Dartmouth College is defined by its people, and 3D is a magazine that tells their stories. It’s not meant to be comprehensive, but an evolving snapshot as vibrant and prismatic as the school itself. 3D is Dartmouth in all its dimensions.
FEATURES
14 Up Close and Political
New Hampshire—and by extension, Dartmouth—is a hub for political activity
28 Let’s Talk About Testing Your scores might be stronger than you think COLUMNS
2 First Hand
A message from Dartmouth’s Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid
3 It’s a Fact
The Class of 2028 by the numbers
6 Humans of Hanover
Meet some of the members of the Class of 2028
10 Financial Aid
Learn how a Dartmouth education can be affordable for you
22 My “Why Dartmouth?”
Advice for high school seniors from a Dartmouth ’25
26 Basecamp to the World
An environmental studies major reflects on her off-campus program
34 Goal-Oriented
Athletics highlights from Big Green teams
38 Humans of Hanover: Faculty Edition
40 The Dartmouth Dialogue Project Dartmouth partners with StoryCorps’ One Small Step Program
44 Onward & Upward
Meet the Dartmouth alumna behind Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton, and more
48 D-Plan
A senior illustrates the flexibility of Dartmouth’s quarter system
50 Courses of Study
A sociology major dives into the Dartmouth curriculum
52 Living the Green Life
Two roommates reflect on how they met—and why it works
54 Funding Outside the Lines
Financial access at Dartmouth extends well beyond financial aid
56 Tapestry
A thread from Dartmouth’s history
Dartmouth College is located on traditional, unceded Abenaki homelands.
Cover illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare Photograph at left by Chris Johnson Students
Standardized testing is back as a required element of Dartmouth’s undergraduate application. The return of those three infamous letters (take your pick, SAT or ACT) as an admissions requirement was not universally cheered by prospective applicants, but I have a different and hopefully reassuring take. Imagine your score is a personal asset rather than a barrier. And importantly, imagine that your score is likely “stronger” than you think. Let me explain.
People like numbers. A number represents something concrete; it is an objective definition. For example, a 100 on an exam means you answered all the questions correctly. That meaning is straightforward. Alas, the value of every number on the admissions scorecard is not as universally true as that. Sometimes, a degree of context is required.
Standardized testing is a contextualized statistic: each 1150, 1300, or 1510, or maybe a 32 or 36, does not convey the same information to an admissions officer as we read a file. You’re thinking, “Huh?” Set aside the notion that a score is “high” or “low” based on where it falls on the College Board’s 800 to 1600 continuum or the ACT’s 36-point range. Ignore the spectrum of reported scores on the admissions profile at Dartmouth and other institutions. The big reveal: There is elasticity to the determination of score quality.
A Dartmouth admissions officer considers each score relative to the average scores at an applicant’s high school. So, a score that falls below Dartmouth’s overall class mean (or average) might be several hundred points above the mean at the student’s school. In that example, that score is “high,” and as such it has real value as an evaluative factor in our holistic assessment. Conversely, another student might attend a school where the average scores fall towards the upper end of the 1600 or 36
“Imagine your test score is a personal asset rather than a barrier.”
score ranges on the two standardized tests. Most folks would consider such a score as “high,” and it is. But, as an informative element, that score is not as additive as the first example. Every score reflects the place where it originates.
That is how we consider testing at Dartmouth. Our awareness of environmental factors, including the range of family incomes and the degree of opportunity and resources available at a student’s high school and in their community more broadly, frame the way we evaluate a score. Context counts. Testing reflects context. “High” and “low” are more nuanced than conventional wisdom suggests.
Indeed, as we considered Dartmouth’s post-pandemic testing policy, a group of faculty researchers confirmed that standardized testing when assessed using the local norms at a student’s high school is valuable. They found that high school grades paired with standardized testing are the most reliable indicators for success in Dartmouth’s rigorous course of study. They also found that test scores represent an especially valuable tool to identify high-achieving applicants from low and middle-income backgrounds; those who are firstgeneration college-bound; as well as students from urban and rural backgrounds.
The faculty study reinforced Dartmouth’s longstanding practice of considering testing within our broader understanding of the whole person, a “holistic” admissions process used at Dartmouth for over a century. Testing is one data point among many in that process. It is an opportunity to identify students who are the top performers in their high schools and communities, wherever they might be. Testing is not the primary factor in your application. It coexists with the other factors and variables. In fact, it depends on them for its meaning and value.
The whole person counts, and that person hails from a place. The environmental factors of that place are the truth each person navigates. We respect that and we celebrate that. So should you.
Resist the urge to look at a college’s mean score or the middle 50-percent range and conclude, “My scores are awesome” or “I am doomed.” Ask your college counselor what the average score is at your school and consider your score accordingly. The higher your score lands above your local norm, the more impact that score could have on your application.
To use a math pun, you are the sum of more than a test. And a test without context loses its essential proof point.
Lee A. Coffin Vice President and Dean of Admissions & Financial Aid
IN AND OUT OF CLASS
4,447
average class size student-tofaculty ratio
UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS 7:1 20 80% 60% of students engage in research of students participate in internships
CLASS OF 2028 PROFILE As of July 2024
49 65 U.S. STATES plus D.C. and Puerto Rico COUNTRIES
1175 projected enrollment
70 languages spoken
17%
Home Countries
22%
15% ~30%
ARMITA MIRKARIMI ’25
she/her/hers
HOMETOWNS: IRVINE, CALIFORNIA AND KARAJ, IRAN MAJORS: GOVERNMENT AND CREATIVE WRITING
MINOR: MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES
“My mom read me the Persian translation of Hamlet in the womb,” remembers Armita Mirkarimi ’25. “Now, I’m in limbo between storytelling through plays and storytelling in the real world.” Born in Karaj, Iran, Armita eventually immigrated to Irvine, California, where she wrote and directed a play in high school with a local theater company. Now a senior at Dartmouth, she received funding from the theater department to produce her original play Noon Panir in the Dark, which won Dartmouth’s Dodd theater prize.
Noon Panir in the Dark tells the coming-of-age story of five Iranian girls trapped in a classroom in complete darkness. “The play has to do with what it feels like to read news report after news report of what is happening in Iran. It’s a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction. I think that’s why I like plays so much: the political is also personal.”
Armita arrived at Dartmouth with thoughts about attending law school. Mock Trial intrigued her because it provided an alternative stage for storytelling. “Mock Trial is a performance. You’re playing different witnesses and even the attorneys are taking on different personas as they’re giving their opening and closing statements. That medium was a different kind of storytelling. It’s powerful because we give it power.”
After meeting history professor Golnar Nikpour in her Modern Iran course, Armita was inspired to apply for funding from Dartmouth to research how coverage of the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in London inspired nostalgia for Iran’s past. “I really wanted to understand how different sectors of policy operate and I thought journalism was an important part of that. Whenever I would hear even the faintest Persian on the streets of London, I would stop that person and say, ‘Hey, I’d love to talk to you.’”
Armita’s research abroad also showed her the power of Dartmouth’s international alumni network. When her housing arrangement in London unexpectedly fell through, Armita reached out to Dartmouth’s Centennial Mentoring Circle, which connected her with an alumna who offered to house her for the duration of her stay. “The never-ending positive feedback loop of Dartmouth means you have access to staff and monetary resources, but those relationships are worth even more.”
Armita plans to work in media before earning her master’s degree in journalism and international affairs. “There’s so much encouragement to expand the borders of Dartmouth beyond Hanover and there’s a lot of emotional and physical support to do that. The last couple of years have taught me that you can learn so much about yourself when you don’t know where exactly you’re headed.”
Transforming the Political into the Personal
Pictured: At The Nest Kitchen & Café in downtown Hanover
Alexandra Zúñiga ’28
Lima, Peru
“I want to research the benefits of empowering women in the labor market with professors like Claudia Olivetti. As an Entrepreneurship LLC Scholar, I look forward to sparking conversations about microfinance programs that could offer loans and financial literacy training to empower women in developing countries to start or expand their own businesses.”
