Admissions Ad Nauseam

The theme for today is admissions, with Dartmouth receiving top billing ...

The Daily Dartmouth reports the college:

• had 16,536 applications
• admitted 2,190
• expects 1,080 to enroll
• waitlisted another 1,500

And look for more of the same next year. From the story:

“So far, the only barometer we have for next year is the number of campus visitors,” (Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Maria) Laskaris said, “In the first few months of 2008, we’ve seen that number nearly double from last year.”

The Harvard Crimson reports the college:

• had 27,462 applicants
• admitted 1,948

Of the applicant pool (not acceptances necessarily), Harvard Gazette notes that:

• more than 2,500 scored a perfect 800 on the SAT critical reading test
• 3,300 scored 800 on the SAT math
• more than 3,300 were ranked first in their high school classes

Curious about the no-transfer policy at Princeton? This story in the Daily Princetonian will make you even more, um, curious. Speaking of curious, the story mentions a cross country scholarship to Brandeis. Now that's a head scratcher.

While you are trying to riddle out the Princeton transfer policy (repeat after me: last year's Tiger quarterback Bill Foran did not transfer from Purdue – despite what this link says – and former Princeton basketball great Sean Jackson '92 did not transfer from Ohio University), take a look at what's up at Harvard with regard to transfers. From a Harvard Crimson story:

When a football player at Northwestern University named Clifton Dawson decided to transfer to the Ivy League in 2003, Harvard was not his first choice.

“At the time, I was giving a lot of consideration to Princeton,” Dawson said last week. “But at the time they had a policy where they were not accepting transfer students for the next two years even though the football staff wanted me there.”

Princeton’s loss was Harvard’s gain. Dawson went on to set the Ivy League single-season rushing record for the Crimson, graduated in 2007, and now plays for the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts

But now that Harvard has followed Princeton’s lead, announcing two weeks ago that it will suspend transfer admissions for the next two years, Dawson’s story raises a question: what potential stars is Harvard going to miss out on?

Ah, but there's always fine print. More from the Crimson:

If a student has not yet completed a year at another post-secondary school, the student can still apply to Harvard as a freshman—though the student would not receive credit for work done at another institution, according to Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath ’70.

Still on the subject of admissions, Forbes.com has a story by Joie Jager-Hyman, author of Fat Envelope Frenzy: One Year, Five Students and the Pursuit of the Ivy League Prize. Among other things, she writes:

For what it's worth, every student who is admitted to a top school--whether or not they play football or have parents who donated money--is qualified for admission and belongs there. And, plenty of athletes, legacies, students of color and even "creative loners" get rejected from selective universities each year, as do plenty of kids with great grades, high test scores and exceptional extracurricular resumes.

Newsweek takes a look at the Ivy League financial aid changes and asks the question: "Can new tuition policies and some aggressive recruiting make schools like Harvard into basketball powerhouses?"

Whew. Now before you start clicking away on all those admission links, the Concord Monitor has a Q&A with Oge Young, president of the New Hampshire Medical Society. The intro to the story includes a nugget about his son Adam Young '99, a former Dartmouth tight end who won a Super Bowl ring as a practice player for the New York Giants a few year back. The Green Alert blog reported in the past that Adam Young joined the Coast Guard and the Monitor notes that he's now flying helicopters for the Guard. The paper reports that brother Oge Young '96, a former Dartmouth lineman, designs video games. I wrote about the younger Oge for the local daily and asked what he would do if he had freedom to change his younger brother's profile on the Madden game. He joked about adding a little speed ;-)

And finally, Dartmouth has spawned a lot of great coaches over the past few decades but few have achieved the successes Vin Lananna enjoyed as cross country/track coach at Stanford. Lananna, now resurrecting Oregon's track fortunes, will be joining the hall of fame at his alma mater, CW Post according to this release.