On Dec. 13, 2024, the College offered admission to the first members of the Class of 2029 from a pool of 3,550 early decision applicants. Though the College has not released the number of accepted students, the rate is consistent with previous years, according to Dartmouth News.
Several admitted students reported learning about Dartmouth through programs offered by the College. Asha Talim ’29, an admitted student from Las Vegas, Nev., said she participated in the Dartmouth Bound fly-in program — a four-day summer program that offers rising high school seniors an opportunity to experience daily life on campus.
Talim explained that though she had attended fly-in programs at other institutions, Dartmouth’s version was the only one that “felt like home.”
“I fell in love with the campus and the community,” Talim said. “… I decided to do early decision because I felt like it was the only school that was right for me.”
Others learned about Dartmouth through off-campus resources. Sonja Talwani ’29, an admitted student from Washington, D.C., heard about Dartmouth when an admissions representative hosted an information session at their high school.
Alex Hant ’29, an admitted student from Houston, Tex., also attributed her choice of Dartmouth to an admissions representative. Hant explained that her interest in the College was first piqued at a QuestBridge conference for high-achieving low-income students hosted at Rice University.
“Whenever I attended the QuestBridge conference at Rice, I got to talking with that admissions [representative], and I really liked [Dartmouth],” Hant said.
While Hant did not visit Hanover before applying, she did indirectly interact with the College. Hant, who is president of Women in Debate, California — a 501(c)(3) non-profit providing national-level debate mentoring for gender-minorities — worked with the Dartmouth Debate Institute to award debaters with scholarships for debate camps amounting to about $15,000 in total.
Through partnering with DDI as well as the Dartmouth student group Women in Business, Hant was able to learn more about the College.
“[The experience] just kind of came together in a way that was like, ‘I definitely want to go to Dartmouth and be on the College policy [debate] team as well,’” Hant said.
Coulson Lloyd-Clare ’29, a student who moved to Hanover from Chile in 2022, said his family moved to the United States so that he and his brother could attend college in the country. While at Hanover High School, Lloyd-Clare found out that he could take Spanish classes at Dartmouth if he excelled in his high school Spanish class. He enrolled in SPAN 20, “Writing and Reading: A Critical and Cultural Approach,” with Spanish professor José del Pino, which “reignited” his interest in Spanish literature.
“[The course] showed me that everyone is an active participant … people are here because they want to be, and that was very inspiring,” Lloyd-Clare said. “I went to see other colleges, and I saw them, but when I came back to Dartmouth, it was just the place. … [Other institutions] didn’t have what Dartmouth had.”
Talwani, who aspires to major in mathematics and Native American and Indigenous studies, said Dartmouth’s course offerings and dedicated NAIS program also played a significant part in their interest in the school.
“The main deciding factor was the Native American and Indigenous studies program because not a lot of places on the East Coast have that,” Talwani said.
In the days after being admitted to the College, the Class of 2029 began forming its community. Brody Gifford ’29, an admitted student from Cumberland Center, Maine, said he was added to a 250-person group chat for admitted students after posting his profile on the Dartmouth 2029 Instagram page.
“We’ve been playing on a Minecraft server together,” Gifford said. “We’ve had game nights … I already sort of feel like I’m building connections with my peers even though I’m not even there yet.”
