The agenda of the May 20, 2011, meeting of the Enrollment and Admissions Committee focused primarily on two items: an update from Maria Laskaris '84, dean of admissions and financial aid, and a discussion of the results of the informal survey of the alumni interviewing process of our peer institutions.
Update from the Dean: Dean Laskaris highlighted the continued competitiveness of Dartmouth’s application process. While the College offered admission to 2,178 students, this was after more than 22,000 applications were reviewed by Dean Laskaris and her staff, resulting in a 9.7-percent admission rate. This year topped last year as the most competitive year the College had ever experienced.
The Alumni Interviewing Process: The committee segued from Dean Laskaris’ report into a presentation of the results of the informal survey conducted by several members of the committee on the alumni interviewing process used by several of Dartmouth’s peer institutions. The survey focused on the alumni interviewing process at Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, Brown,Georgetown, Duke, University of Chicago and Colgate. While far from a scientific survey, it did reinforce many of the same process elements in use at Dartmouth:
- Nearly all interviews are conducted by alumni and off campus
- Purpose of the interviews is as much about “selling” the applicant on the school as they are about finding out substantive information about the applicant
- Some sort of structure is in place to identify, support, and organize alumni interviewers
- Limited (if any) training for interviewers
- Most have only basic communications between college and interviewers
Unlike Dartmouth, most schools are using some form of electronic interviewing mechanism (e.g. Skype) to meet with students who are in remote locations or for whatever reason are unable to meet in person. This is an area where Dartmouth could begin to experiment in the use of non-traditional interview mechanisms. The College did compare particularly favorably in its communications with alumni and its structure/training material shared with interviewers. At the next meeting of the committee, the group will begin to identify further opportunities to strengthen the alumni interviewing process and structure.
Leadership: Finally, Danielle Dyer ’81 ’89Tu passed the committee chair baton to Vice Chair Tee Lotson ’82, and Rob Kugler ’67 ’13P was elected the new vice chair.