Aditya Binay ’28
Boone, NC
“When I first learned about Dartmouth’s amazing resources in engineering physics, I knew I had found my home. Over the next four years, I am eager to learn about the physics behind electromagnetic wave propagation from the Relativistic Electrodynamics class and apply my knowledge in the Cable Makerspace to build gravity-defying innovations.”
Dezstany Garcia ’28
Tucson, AZ
“I reminisce on the shared impact of the drum that fueled all of the Native students at the Indigenous Fly-In Program. Professor Duthu’s class, Indian Country Today, made me edge out of my seat with excitement. I know that what I am most eager to return to is the genuine care that Dartmouth has towards making my ancestors and me feel valued.”
HUMANS OF HANOVER
Esme Daplyn ’28
Riverside, CT
“Even in frigid February, Dartmouth’s warm, spirited, and familial community drew me in. After practice with the women’s varsity cross country and track team, I envision myself seeking conversation with economics professor Na’Ama Shenhav. Afterward, I would meet the Student Alliance for Ukraine to share my passion for transformative studentled action.”
Keene Yael A. Dampal ’28
Davao City, Philippines
“The things I look for in an institution are strong neuroscience undergraduate research and LGBTQ+ inclusivity. Fortunately, Dartmouth offers both. I envision myself working with Professor Kyle S. Smith on his research on obsessive-compulsive disorders. At Dartmouth, I am confident that I will find the perfect intersection of academic excellence and community service.”
Andrew Herrmann ’28
Naples, FL
“Dartmouth stands above all in its commitment to sustainability. The D-Plan and the flexibility that comes with it embraces my desire to conduct internships and travel to South Africa. Dartmouth allows me to combine my interest in chemistry with my passion for the environment in a sustainable setting.”
Conall McConnachie ’28
Annandale, NJ
“In Dartmouth, I see a liberal arts focus perfect for my broad interests and theater bent married with the chance to take part in forward-thinking research. For an engineering major to engage in deep discussion with religion professors in mutual respect is just one dream of mine.”
Amira Kalonji ’28
Washington, D.C.
“Along with my growing desire to enter the medical field, I hold a deep interest in a number of other academic disciplines, like philosophy. I believe that Dartmouth’s liberal arts approach would allow me to retain both. In Dartmouth’s African Student Association, I can celebrate my culture in an accepting environment.”
Nico D’Orazio ’28
Rockville, MD
“I imagine myself deep in conversation with Professor Westwood, developing a plan to research polarization’s effects on contemporary education. Continuing my passion for working directly with state legislatures, I envision myself joining the Policy Research Shop. I also look forward to running around the Homecoming bonfire.”
DARTMOUTH IS DEFINED BY ITS PEOPLE, SO WE’RE EXCITED TO CELEBRATE THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF OUR COMMUNITY. IN EXCERPTS FROM THEIR “WHY DARTMOUTH?” ESSAYS, STUDENTS FROM THE CLASS OF 2028 SHARE WHAT DREW THEM TO THE COLLEGE.
Genevieve Schroeder-Arce ’28
Austin, TX
“I am seeking a rigorous liberal arts education devoted to making change. I hope to learn from expert faculty in their subject areas, eager to share their passions with students. I know Dartmouth fosters such an environment, from its commitment to sustainability to its dedicated awareness of Native American and Indigenous cultures.”
Sidney Crockett ’28
Shepherdstown, WV
“At Dartmouth, I envision grabbing coffee with friends at Novack and debating who’s more sore following our first club soccer practice. I’ll have intellectual exchanges with Professors Smith and Keaton. Dartmouth will allow me to marry my academic interests and social experiences with campus resources to tackle issues of racial injustices in medicine within underrepresented communities.”
Sophia Yao ’28
Los Altos, CA
“My visit confirmed what I had long assumed: Dartmouth is limitless. As an English major, I can be anything, from staff member on The Dartmouth to club volleyball player to first-year research scholar. All the while, I’m surrounded by that infectious Dartmouth spirit. Really, who am I to resist?”
Telling Indigenous Stories Through Literary and Legal Lenses
When Neena Shell ’26 took Bruce Duthu’s Native American Law and Literature course, she knew she’d found her passion at the intersection of tribal policy and Indigenous storytelling. Today, she is one of 55 Udall scholars chosen nationwide for their commitment to environmental policy, tribal policy, or Indigenous health care and wellbeing.
Let’s talk about the Native American Law and Literature course.
Professor Duthu: The whole premise of the course is an argument that there is value in putting these two very different forms of narrative literary and legal into conversation with one another. Although I’m trained as a lawyer, not as a literary scholar, I grew up in a culture where storytelling was a principal way by which our cultural values were transmitted. I grew up surrounded by storytellers and was fascinated by how much knowledge they were transmitting. I saw legal cases as stories.
Neena: I love reading and writing, and the class was a space where I got to do that. We were reading novels and books by Indigenous authors whom I’d never gotten to read before. I did not have the academic space to do that before Dartmouth. What I learned is that Indigenous scholars aren’t just legal scholars or literary scholars or historical scholars. We have to be all of those. Having the space to really delve into those connections across law and literature was my favorite part of the course.
Tell us about your research interests and current projects.
Neena: Last winter, I received funding from the Native American and Indigenous Studies department to pursue research focused on the impact of Indigenous women in the Midwest. They influenced trade, politics, migration, movement, and kinship systems within the Midwest pre-contact all the way up until now. A lot of Native people that live in the Midwest, especially where I’m from in Ohio, are not living in our ancestral homelands. Learning more
about the stories of these Indigenous women from hundreds of years ago was inspiring for me because I want to know, even in the smallest way, how I can contribute to that legacy.
Professor Duthu: On my end, I have a book project in the making. It’s going to be a contemporary history of my tribal community told as a memoir.
Neena: Even though our research interests aren’t exactly the same, I think the foundation of our interests are very aligned. We both want to write down the stories and experiences of our home communities.
Neena, how has your Dartmouth experience shaped your future goals?
Neena: Being here at Dartmouth is not something I expected to happen for me. I want to ensure that my education is not just for me but for everyone within my community. It’s a great motivator to remember that you’re not doing this only for yourself; you’re doing this for your family, your ancestors going back seven generations, and your descendants going forward seven generations.
Professor Duthu: Working with students like Neena is a real gift because it’s simply a matter of faculty supporting a vision that the student has crafted. The size of Dartmouth lends itself to what former President Jim Wright referred to as a “community of scale.” We are big enough to have lots of opportunities for students, and yet intimate enough for students to get to know people who can help shape a dream or formulate a vision in line with their values.
he/him/his
Neena Shell ’26
she/her/hers
Hometown: Wooster, Ohio
Majors: Native American and Indigenous Studies & Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Bruce Duthu ’80
Samson A. Occom Professor and Chair, Native American and Indigenous Studies
Pictured: In front of the Native American House, a cultural center and one of Dartmouth’s Living Learning Communities
Dartmouth is need-blind and meets 100% of demonstrated financial need for all admitted students, regardless of citizenship.
NEED-BLIND
Dartmouth reviews applications without regard for your family’s ability to pay for your education, regardless of citizenship status.
$0 PARENT CONTRIBUTION
Families with total income of $125,000 or less and who possess typical assets will have a $0 expected parent contribution.
AID TRAVELS WITH YOU
Students receiving need-based financial aid pay the same net price for a term on a Dartmouth off-campus study program as they would for a term in Hanover.
100% DEMONSTRATED NEED MET
Dartmouth will meet 100% of your demonstrated need for all four years.
NO REQUIRED LOANS
Dartmouth will not include required loans as part of the financial aid award created to meet a student’s demonstrated financial need.
HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE
Dartmouth will provide financial aid recipients with scholarship assistance towards the cost of Dartmouth’s health care plan.
$
72,720
AVERAGE SCHOLARSHIP for the Class of 2028
The average scholarship for the Class of 2028 equals 80% of the cost of attendance.
HOW MUCH AID COULD I RECEIVE?
