I am an admitted student interested in deferring my admission for a year – how do I request a deferral?

Admitted students who would like to defer their enrollment at Dartmouth for a year can do so by doing the following:

1) Accept our offer of admission by May 1st, 2010.

2) E-mail Assistant to the Dean of Admissions Peg Chase at Peg.Chase@dartmouth.edu by July 1, 2010. Your e-mail should outline your reasons for deferring for a year, and your plans for your Gap Year.

Your request will be processed and you will receive a response via email to let you know if we need any additional information. You will then receive an official response from Maria Laskaris, Dean of Admissions by email and paper mailing granting your request. Please allow approximately 2 weeks for the processing of deferral requests.

3) We require that you write to our office as soon as possible after January 1, 2011, to reaffirm your commitment to join the Class of 2015. This e-mail should also describe your experiences and undertakings during the 2010 – 2011 academic year.

Please note the following policies regarding deferred enrollment:

1) Admitted students who defer their enrollment must withdraw all applications to other institutions, and they may not apply to any other colleges or universities during their gap year.

2) Students who defer enrollment do not need to reapply to Dartmouth in 2011 or complete any new admissions forms, but students who qualify for Financial Aid must reapply for Financial Aid for the 2011-2012 academic year. You must file the CSS PROFILE Application and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The CSS Profile will be available in October 2010 and the FAFSA will be available January 1, 2011 for the 2011 - 2012 academic year.

Please be advised that, beginning with the Class of 2015, students applying for Financial Aid with family incomes above $75,000 will receive financial aid awards that include loans. Students who defer for a year and enroll with the Class of 2015 will be packaged using the same financial aid guidelines as the rest of their classmates. Visit the Financial Aid website for application instructions and requirements.

3) The Admissions Committee reserves the right to review the status of any admitted student and to rescind the offer of admission if a student's academic or personal record does not remain satisfactory in all respects.

I am a Transfer applicant. Do I need to submit a mid-term report?

No. Transfer applicants must submit official transcripts for all college level work completed to date along with their secondary school transcripts, but we do not require a mid-term update. Some applicants do submit them, but this is not necessary.

I have materials I want to add to my application. Will you accept them?

Some students will mail, email, or fax additional materials to the admissions office after their application has become complete. We will happily accept these materials, providing they supplement your application with NEW information.

If you have an updated transcript, a change in your application, a new award or honor, or a change in curriculum, please feel free to send that new information directly to the admissions office.

Please do not send newspaper clippings, emails, recommendations, resumes, or certificates which are repetitive. (For example, please don't send us newspaper clippings regarding your Eagle Scout project if you have already written about your Eagle Scout project in your short answer.)

Also, please refrain from sending "announcements" regarding the status of your additional material. You do not need to email us to let us know that your updated transcript is on the way.

We want to make sure we have as complete a candidacy for each applicant as possible, but we do not want to weigh down your application file with information that isn't necessary.

Is it too late to send in a Peer Reference?

No, it's not too late. You can still submit the peer reference to us. My suggestion at this point is that you fax it to 603-646-1216.

Please note: It will be helpful to us if you only send it once. We're finding that some peers fax the reference (or email it) and then follow up with a second submission via regular mail. This slows down our processing of the application material.

What last-minute financial aid advice do you have?

Please note the sound may have issues for the first few minutes of the video. I apologize for the technical problems.

Useful links:

• Dartmouth's Financial Aid Office
• Forms for all First-Year applicants
• CSS Profile
  
• FAFSA

Key Pieces of Advice:

• CSS & FAFSA are due February 1 for regular decision applicants. Please get these forms in as close to the deadline as possible.
• We are NEED-BLIND for all applicants, which means the decision to admit you to Dartmouth is not based on the ability to afford Dartmouth. Don't confuse this with Dartmouth's NEED-BASED Financial Aid policy, which means we only offer need-based financial aid and NO merit-based aid.
  
• We do guarantee to meet 100% of a family's demonstrated financial need.
• If you do not have full financial information available for 2009, please estimate for the most recent year and submit final documents when requested.
• For International financial aid applicants we prefer official income statements over tax-returns.

I was admitted Early Decision. Is it okay if I change my academic schedule this spring?

Yes, but we expect you will continue to challenge yourself and be successful. We do have a post-acceptance review at the end of the year to check on this. We want future Dartmouth students to continue to grow intellectually, academically, and personally during the senior year. We also want you to enjoy your final year of high school.

If changing your course load is going to allow you to really engage your academic and extracurricular interests more significantly over the remainder of your senior year, we see no harm in doing so. Your schedule should not be determined by what we want, it should be determined by what you find challenging and meaningful. We follow the advice of your secondary school counselor for determining a reasonable schedule for you to proceed with for the remainder of your senior year.

How many times is each application reviewed? How much time is devoted to reviewing an application?

Most applications are reviewed two or three times, with each review completed by a different member of the Admissions Committee (some applications will be reviewed more than three times - see below).

The total time spent reviewing each candidacy varies from one application to the next:

• The "first read" of an application typically takes between 10 and 20 minutes to complete, while the length of a "second read" will vary from case to case.
  
• Often, the second read of the application will take less time than the first read because the second reviewer does not have to record as many notes as the first reader.
  
• In other circumstances, a second read may take as much or more time than the first read due to the complexity of the case or due to the fact that the second reader may want to point out new issues for the Admissions Committee to consider.
• The first two reviews of a candidacy are usually comprehensive reviews of the entire application, and each reviewer takes notes summarizing the case for admission. The second reader does not look at the first reader's notes until after completing their own review of the application.
  
• Additional reviews may be by an individual reader or may involve a group (or "committee") review of the candidacy. Some candidacies will be reviewed multiple times as the selection process moves forward.
• One of my earlier blog posts explains who reads applications files.
  

The Deadline is Today, and I've Got a Question That I Really Need an Answer To Before Submitting My Application. What Should I Do?

Three things:

1) See our last minute tips blog post and video.

2) Check our website. Pages you may want to visit include:

• Application Components
• Download Forms
  
• The Fine Print (for very uncommon questions)

3) Hang on until Monday.

If you get through items 1 and 2 and still aren't ready to submit your application, you can contact us on Monday when the office will be open again. It will be okay with us if you do not submit your application until then.