Dartmouth Offers $5k

Eight members of Dartmouth College’s Class of 2005 have taken advantage of the University’s offer of free room and board and deferred college for a year.

Dartmouth made the offer after an unexpectedly high yield of students this spring led to fears of overcrowding, said Dean of Admission Karl Furstenberg.

The college saw a record 52.3 percent of admitted students accept, yielding 86 more students than the 1,075 the college expected. Since housing on the Dartmouth campus was already a serious concern—178 sophomores still do not having housing for the fall—the college looked for a incentive to encourage students to defer.

They settled on offering free room and board—worth roughly $5000—for one year if they deferred.

By July 11, the deadline the school set, only eight students had taken the school up on its offer. To be fair, the college also offered the deal to the 25 students who had already deferred for a year.

However, Furstenberg said the school’s deadline remains flexible and he expects the number of deferrals to rise through the summer. Around ten additional students have been in contact with the admissions office to discuss their options, he said.

Dartmouth decided to offer deferrals to avoid having to resort to drastic measures—Princeton installed temporary trailers after a similarly large class several years ago—and because college officials believe a year off before college can be beneficial to students, Furstenberg said.

“Taking a year off is a highly desirable educational opportunity, and we wish more students would take advantage of it,” he said.

Students who take a year off before college are often more mature and better able to handle the academics, Furstenberg said.

While Dartmouth’s offer might be good news for those who will take advantage of it this year, it is bad news for those high schoolers applying to the Class of 2006. The large yield for this year will likely result in a smaller target for next year, and if even more students defer from ’05 to ’06, the number of acceptances could sink even lower, according to Furstenberg.

—Staff writer Garrett M. Graff can be reached at ggraff@fas.harvard.edu.