$0–125K*
$0 expected parent contribution No loans 100% demonstrated need met
As of July 2024
The Dartmouth Class of 2024 gathered in front of Dartmouth Hall before graduation in June.
Pictured: At X-Delta, a public sculpture outside Baker-Berry Library
A Cognitive Science Major Finds His Flair for French
BATUHAN SARIDEDE ’26
he/him/his
HOMETOWN: ISTANBUL, TURKEY
MAJOR: COGNITIVE SCIENCE; MINOR: FRENCH
“I enjoy transforming spaces I occupy to be not only more inclusive but also to be safer for all,” says Batuhan Saridede ’26, who was instrumental in expanding LGBTQIA+ programming at his boarding school in Turkey. “At first, I didn’t feel secure being fully myself, but in allowing people to have space for curiosity, I expanded the conversation not just for me, but for future students.”
The transition from Istanbul to Dartmouth initially surprised Batu. “I quickly realized that people here come from many different places, and we’re all growing through that. I think there’s something beautiful about how Dartmouth students are all keen on learning from one another, especially when it comes to identity and sense of place.”
Batu thought he’d major in psychology until he discovered the field of cognitive science. “In my cognitive science classes, we analyze cognition through the lens of fields like linguistics, philosophy, economics, and even human-centered design. The field hits a sweet spot between leveraging your observations of the world and being scientifically plausible.”
That curiosity for cognitive science led Batu to Dartmouth’s PhilLab, which seeks to answer questions about how minds understand non-actual possibilities sometimes called ‘possible worlds.’ There, he’s part of a research group studying how children and adults differ when generating options in given scenarios. Separately, he also received funding from Dartmouth for a self-initiated research project in Istanbul. “There, I examined how different populations approach voting. It was so empowering to receive funding to do something I’m passionate about.”
Dartmouth’s liberal arts curriculum has allowed Batu the freedom to explore yet another interest foreign language learning. He chose to study French through Dartmouth’s Rassias Method, a signature program that helps students learn new languages rapidly. He enjoyed his coursework so much that he spent a term on an off-campus study program in Toulouse, France. Batu was initially worried about affording the program, but was relieved to learn that his financial aid offset his extra costs. “I received spending money in addition to the compensation I earned through my on-campus jobs.”
What Batu is most grateful for, though, are the connections he‘s found with many different kinds of people at Dartmouth. “Saying hello to a professor from first-year fall, a friend of mine, and the Dean of the College all within five minutes is an incredible thing. I think the way Dartmouth is both physically and systematically designed allows for that type of community.”
UP CLOSE AND POLITICAL
IN MATTERS OF GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC POLICY, DARTMOUTH STUDENTS EMBRACE SHARED HUMANITY
One of the most vigorous engines in the country for the study of politics, policy, and leadership, Dartmouth is front and center in the quest for the U.S. presidency. That role has been reinforced by New Hampshire’s historic position as the state with the first primary in the country, which draws to campus candidates across the political spectrum. Dartmouth was also the location of one of the most talked-about primary meet-ups of all time the 2007 Democratic debate featuring all major candidates, including the eventual victor Barack Obama.
But the real source of Dartmouth’s preeminence in the political arena is its deep bench of resources expert faculty (including New Hampshire state congressman Russell Muirhead), alumni working in the upper echelons of politics, and an extensive array of experiential courses and programs.
One of the priorities driving Dartmouth’s approach to political debate is developing a climate where all perspectives are welcome. Students are taught to conduct civil discourse not just to avoid rancor but to increase knowledge and advance progress. The recently launched program Dartmouth Dialogues is designed to further promote a culture in which community members learn to engage in respectful discussion on all sides of issues and embrace the humanity of those with whom they disagree.
Agreeable Disagreements
“As citizens, we must be able to imagine the perspectives of those with opposite points of view. Students need to develop a capacious understanding of all sides of an issue. That’s what it means to be educated,” says Russell Muirhead, a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives and the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth. In the classroom, Muirhead shares with students his experiences from the floor of the New Hampshire legislature and asks them to give persuasive arguments for and against their firmly-held beliefs. “How do we oppose each other without hating one another? We need to work to understand the other side especially when it seems beyond comprehension.”
Muirhead, along with Doug Irwin and Meir Kohn, two professors from the economics department, launched the Dartmouth Political Economy Project (PEP) in an effort to reach a much deeper understanding of contemporary politics and policy. The PEP combines interdisciplinary perspectives on the pivotal relationships among economics, politics, and ethics. It asks students to address some of the knottiest dilemmas facing human societies.
“It all started when the three of us were talking about the 2008 financial crisis that nearly brought down the global economy. We got to thinking just how much our disciplines government, politics, and economics really engage the major questions of our political economy. The PEP was a natural outgrowth. Our goal is to cultivate debates that don’t presuppose answers. Sometimes students change their minds. Sometimes they don’t, and that’s okay, too. We want to give students the resources to be more intelligent and articulate about their deeply held beliefs, whether they’re Marxists or free-market conservatives.”
The PEP brings in speakers of many political stripes, hosts debates, and sponsors courses that sometimes culminate in trips to other regions of the world South America, for example, or Eastern Europe that inform and challenge students’ assumptions. “We are always looking for new things to try, in and out of the classroom. In our extracurricular student/faculty reading groups, for example, the PEP buys the books and the sandwiches, and we all just dig into the ideas. Finding new ways to explore is what makes being at Dartmouth so much fun.”
Rocky Rocks Politics & Policy
Perhaps the jewel in the crown of Dartmouth’s political universe is the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and Social Sciences, an international catalyst for public policy research, teaching, and deliberation. Dedicated to providing nonpartisan, interdisciplinary perspectives on policy-related topics, the Rockefeller Center, commonly known as “Rocky,” focuses on the ideals of public service and informed debate. That dedication translates into student opportunities like the iconic Policy Research Shop (PRS), a student-staffed, faculty-mentored research enterprise in which students conduct policy research for government entities, often with the chance to testify on their findings.
Recent graduate Aidan Ferrin ’24 from Bozeman, Montana considers his PRS experience a defining moment in his career arc and is now pursuing an accelerated master’s in public health at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine as a merit scholar. “My Policy Research Shop experience was pivotal and impactful. The project was sponsored by the Vermont State House of Representatives, and my group’s assignment was to become familiar with Vermont S.25, a bill meant to control and regulate 14 chemical families of concern in menstrual products, cosmetics, and textiles. In the course of analyzing its potential environmental, health, and market impacts, the three of us grew in our understanding of the legislative process and the impact policy analysis can have on the process even if it is conducted by students like us.”
Dartmouth’s view is that it’s never too early in a student’s college career to provide eye-opening, in-depth experiences in civil discourse. In Rocky’s FirstYear Fellows program, students engage in public policy at the very outset of their time at Dartmouth. Every year, two dozen students are selected for summer placement in a diverse range of policy internships in Washington. Fiona Hood ’26, who grew up overseas but considers New Hampshire her home state, remembers the power of interacting with Dartmouth alumni mentors and developing professional experience during her First-Year Fellow internship with Congresswoman Annie Kuster ’78 (D-NH).
“STUDENTS NEED TO DEVELOP A CAPACIOUS UNDERSTANDING OF ALL SIDES OF AN ISSUE. THAT’S WHAT IT MEANS TO BE EDUCATED.”
RUSSELL
MUIRHEAD, ROBERT CLEMENTS
PROFESSOR OF DEMOCRACY AND POLITICS AND MEMBER OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
“Making new friends, discovering a city more deeply, and getting high-level work experience the First-Year Fellows program was everything I could hope for,” Fiona says. “My time in D.C. allowed me not only to reflect but also to start growing into the person I strive to be. The skills I learned in and out of Congresswoman Kuster’s office were invaluable. I continue to apply those skills to almost everything I do, from involvement in politics to conducting research on the expansion of nuclear energy. I will preserve the connections I created with Dartmouth alumni for years to come, and I hope one day to pay it forward to other Dartmouth students. First-Year Fellows confirmed to me that public policy will be a concrete aspect of my future career.”
