Dartmouth College is an outstanding undergraduate college within Dartmouth University, and part of the famed Ivy League. The college receives over 30,000 applications each year, including for the Class of 2028, and the acceptance rate for the same class was only — a record low for Dartmouth. The college is especially known for combining an exceptional academic program with an iconic community and social life. Students study hard, and they have lots of fun along the way. They have the most significant Greek Life of any Ivy, a historic athletic tradition, particularly in winter snow sports like nordic and downhill ski racing, and Hanover, New Hampshire is a beloved college town. Dartmouth is also known for a super tight-knit alumni community, and legacy admissions plays an important part of that.
Dartmouth is known as the first college to formally implement a legacy admissions strategy, which came into play over a century ago. , they continue to consider legacy as an aspect of the applicant review process. The practice at the college is based on that legacy admissions is an important part of maintaining and deepening the alumni network that is a meaningful part of the university and the student experience after graduation, offering opportunities and access beyond the college years.
In this post, we’re going to break down what this means for legacy applicants, diving into how to make the most of the legacy advantage to turn a leg up into an acceptance letter.
Legacy offers applicants a boost, but working with an expert is a true advantage. Contact us to learn more.
First, let’s dig into the details of the legacy admissions process.
What’s going on with Legacy Admissions?
To be honest, legacy admissions is not having its best moment. The legacy preference has been criticized for a while, but the heat was turned up with the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action. Legacy admissions has been shown to give preference to students from wealth, including at Dartmouth. , a number of colleges have done away with offering legacy preference to applicants.
At the same time, Dartmouth that more than 40% of legacy applicants also apply for financial aid. As the alumni body has become more diverse across all metrics, the pool of alumni with children applying has also become more diverse, leading to a broadening of the type of students in a position to benefit from legacy admissions preference. This has contributed to Dartmouth maintaining their legacy admissions preference.
For the Class of 2026, of the admitted and enrolled students are legacies. Lee Coffin, the Dean of Admissions at Dartmouth, in the Alumni Magazine, as saying that “The children of those graduates are often really important members of the community. And the misperception that I often encounter is that someone who is the child of an alum is less qualified for admission than everybody else. And that’s not true.” This confirms that legacy admissions is important for Dartmouth, and a crucial tool that can be used to aid the chance of acceptance for students with a legacy connection.
What Should You Do?
Legacy is not, though, an automatic acceptance, and defining legacy is important. We often receive questions from students and parents asking if their connection to Dartmouth would be helpful in admissions, but very often that connect is actually quite tenuous. Having an aunt or uncle that attended Dartmouth does not, generally, qualify as a legacy. Having a grandparent who did not stay involved with Dartmouth also doesn’t do much. What we’re mostly talking about in this post are parental connections, where one or both parents of the applicant attended Dartmouth.
Now, as we mentioned there are valid criticisms of legacy admissions, and are happening on the Dartmouth campus, too. However, calls for an end to legacy admissions are unlikely to amount to anything. Legacy admissions has been a meaningful part of the Dartmouth admissions process for over 100 years, and it continues to matter if the applicant (and the alumni) fit the bill.
Let’s break down what an applicant (and their family) needs to do to ‘fit the bill.’
For the Family Member: If you are the family member who attended Dartmouth, you have some ongoing homework. Simply holding a Dartmouth diploma does offer some legacy benefit, but it is much more impactful if the graduate is actively engaged. Engagement can look different depending on resources, but donations to Dartmouth do matter. The Dartmouth, the student newspaper, that the College “considers donations in its admissions process.” Dean Coffin has also been as saying that the Alumni Affairs and Development Office occasionally provide the admissions team with “information about either the giving potential of the family or the family’s long standing legacy relationship or contributions to the alumni body.” This can turn a maybe into a yes.
So, yes, you have a role to play. Be involved. Donate, if you can, but also give time. Sign up to contribute however you can, and attend events or reunions. Ideally, you’ll start playing it years before an application is submitted by your child.
For the Applicant: Unsurprisingly, the applicant has the most work to do. It’s their application, after all! Below, we’ve broken it down to four key areas for action: grades, scores, extracurriculars, and type of application.
Grades
It shouldn’t be surprising that you need to have awesome grades to get into Dartmouth. Whether a student is a legacy or not, Dartmouth expects to see impressive grades in hard courses. When ranked, of recent accepted students were in the top tenth of their high school class. While legacy offers a boost at Dartmouth, it doesn’t operate as an excuse. Students who get into Dartmouth have amazing grades, legacy or not.
Class Rank of the Class of 2028
Scores:
Like most colleges and universities, Dartmouth suspended mandatory submission of standardized test scores as a part of the application process during the Covid pandemic. It was that standardized testing was once again going to be required beginning with the Fall 2025 admissions cycle.
So, all applicants, including legacies, are required to submit standardized test scores, like the SAT or ACT. at the last time the SAT or ACT was required, for the Class of 2024, strong applicants need to submit an SAT Critical Reading EBRW of 750 or above and a SAT Math of 750 or higher, as well. Or they can submit an ACT of 34 or higher. These are by no means cut-offs, and Dartmouth doesn’t have minimum scores for admission, but the stronger the better when it comes to test scores regardless of whether the applicant is a legacy or not.
Extracurriculars:
When looking for students to admit, Dean Coffin , they are on the hunt for “students who can animate a small class in Dartmouth Hall with dialogue, and who can help people think about lessons and issues in new and nuanced ways.” Transcripts show that you can execute at a high level, but what you do outside of the classroom shows what you can truly bring to the table. It shows what a student is passionate about, and how far they are able to dream.
If all a student does it their coursework, a few clubs, and maybe a sport, Dartmouth isn’t under the impression that the student isn’t working hard. However, they also aren’t inspired to say yes. They want to see leadership, creativity, and an ability to find opportunities that go beyond the school offerings that are ‘in arm’s reach.’ The best way to do this is by going deep into a particular subject (or two) outside of the classroom, and finding as many opportunities as you can that build expertise, leadership, and teamwork. These could include additional courses, internships, employment, volunteering, clubs, student groups, immersive learning experiences, and more.
Apply Early:
Any benefit legacy provides really only matters if you apply early. Dartmouth only wants to give preference to students who give them preference, and applying early is exactly that. It’s saying that one wants Dartmouth badly enough to commit ahead of time. This gives Dartmouth the confidence they need to make an offer of admission to a legacy with an otherwise strong application. If one doesn’t apply early, they give away any advantage they may have had and can’t count on legacy for offering any benefit.
Applying to Dartmouth as a legacy certainly increases the chances of admission, but it isn’t an automatic acceptance by any means. Remember that much of the work necessary to take full advantage of legacy admissions should be started years before an application is submitted — so start today.
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