I'm a mostly A student, but I got a C in math in 10th grade. Am I doomed?

No, you are not doomed. The errant C on a student's transcript, in and of itself, does not preclude admission (and even if it did, you would not be doomed; "doom" is a pretty strong word).

In any case, we read each student's transcript and school profile closely to determine to what extent the student has challenged him/herself given what is available and what his/her interests are. Then we look closely at how the student has performed in each subject. In the case you describe, we will seek to understand what contributed to the C grade and to see how your performance has progressed since you received this grade. These two latter points are critical to the role that this grade will play in your overall evaluation. Each year, we admit quite a few students who do not have straight A grades. As you will glean from other posts in our blogs, it is our holistic understanding of the candidacy and how it fits within the context of our applicant pool as a whole that determines the outcome. One grade in one class is but one piece that will contribute to this holistic understanding.

Do I need to send in AP Exam scores with my application for admission?

If you are enrolled in AP classes, we encourage you take the AP exams for those classes.

If you have AP scores, we strongly encourage you to submit those scores to us by reporting them under the "Tests" section of the Common Application. Students who enroll can be granted course credit or placement based on AP scores.

How Important Are My Grades When Being Considered for Admission?

Your grade are important and are looked at in the application process in several main ways: 1) predictive ability of grades 2) grade trends 3) rigor of curriculum.

1) Many studies have been done by both Dartmouth, the College Board and our peer institutions that show that high school GPA taken into account with standardized test scores are highly correlated with how a student performs GPA-wise in his or her FIRST year in college. This means that a top GPA in high school may be an indicator that you will continue to do well in college. However, this is only part of the way we look at a student's GPA in the application process.

2) We view ALL grades as important. You should think about it this way - when we review an applicant's transcript, we look at grade trends that will help us understand a student's academic trajectory in his or her secondary school. We see transcripts that show steady grades throughout a student's high school career or a positive/upward trend from 9th-12th grade. We see transcripts where a student has bounced back from a transition or dip in grades. We also see downward trends in grades. We use the rest of the application to try to fill in WHY the trend looks the way it does. If you have a particular reason for, say, a dip in grades in your junior year, please let us know about it in the "Additional Information" section of the Common Application. Keep in mind that we will be looking to see how you have done in your most recent coursework since this will be a good indicator of how ready you are to move into a rigorous academic environment at Dartmouth.

3) The Admissions Committee will look at your curriculum and note whether the courses you have been/are taking are the most demanding offered in your school. If your school weights the GPA by counting advanced/AP/honors/IB/etc courses more heavily, we will note this (vs. an unweighted GPA where a school counts any and all courses equally when calculating the GPA). If a school does not weight your GPA, we will "weight" it ourselves when we read your file by looking on your transcript and checking with your school profile and guidance counselor recommendation to see if your coursework in fact shows that you have sought academic and intellectual challenge in your school context.

Please let me know if you have any questions about anything in this post!

Should I attend an information session in my city, if I already attended one on campus?

This year, the Dartmouth Admissions Office will travel to over 40 cities in the U.S. to speak about the Dartmouth experience. These information sessions will be posted on our website as the fall travel season progresses, and they are open to the public.
Typically, the information session in your city will highlight reasons why Dartmouth is unique. We'll talk about the Dartmouth Plan, the research opportunities on campus, and our accessibility to our faculty. If you've already visited campus, the information session might be somewhat repetitive, but chances are you'll learn something new!
We would love to see you while we're on the road!