Similarly, the Judicial Fellowship Program offers internships around the country in which alumni in top judicial positions mentor Dartmouth undergraduates, giving them authentic insights into the complex U.S. judicial system. This year, the Center brought two judges forced to flee Afghanistan to campus as visiting scholars, giving students an inside perspective on the legal landscape of a different culture.
Scrutinizing Systems and Challenging Assumptions
Rocky also offers a public policy minor, an exchange program with Keble College at Oxford University, and a robust selection of co-curricular experiences around leadership. The Rockefeller Global Leadership Program helps students increase their understanding of people and cultures different from their own and learn to create a climate of respect in social, corporate, public, and nonprofit arenas.
“Rocky is at the center of discourse at Dartmouth,” notes director Jason Barabas. “We see ourselves as a bridging organization, bringing students together from across campus where they interact with individuals outside their majors or extracurricular interests. Through Rocky programs curricular and extracurricular they exchange views with people very different from themselves and learn to be effective communicators across political and cultural differences. Our public policy minor is extremely popular, and students combine it very productively with a wide array of majors.”
Other members of the Dartmouth faculty have taken the same dynamic approach to excavating the truths around society’s thorniest subjects. Last fall, Rockefeller public policy lecturer and U.S. Supreme Court expert Julie Kalish ’91 debuted a timely new course called The Supreme Court, Public Policy, and the Ethics of Legal Argument and Decision-Making, which included a trip to Washington, D.C. to hear oral arguments at the Court. While in the capital, students also sat down with government leaders and shared networking meals with alumni working in law, policy, and government.
DARTMOUTH ALUMNI TAKE THE LEAD
For generations, Dartmouth students have graduated with a strong sense of public service and a powerful interest in politics. They see the public policy arena as a crucial vehicle for advancing the state of humanity. More than 200 Dartmouth alumni have served in Congress, in the presidential Cabinet, on the U.S. Supreme Court, or as leaders in the governments of other countries. Many more have played pivotal roles as political analysts, consultants, and journalists.
Notable Dartmouth alumni and faculty in the past and present political realm include:
ERNESTO DE LA GUARDIA
Class of 1925, former president of Panama
THEODOR GEISEL (Dr. Seuss)
Class of 1925, political cartoonist
TIMOTHY GEITHNER ’83
Former Secretary of the Treasury
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND ’88
Current U.S. Senator, New York
JOHN HOEVEN ’79
Current U.S. Senator, North Dakota
NEAL KATYAL ’91
Appellate lawyer,
former Acting Solicitor General, political commentator
C. EVERETT KOOP ’37
Former Surgeon General
Other members of the Dartmouth faculty are organizing courses directly relevant to the immediate political climate in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election. Government professor Herschel S. Nachlis, associate director and senior policy fellow at Rocky, is developing a course with Emma Wolfe, Dartmouth’s inaugural vice president for government and community relations. Students will investigate critical perspectives and dialogues that could have an impact on the outcome of the election.
Anna Mahoney, executive director of the Rockefeller Center, is inviting students to draft their own case study on sexual harassment, health care access, and related topics in her popular course Gender and Policy Leadership. Rocky director Jason Barabas is teaching Polling, Public Opinion, and Public Policy in which he focuses on the controversial topic of polling its accuracy, power, and significance. Given the proximity of resources in New Hampshire, Barabas and his students will take an in-depth look at local contests.
Candid Conversations with Key Players
While partisan campus groups, including The Dartmouth Democrats and The Dartmouth Republicans are, of course, gearing up for the impending presidential contest, so is the decidedly nonpartisan Dartmouth Political Union (DPU). The preeminent student-led political organization at the College, the DPU’s goal is to promote open discourse by holding debates among students and subject experts, organizing campuswide discussions on pressing political issues, and hosting lectures from across the political spectrum. Gun
ROBERT REICH ’68
Former Secretary of Labor
SHONDA RHIMES ’91
Writer, producer, activist
NELSON ROCKEFELLER ’30
Former Vice President of the U.S., former governor, New York
LIS SMITH ’05
Political consultant
(Barack Obama, Pete Buttigieg)
JAKE TAPPER ’91
Chief Washington Correspondent, CNN
DANIEL WEBSTER
Class of 1801, U.S. Senator & Representative
control activist David Hogg, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, and political activist Noam Chomsky were among the speakers on the dense roster of events.
One of the DPU’s priorities in an election year is its Path to the Presidency program, organized in collaboration with Rocky. The Path to the Presidency brings candidates to campus to discuss their visions for the country and what they see as their routes to success in the election. Over dinner, they answer questions and talk candidly with students about the political process. Recent speakers have included former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, and Democratic candidate for president Marianne Williamson.
At the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth students get a more global lens on politics. The center provides students with a wide range of transformational international experiences, pathways to careers in international affairs, and an in-depth and nuanced understanding of the world’s most challenging problems.
In the Great Issues Scholars program at the Dickey Center, for example, first-year students connect with faculty, visiting experts, relevant alumni, and other students in a year-long series of interactive events aimed at enhancing their understanding of complex global issues. Also a year-long experience, Dickey’s War and Peace Fellows program brings students together from different disciplines to engage in discussions around the social, political, moral, and technological dimensions of international conflicts and cooperation.
“THAT IS THE ESSENCE OF A LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION— GETTING EXPOSED TO AND LISTENING, TRULY LISTENING, TO A VARIETY OF IDEAS.”
KAVYA NIVARTHY
’25
The Institute of Arctic Studies (IAS) at the Dickey Center is Dartmouth’s crossroads for multidisciplinary Arctic scholarship and global policy dialogues that center inclusion, justice, equity, and Indigenous Knowledge in solving Arctic and global challenges. The idea behind the IAS and all Dickey programs: position Dartmouth students to be effective changemakers in a world where their skills and knowledge are in urgent demand.
An economics major from Florham Park, New Jersey, Kavya Nivarthy ’25 is Vice President of Advancement for the DPU. She arrived at Dartmouth eager to challenge her views and engage in critical dialogue. “I was happy to see that Dartmouth had a political union that shared those values. When I joined, I found that it really did deliver on that mission.”
A captain of Dartmouth’s highly competitive Mock Trial team, Kavya sees law school in her future. “I think from a leadership perspective, the DPU has helped me develop and interact with people and to be persuasive in my arguments. It also has given me the chance to challenge my preconceived notions during informal debates and build my skills for a legal career.” In such a polarized political climate, Kavya believes that Dartmouth is a safe and rewarding place to air opposing views. “That is the essence of a liberal arts education getting exposed to and listening, truly listening, to a variety of ideas. We are exposed to all sides of the discourse here, and that’s incredibly important in times like these.”
HERBERT CHANG ’18
he/him/his
ASSISTANT
PROFESSOR OF QUANTITATIVE SOCIAL SCIENCE
Herbert Chang first visited Dartmouth’s campus when he was a prospective undergraduate student from Taiwan. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this seems like a place where community really matters,’” he says.
The newly-minted Dartmouth faculty member was recently named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science list for 2024. His primary research interests lie in using computational and social scientific approaches to explain complex human behaviors. “My time at Dartmouth was spent exploring the liberal arts. It was exciting to work with both the left and right sides of my brain.”
Professor Chang graduated from Dartmouth in 2018 with degrees in mathematics, creative writing, and quantitative social science, an interdisciplinary program that combines methodological training with social science. His interests spanned far beyond his chosen concentrations, though. As a Dartmouth student, Professor Chang collaborated with former music professor Spencer Topel to create Cicada, an award-winning electroacoustic instrument. He also wrote a novel about artificial intelligence and human creativity for his senior thesis in creative writing.
After graduating from Dartmouth, Professor Chang brought his interests overseas to Scotland, where he received a master’s degree in artificial intelligence. A year later, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a PhD in communication. Soon after the pandemic hit, he returned to Taiwan to conduct research on the Taiwanese presidential election and the U.S. presidential elections.
While much in the technological world has changed, Professor Chang’s research interests have not. “I study how algorithms and online bots spread information on social media,” he says. “This includes misinformation about topics like COVID-19 or elections, but it can include good information as well. Bots aren’t necessarily bad; there can also be good bots. My research focuses on investigating the ethical and responsible uses of these technologies. How are they impacting society at large, especially during political events?”
