examinations - known to students as "comps" - before graduating from the College.
A 1936 "Regulations and Courses" book, the equivalent of the modern-day ORC says, "At the end of senior year, as a prerequisite to the degree, each student shall be required to pass a comprehensive examination in his Major Subject."
It continues to say that the exam will test the student in the whole range of his major, beginning with the material learned early on in his Dartmouth career.
Depending on the score a student received on his comprehensive exams, he could graduate "with distinction." On the other hand, if a student failed his three to 12-hour comprehensive examination, he would not be permitted to graduate with his class, and would have one chance to retake the test at the end of any subsequent semester after paying a "suitable fee."
As can be expected, these tests were not widely popular among students.
"I had a horrible time taking the comps," James Gregg '50, a math major at Dartmouth, said.
"I think the college experience is a four year experience," he said. "It's cumulative, but I don't know why you should have to come to this apex at the end of a four year period."
Gregg said that despite the intended purpose of the comprehensive exams, his did not help him later in life.
William Curry '57, a zoology major also said he thought the comprehensive exams were not worthwhile.
He recalled going with his roommate to a secluded shelter at the top of a local mountain and studying there for the week preceding his comprehensive examination.
He said students' senior year classes were pretty fresh in their minds, but they had to go back and review course material starting in their freshman years.
He said it was the commonly accepted way to wrap up a Dartmouth career at the time, but said, "a test doesn't linger in your memory too long."
He thinks it would have been more productive to do "some personalized project."
Beginning as early as 1947 there were rumblings of discontent with the comprehensive exams from the faculty as well as the students.
In December 1947, the Office of Dean of the Faculty distributed a questionnaire on the use of the examinations to the faculty preceding an all-faculty meeting.
The faculty noted a discrepancy between students' performance in their coursework up to their comprehensive examinations and their scores on the actual exams. Circumstances, such as "peculiar physical or mental conditions at the time of the examinations" could influence a student's score, they determined.
However, despite these concerns, the exams were administered without fail - other than some special exceptions so that students could fight during World War II - until 1967.
Real action against the comprehensive exams began in 1966.
A poll of the 1966 graduating class found that close to 60 percent thought the tests should be eliminated.
At the time, The Dartmouth ran a series of columns deriding the comprehensive exams as a means of judging the graduating seniors.
A column on Nov. 28, 1966 asked, "Will the men graduating this June have to suffer this infuriating kind of unfairness?"
It went on to argue that the exams allow students with low grade point averages to graduate "with distinction" for simply earning a B+ on their comprehensive examinations, while students who have earned high GPAs will not necessarily graduate with distinction.
A Dec. 5, 1966 column in The Dartmouth supported the Math department's move to make students' final grades a composite of their course work, any honors work they had completed as well as their score on the comprehensive examination.
The column argues, "If a student has shown satisfactory or in many cases superior ability in the various courses in his major, there is no reason to further 'test' that ability with a series of ridiculous exams."
The faculty officially heard the voice of the students on May 16, 1967 when they voted to end mandatory comprehensive exams by a broad margin.
This vote was approved by the Board of Trustees during their 1967 summer meeting, and individual departments began eliminating their comprehensive examinations on their own timeframes.
According to history professor Jere Daniell, the exams were just a phase in Dartmouth's history.
"They probably got rid of it because they thought it wasn't useful, and they got it because they thought it was useful," he said.