Professor Chang attributes his teaching style to the hands-on education he received at Dartmouth. In his Modern Statistical Computing course, his students practice live coding through in-class workshops. “Writing the code out line by line, instead of copying and pasting, helps students think through the code with me.” And, he adds, “It’s really nice to be working alongside former mentors who are now colleagues.”
Professor Chang even applies his quantitative brain to one of his favorite hobbies cooking. “Let’s say I’m making five or six dishes for a party. I think about the optimal way of organizing them so that they’re all finished at the same time. I guess that would be the computer scientist in me,” he laughs.
Joanna Jou ’26
An Alumnus Studies How Technology Shapes Human Behavior
Pictured: Inside Dartmouth Hall
Pictured: On the banks of the Connecticut River
“Why Dartmouth?”
SELIN HOS ’25
she/her/hers
Hometown: Cape Coral, Florida
Major: English modified with Economics
In each issue of 3D, we ask a Dartmouth senior to reflect on a question they answered roughly four years prior: “As you seek admission to Dartmouth’s incoming class, what aspects of the College’s academic program, community, and/or campus environment attract your interest? In short, why Dartmouth?” Here, Selin Hos ’25 revisits that prompt in her final year at the College.
“I must have brought the sun with me,” I remember thinking as I stepped out of the car during my first visit to Dartmouth’s campus. It was the middle of February, and there were still delicate piles of snow lining the bare branches of the trees. Even the birds were delighted by the sun’s arrival, chirping away on the telephone wires above to spread the good news. I have now learned that I was lucky enough to visit Dartmouth on a perfect winter day one characterized by a cloudless blue sky and the warm kisses of the sun’s rays.
In my “Why Dartmouth?” essay, I mentioned the beauty of this campus visit, remarking on the “students sitting in plush armchairs, sipping coffee, laughing, and speaking to one another.” Inspired by the sense of community, I tried to imagine being one of the students that I saw on my visit. What would my time at Dartmouth truly look like?
I grew up in Southwest Florida under the perpetual sunshine, so I was incredibly nervous for the infamous Hanover winters. Although it feels quite silly to me now, Dartmouth’s weather became a huge point of reflection for me during my college search journey. And while I came into Dartmouth expecting the cold, I was quite unprepared for the little pockets of warmth that I found nestled in between.
There was the warm chatter and commotion of my very first day on campus. That night, I was met with the loud and enthusiastic welcome from the older students who were leading my First-Year Trip a storied Dartmouth tradition where incoming students bond on peer-led adventures, many of them in New Hampshire and Vermont’s great outdoors. Everyone’s eyes sparkled with a love for Dartmouth, and eventually through the many hours of singing and dancing during Trips, I too was starting to believe in its magic.
I felt the warmth in the bubbling of the maple syrup boiling in the Sugar Shack during spring break my first year. I had signed up for Sugar Crew, a free program hosted by Dartmouth’s Sustainability Office that teaches students the tradition of maple sugaring in the Upper Valley, skipping going home to Florida’s white beaches in favor of tapping maple trees at the Organic Farm. The heat of the boiling sap was enough to thaw our bones after a busy day of collecting buckets of sap from across the forest. We would spend hours together watching over the sap while it boiled, our laughter ringing through the small, wooden cabin with the sweet smell of the syrup wafting through the air.
I remember the pure joy of my first spring on campus, when the sun came out after the winter. Seeing everyone on the Green laughing, chatting, and eating lunch together outside was enough to inspire me to write a love letter to the sun, which I later published in The Dartmouth. The energy of that first sunny day carried through the rest of spring, dancing to Saint Motel at the Green Key concert and dipping in the Connecticut River, making sure to take the time to enjoy the sun with my friends.
I feel so lucky to be able to say that I have been able to do everything that I thought I would during my time here and more. I became a Law and Ethics Fellow, took skiing lessons at the Dartmouth Skiway, took sailing lessons during my sophomore summer, made lifelong friendships, read countless novels in Sanborn Library, and wrote endless papers under the historic murals in the Orozco Mural Room. At age 17, I could only imagine what my time at Dartmouth would look like. Today, I am here to tell you that your Dartmouth experience is what you make of it, but it will also surprise you in more ways than one. I am so lucky that, despite all of the cold, I have been able to fill my time here with such moments of warmth
MAC MAHONEY ’26
he/him/his
HOMETOWN: LUDLOW, MASSACHUSETTS
MAJOR: GOVERNMENT MODIFIED WITH PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMICS
Mac Mahoney ’26 has always been at the center of vibrant political dialogue. “I grew up in a very politically diverse household. It’s rare that my family finds a consensus on anything. It taught me to appreciate respectful and productive conversations.”
Dartmouth’s location initially drew Mac to the College, which he sees as a key hub for political engagement. New Hampshire has traditionally held the first-in-the-nation primary election, meaning that presidential candidates often visit Dartmouth’s campus on the campaign trail. “Because students are generally here for four years, everyone is guaranteed to experience at least one presidential cycle during their time in Hanover,” he points out.
Mac credits the course Markets and Their Critics with his decision to modify his government major with philosophy and economics. “The course exposed me to a brand new world of political economies. I learned about the morality of economic systems such as capitalism, communism, and socialism.” The course instructor, Henry Clark, is also the director of Dartmouth’s Political Economy Project (PEP), an interdisciplinary program that explores the relationship between politics, economies, and ethics. At Clark’s encouragement, Mac applied for and won a research grant from the PEP to study the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor market.
Thanks to Dartmouth’s flexible academic calendar, Mac spent his sophomore spring on an off-campus study program in Washington, D.C., where he took classes with a Dartmouth professor, interned at a strategic communications firm, and met chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper ’91 at the CNN headquarters. He’s also served as an intern for the Dartmouth Dialogue Project, a campuswide initiative that provides training to students, faculty, and staff in the development of essential collaborative dialogue skills.
Mac is now president of the Dartmouth Political Union, a nonpartisan student organization that fosters discourse on political topics. Founded in 2018, the DPU has hosted an array of speakers ranging from former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney to Black Panther Bobby Seale. “We want students to come to our events regardless of their political views,” Mac emphasizes. “It’s important to engage in conversations with people who think differently than you. My hope is to create a campus culture where people aren’t afraid to express their opinions.”
Clara Goulding ’25
Promoting Dialogue Across the Political Spectrum
Pictured: In the lobby of Baker-Berry Library
BY SYDNEY
Who would have thought I would spend my senior fall pitching tents under the desert stars and marveling at magnificent wildlife? These adventures and many more were made possible thanks to Dartmouth’s Environmental Studies Foreign Study Program (FSP) in South Africa and Namibia, where I spent 10 weeks with 15 of my peers and three Dartmouth professors studying conservation and human development.
As an economics and environmental studies double major with a minor in international studies, I was eager to explore a new part of the world and delve deep into the study of natural resource management and local environmental issues. Last September, my classmates and I arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa, where we spent our first week touring landmarks like the Apartheid Museum, Mandela House, and Cullinan Mine.
We traveled on to Namibia, one of the world’s driest and most sparsely populated countries. There, we watched cheetahs race for food at the Cheetah Conservation Fund, marveled at the magnificent wildlife at Etosha National Park, combed through camera trap data at Ongava Research
Center, and helped build a community garden at the Uibasen-Twyfelfontein Conservancy. I will never forget the thrill of riding in open-air vehicles at sunset as we peered through our binoculars at zebras, elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and oryx (Namibia’s national animal).
We debated seal culling and marine phosphate mining with students at the University of Namibia, spoke with an expert on green hydrogen, and asked senior officials in Namibia’s Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources about sustainable management of native stocks. We visited Cape Cross, one of the world’s largest Cape fur seal colonies, and tried fresh oysters straight from the saltwater at a local aquaculture farm.
My cohort stayed as guests at the Gobabeb Namib Research Institute, nestled in the heart of the hyperarid Namib Desert, and slept in tents along the ephemeral Kuiseb Riverbed. Over 11 intense field days, we collected data to assess the impact of vegetation type and distribution on invertebrate biodiversity. We set up nearly 100 pitfall traps and meticulously recorded thousands of data entries.
The program wasn’t all work and no play, though. My cohort celebrated Halloween with a costume contest, played volleyball near our tents, hiked the surrounding sand dunes, and stayed up late at night stargazing until we fell asleep.
In my classes at Dartmouth, I often studied environmental history and laws, but this offcampus program gave me a newfound appreciation for the on-the-ground data collection that informs evidence-based policies. We spoke to local stakeholders about the politics of global conservation nonprofits, trophy hunting, and humanwildlife conflict. Our learning never stopped.
Stripped from a steady WiFi connection, I was pushed out of my comfort zone as I wrote papers in my tent and learned to decompress without technology. Through the initial discomfort, though, I grew more through this program than in any course. This experience not only deepened my passion for environmental studies but also equipped me with practical research skills and unforgettable memories that will stay with me for a lifetime.
Students race down the sand dunes of the Namib, a coastal desert, to celebrate the culmination of weeks spent conducting ecology field research at the Gobabeb Namib Research Institute.
WUU ’24, pictured at far right
basecamp world to the
IN AND OUT OF THE CLASSROOM, YOUR DARTMOUTH EXPERIENCE CAN CROSS INTELLECTUAL AND INTERNATIONAL BOUNDARIES.
Let’s Talk About Testing
YOUR SCORES
MIGHT BE STRONGER THAN YOU THINK
Dartmouth has reinstated its standardized testing requirement beginning with applicants to the Class of 2029. But what constitutes a strong SAT or ACT score? What do admissions officers mean when they say they consider scores in context? If a college is test-optional, should you submit your scores, or if it requires testing, are your scores strong enough to apply? The answers may surprise you.
These questions, among others, were the focus of a recent episode of Admissions Beat, a podcast hosted by Dartmouth’s Vice President and Dean of Admissions
Lee Coffin Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid
Lee Coffin has served as Dartmouth’s Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid since 2016. As host of the Admissions Beat podcast, he draws on more than 30 years of experience as an admissions leader at some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions.
Michele Tine Associate Professor of Sociology; Chair of the Education Steering Committee
“I conduct lab- and school-based research that focuses on (1) identifying cognitive processes that underlie the income achievement gap and (2) creating efficacious research-based interventions for low-income students. Much of my current work focuses on how these topics differ in rural versus urban poverty.”
and Financial Aid Lee Coffin that provides “news you can use” for students, parents, and guidance counselors at each step on the pathway to college.
Joining him for the conversation are Dartmouth professors Bruce Sacerdote and Michele Tine, whose research helped inform Dartmouth’s recent decision to reinstate its admissions testing requirement, and Jacques Steinberg, co-author of The College Conversation , an admissions guide for parents. Distilled here are some of the key takeaways from that conversation.
Bruce I. Sacerdote ’90
Richard S. Braddock 1963 Professor in Economics
“I enjoy working with detailed data to enhance our understanding of why children and youth turn out the way they do. I am also involved in a series of studies to examine how students make choices about college-going and how policymakers might influence that decision-making process.”
Jacques Steinberg ’88 New York Times Best-Selling Author
Jacques Steinberg is a longtime, award-winning Times journalist whose knowledge of and passion for college access, equity, affordability, readiness, and success has more recently led to roles as a senior leader, communications strategist, adviser, and board member for several national nonprofit organizations.
Jacques Steinberg: Lee, as you think about using testing going forward or how you used it pre-pandemic, can you talk about how it is one factor among many?
Lee Coffin: The idea that a college is holistic in the way we meet each applicant means the application has many components. Some of them are quantitative transcript, grades, the GPA from those grades, the rigor of the curriculum, and then testing. In addition to that, we have essays and recommendations and interviews and extracurriculars, and more broadly, the story a person tells about herself as an applicant that helps us not just assess the candidacy on its academic merit, but imagine the community we’re building on the campus where I work. “Holistic” is all of those things wrapped up together. No one element is more important than the other. The winning combination is that academic preparation and achievement twinned with the story you tell.
JS: Dartmouth announced on February 5th that it was reinstating the SAT. Can you talk about that decision, how it got made, and why?
LC: President Beilock, as a cognitive psychologist, said, “Let’s frame our decision to reactivate or remain optional based on some evidence.” Michele and Bruce were two of four faculty members who completed a study to look at the role testing plays in our admission process but also as a predictor of performance once students enroll at the College.
Michele Tine: [Our first finding] was, to be totally honest, fairly expected, which is that SAT scores are highly predictive of academic achievement at Dartmouth. When we looked at things that can
predict your first year GPA at Dartmouth, SAT all by itself was the best predictor. That wasn’t a huge surprise.
The second thing we found was that the SAT was a similarly strong predictor of academic success at Dartmouth for all different demographic subgroups. There was no evidence that SAT scores systematically underestimated the college performance of a disadvantaged group in some way.
“Students don’t fully understand how a given score can be enormously strong given the background that student comes from.”
Bruce Sacerdote: The thing that’s most important about SAT-optional policies is that we found they can be quite harmful to less-advantaged students who don’t always know when they should submit. In particular, less-advantaged students don’t fully understand the way in which their scores can be used in context and how a given score can be enormously strong given the background that student comes from. They could have a score at the median or even the 25th percentile for Dartmouth that might be at the 99th percentile of their high school and their neighborhood, and that is a very strong signal of how well that student is going to do.
To put it bluntly, we discovered that we’re missing out on hundreds and hundreds of really talented kids from less-advantaged places that
Dartmouth’s Standardized Testing Guidelines
weren’t submitting their scores. We found that test-optional policies can be a real hindrance to people identifying themselves to Dartmouth as really talented.
“If I can do anything as we have this conversation about testing, it is to debunk the idea that any given score is ‘high’ or ‘low.’”
JS: Lee, as this research was shared with you, what was your takeaway, particularly as it pertains to applicants wondering how to size up their scores?
LC: If I can do anything as we have this conversation about testing, it is to debunk the idea that any given score is “high” or “low.” All testing is contextualized. The score is reviewed from the place where it was generated. What are the norms where you live, where you go to school? How did you do in relation to those norms?
There’s this misperception that scores are “low” or “high” based on their number between 800 and 1600, when in fact, the 1200, the 1400, the 1190 is considered within the school that the student attends. So a 1200 on the SAT at a school where the mean is an 850 is, in this example, a remarkably high score from that place, and we read it accordingly. There are other schools where there is a lot of preparation, there’s more cultural alertness to testing as an element of admissions, and the means are high. And so a 1400 in that high school might be less noteworthy because
For students attending high school in the United States
Students who attend(ed) high school within the United States must submit results of either the SAT or ACT. Dartmouth has no institutional preference for either test.
Scores from multiple administrations of the SAT or the ACT will automatically be superscored, meaning we will consider the highest result on individual sections of either exam regardless of the test date or testing format.
For students attending high school outside of the United States Students who attend(ed) high school outside of the United States may fulfill Dartmouth’s standardized testing requirement in one of five ways:
1 Results of either the SAT or ACT
2 Results of three Advanced Placement (AP) examinations
3 Predicted or final exam results from the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP)
4 Predicted or final exam results from British A-Levels
5 Final results from an equivalent standardized national exam
The distinction between students attending a school in the U.S. or outside the U.S. acknowledges the disparate access to American standardized testing as well as the lack of familiarity with such testing in different parts of the world. Dartmouth’s English language proficiency policy remains unchanged. Reference our full testing policy at dartgo.org/testingpolicy.
everybody’s at or above that data point. We’re not discounting it, but it in and of itself doesn’t tell us the same thing.
JS: What I’m hearing you all saying is that your score relative to the rest of your high school may be more important than that median score of the college that’s reporting. Is that fair or not?
LC: If you just took a PSAT or you’re about to take the SAT, go with that score report to your guidance counselor or a teacher, and say, “Okay, what’s the norm in this school?” The school profile that they share with us usually gives us that range. If your scores are above that, you’re in a really good spot. And if you’re above the 75th percentile, you’re in an even stronger spot. As readers, we’re able to say, “This 1350 from that high school is 410 points higher than the mean. That’s a really powerful stat inside our evaluation process.” And that will empower you to know that, “Oh, my scores really are strong coming from the school where I am a student.” It absolutely helps disadvantaged students, but there are middle-income kids who go to public
high schools where they’re making the same miscalculation not because they mean to, but it’s just not clear.
JS: The SAT has long been regarded in counseling circles as a test that is biased, that favors some over others, including those who can afford prep or can be correlated in part to the academic achievements of one’s parents or the level of language spoken in one’s home.
MT: I’m really glad you brought that up, because the SAT score is not a biased statistical predictor of academic achievement in college. That is true. But there are income-related and racial differences in average SAT scores that are profound and large in the United States of America and on almost every college campus. On average, higher-income students score higher than low-income students; white and Asian students score higher than Black and Latino students. And this is the very main point that critics of the SAT make, and they are accurate. Those gaps exist. What’s a little less accurate is linking these very real concerning gaps to the conclusion
that the SAT therefore must itself be a biased measure. Evidence suggests that those gaps are more of a reflection of very deep systemic inequity in our K through 12 educational system and society at large as opposed to the SAT being a biased test. That’s why Dartmouth reads test scores in context.
“Evidence suggests that those gaps are a reflection of very deep systemic inequity in our K–12 educational system as opposed to the SAT being a biased test.”
LC: What Michele said is exactly what we do. I have been struck over and over throughout my career that the public high schools that are probably playing each other in high school sports have very different opportunities in the high schools themselves. And we go into each one and we say, What’s happening here and how do we look school by school for opportunity or the challenges that exist there?“ And we read accordingly.
JS: So Bruce, if you were sitting with a family at their kitchen table, what practical advice for them would you draw from the research?
BS: The overarching theme is that you’re stronger than you think you are. Do not count yourself out. And then, secondarily to that, take to heart Lee’s point about, if it’s a test-optional school, think about where that falls in the context of your application, your other accomplishments, the other things that really show who you are as a person. “
“The overarching theme is that you’re stronger than you think you are.”
MT: Students need to keep in mind for those test-optional schools that when they’re reporting their median scores on the website, it’s just the median scores of those submitted. So there’s going to be this inflation that happens year after year after year.
LC: We have a peer recommendation. Most places don’t. We have an interview that’s still evaluative. A lot of places have moved away from that. What are the other pieces of this admissions puzzle that the college is also inviting you to share? Those count. Those are elements, qualitative elements, but nevertheless important ones that help you tell your story.
Listen to the full episode at the QR code or wherever you get your podcasts.
Dartmouth Researchers Work to Improve Outcomes for People With Type 1 Diabetes
Dr. Catherine Stanger, who tests innovative, science-based interventions to improve health behavior, recently brought Corinne Fischer ’26 onto her research team as a health coach for young adults with type 1 diabetes. Funded by Dartmouth’s James O. Freedman Presidential Scholars Program, Corinne is now pursuing research at the intersection of psychology, health, and behavioral economics under the mentorship of Dr. Stanger and PhD student Enzo Plaitano.
Corinne, how did you discover Dr. Stanger’s research?
Corinne: I was scrolling Instagram when I saw a post that read, “Are you a young woman with type 1 diabetes? Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine is doing a research study.” I tried to enroll myself, but I couldn’t because my blood sugar is where it needs to be, which is a good thing. But then I thought to myself, “This is so incredible. They’re doing this research in my backyard.” I reached out to Dr. Stanger and said, “I’m a type 1 diabetic, and the research that you’re doing is so cool. I don’t have any research experience, but is there any way that I can get involved?” Her team immediately brought me on board.
Tell us about what you’re studying.
Dr. Stanger: The scientific question Corinne and I are interested in is whether people with type 1 diabetes who receive one-on-one coaching will show better improvements in their blood sugar levels compared to those who do not.
Corinne: Right. In my research, I act as a one-on-one health coach, leading other young adults who have type 1 diabetes through structured problem-solving manuals to help them improve their blood sugar control. Together, we are identifying predictors of intervention engagement by examining baseline demographics to see if they influence the number of coaching sessions participants attend.
This project has deep personal meaning to you, Corinne.
Corinne: Yes. Type 1 diabetes is a 24/7 condition; it doesn’t care about the time of day. It’s a constant presence in my life, and that’s why I chose to get involved in this work.
Dr. Stanger: Our health coaches come from all across the country. Corinne’s identity as a person with diabetes really helps her build empathy and connection with participants.
What advice would you give prospective students interested in pursuing research?
Corinne: Find something you’re passionate about. To me, research never feels like work. It feels like something I get to do, rather than something I have to do. It’s been amazing to connect with other people with diabetes across the United States. Watching their progress over the weeks we spend together is incredibly fulfilling.
Dr. Stanger: Start early. Don’t wait until the spring of your senior year of college to dip your toes into research. Working on a research project can be transformational to someone’s career path in life. You learn about science in a way that’s very different from anything you can learn in a class.
Corinne Fischer ’26
she/her/hers
Hometown: Seattle, Washington
Major: Economics
Minor: Theater
Dr. Catherine Stanger
she/her/hers
Professor, Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Pictured: At PINE Restaurant in Hanover
Goal-Oriented
Whether you are interested in playing a sport at the varsity or club level or cheering on those teams there are plenty of opportunities to do so at Dartmouth. The College offers 35 varsity sports as well as a variety of club and intramural teams, and three of every four Dartmouth undergraduates participate in some form of athletics. They benefit from Dartmouth Peak Performance, a comprehensive program designed to position student athletes to achieve the highest levels of physical, intellectual, and personal growth.
BY
PHOTOGRAPH
DON HAMERMAN
Recent Big Green Athletics Highlights
Six Athletes with Dartmouth Ties Compete at the 2024 Summer Olympics
The Big Green athletes vied for medals in men’s and women’s rowing, rugby sevens, and women’s basketball at the Games in Paris, France.
Tennis Icon Roger Federer Speaks at 2024 Commencement
The eight-time Wimbledon champion and philanthropist spoke to graduates about applying his time-tested sports philosophy to life’s most daunting challenges. At the ceremony, President Sian Leah Beilock presented Federer with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.
Ben Rice ’22 Makes Yankees History
The former Dartmouth baseball player became the first Yankees rookie to hit three home runs in one game.
Isaiah Johnson ’22 Signed by the Miami Dolphins
The cornerback, who earned first-team all-Ivy honors during his senior season, is one of several Big Green alumni to join the NFL as an undrafted free agent in recent years.
Pictured: Dartmouth rowers practicing on the Connecticut River
PHOTOGRAPH BY DON HAMERMAN
Pictured: Inside Rauner Special Collections Library
ALICIA CAGE ’26
she/her/hers
HOMETOWN: BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
MAJOR: BIOCHEMISTRY; MINOR: GLOBAL HEALTH
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, Alicia Cage ’26 longed for a change of scenery for her college experience. “I was so comfortable in an urban environment. I knew that I wanted to find somewhere different somewhere I could grow and find community. I felt there was no better place I could do that than Dartmouth.”
Alicia transitioned to Dartmouth via the First-Year Student Enrichment Program (FYSEP), which prepares first-generation low-income students to thrive academically and in the greater Dartmouth community. “It was a bit scary for my parents to leave me here on campus,” says Alicia, who earned a four-year scholarship to Dartmouth through the QuestBridge National College Match. “They felt better knowing that there were other Jamaican students here, and I felt better learning and growing with people who understood the challenges I’ve been through. FYSEP really instilled in me the belief that you’re not defined by your circumstances; you’re defined by what you do going forward.”
The aspiring doctor quickly found her focus in global health thanks to a biology class with Dr. Lee Witters, who advises undergraduates and teaches at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. Soon after, Alicia applied to become a Global Health Fellow at Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for International Understanding. Together with leading experts, the cohort discusses how to best address complex global challenges around health and wellness. “Growing up in New York, I saw a lot of health issues firsthand. I realized I don’t want to be a doctor who only works one-on-one; I want to affect communities and make change on a larger scale.”
Today, Alicia is part of a microbiology lab headed by Geisel professor Jennifer Bomberger, where she’s contributing to research that seeks to alleviate symptoms of cystic fibrosis. “The medical students and undergraduates work together and support each other. That’s a beautiful thing.”
Outside of the classroom, Alicia serves as an undergraduate advisor, a student leader who supports their peers in Dartmouth’s residential communities. She is also president of Dartmouth’s National Pan-Hellenic Council, the umbrella organization for nine historically Black fraternities and sororities. “I love being in a position where I can focus on unifying people and creating spaces to have fun. I’m very committed to ensuring that people who look like me and come from similar backgrounds to me have space to do so.”
Two years later, Alicia is confident in her decision to choose Dartmouth. “When I was little, I had no idea that somebody from my neighborhood could come to a place like Dartmouth. Now I can say, ‘It’s possible. I’m proof that you can do it, too.’”
HUMANS OF HANOVER FACULTY
Elsa Voytas
Assistant Professor of Quantitative Social Science
“My research examines how experiencing, remembering, and confronting past violence influences contemporary political decisions. I study the individual-level impacts of engaging with historical memory and transitional justice policies. I apply methodological techniques to ask how societies can advance social justice and build peace.”
Wei Ouyang
Assistant Professor of Engineering
“I develop bio-integrated microsystems in wearable and implantable forms to transform health care and neuroscience research. My technological approach involves the integration of micro-engineered sensors and actuators with wireless electronics, wireless power transfer, and computing to deliver system-level solutions to science and society.”
Steven Frankland Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science
“I study the computational principles and neural systems that allow the human mind to be so flexible in some cases while being profoundly limited in others. I approach these questions using information-theory, classic neural network formalisms, and cognitive neuroscientific methods, in pursuit of some general principles.”
Ernesto
Mercado-Montero Assistant Professor of History
“I am a historian of the African diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean. My book project, The Afro-Indigenous Caribbean: Slavery, Warfare, and Power in the Making of an Early Modern Archipelago, centers Afro-Indigenes in Caribbean history.”
Temiloluwa Prioleau
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
“My research interest is in digital health, wearable technology, and data science, with a focus on human-centered computing solutions that enable personalized health. I founded and co-direct the Augmented Health Lab, a consortium of interdisciplinary researchers working together to tackle grand challenges in health care.”
Nirvana Tanoukhi
Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing
“My research and teaching focuses on questions of scale, form, and critical thinking in 20th–21st century literature. I find such questions crucial for understanding globalization’s current challenge to the Western tradition and its long-standing commitment to the pursuit of truth, freedom, pleasure, and duty.”
Claudia Olivetti Professor of Economics
“My research focuses on women in the labor market, including wages, hours, and careers, and on intergenerational mobility and marriage institutions in historical perspective. I have worked on the baby boom and maternal health and on historical and comparative perspectives on the gender gap.”
Jim Dorsey
Associate Professor of Japanese Literature, Culture, and Language
“My research interests focus on the interface of culture, ideology, and power. In my teaching, I aspire to nurture creative and critical thinking through the analysis of cultural artifacts from Japan.”
“These new observations are truly exceptional. We don’t know how fast this intrusion of water is melting the ice.”
Professor Mathieu Morlighem in The Washington Post on a new study that found that Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier may be far more exposed to warm ocean water than previously thought
“Being in Vermont, the first state to rid us of the scourge that was slavery this feels like acceptance.”
English and creative writing professor Vievee Francis on winning the Vermont Book Award for her work of poetry The Shared World
“Instead of asking why women are penalized for doing X and opposite-of-X alike, we should focus on why men [and women] penalize women with endless barrages of rock-and-hard-place dilemmas in the first place.”
Music professor William Cheng on the voices of female executives in The Financial Times
“We in the drought community need to have a conversation about what it looks like to think about drought monitoring in the context of an aridifying climate.”
Geography professor Justin Mankin in the LA Times on a study he directed that examined whether the U.S. Drought Monitor can keep pace with an “aridifying climate”
The Dartmouth Dialogue Project
A New Partnership with StoryCorps
Promotes Conversation Across Differences
PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT GILL
Samantha Palermo ’24 and Mac Mahoney ’26 talk as StoryCorps staffers Stephanie Glaros and Diane Bezucha facilitate and record the conversation.
Dartmouth has partnered with the national nonprofit StoryCorps to bring the One Small Step initiative to campus. One Small Step brings people with different perspectives together, two at a time, to record a 50-minute conversation about their lives in an effort to remind the country of the humanity in all of us even those with whom we disagree.
Dartmouth is “training the next generation of leaders across the broadest swath of society who will go out in education and business and politics and the nonprofit world and have an impact,” said President Sian Leah Beilock during an on-campus discussion with David Isay, the founder of StoryCorps, in April. “If we can learn with you about how to listen to each other, how to have humility, how to have the courage to approach uncomfortable situations, I can’t think of anything more important.”
The new collaboration is part of the Dialogue Project, a campuswide initiative that provides training in collaborative dialogue skills to foster a community that cultivates the respectful and open exchange of ideas. “We think that the Dartmouth community has the potential to model for the rest of the country what it looks like when we’re able
to see the humanity of people with whom we disagree,” Isay said at the kickoff event.
One Small Step is based on contact theory, which is rooted in the idea that a meaningful interaction between people with opposing views can help turn “thems” into “uses.” Its scientific and systematic approach is supported by a group of advisors that include scientists, researchers, and psychologists.
Since its founding in 2003, StoryCorps has helped more than 655,000 people in the U.S. record interviews about their lives. The recordings are collected in the Library of Congress, and select stories are broadcast weekly on NPR to more than 11 million listeners and shared through a podcast, animated shorts, digital platforms, and books.
Over the course of the next three years, Dartmouth students, alumni, faculty, and staff will have the opportunity to take part in conversations, some of which will be produced as stories for distribution on campus and beyond.
Follow the QR code to learn more about the partnership and to listen to One Small Step conversations between Dartmouth community members.
The Dartmouth campus is ready to welcome you in all four seasons. Register to visit in person or virtually.
onwardupward &
ALUMNI WHO CARRY DARTMOUTH INTO THE WORLD
Meet the Dartmouth alumna behind Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, Bridgerton, and more
“What to say about Shonda Rhimes that wasn’t better said when Variety called her in a cover story ‘TV’s most powerful showrunner’?” said CNN anchor Jake Tapper ’91 at an event welcoming distinguished alumni into the College’s Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame in May.
Among the first inductees is Shonda Rhimes ’91, an award-winning television creator, producer, and author, as well as the CEO of the global media company, Shondaland. She is the first woman to create three television dramas Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal that have achieved the 100-episode milestone. For five TV seasons, award-winning Shondaland shows Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How To Get Away With Murder occupied ABC’s entire Thursday night schedule, creating a powerful brand well-known to fans and advertisers as “TGIT.”
Facing stiff opposition from network executives, Rhimes proved “that shows that feature characters of color are actually more financially powerful in terms of advertising dollars and audiences than the shows we used to watch in which every character was white,” Tapper continued. “They made more money, they were more successful, more people watched them. And that’s why TV network television today looks like America.”
In 2017, Rhimes shifted the entertainment industry’s business model when she left network television to exclusively produce streaming content in partnership with Netflix. Bridgerton, Shondaland’s first scripted series with the streamer, has become a worldwide franchise. Rhimes also scripted the popular Bridgerton prequel series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, the limited series Inventing Anna based on the popular New York magazine article about the fake German heiress Anna Delvey, and executive produced
the documentary Dance Dreams: Hot Chocolate Nutcracker, highlighting the legendary choreographer Debbie Allen.
Rhimes broadened her company’s content landscape when she launched the culture website Shondaland.com in partnership with Hearst Digital Media as well as Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. She’s a New York Times bestselling author for her memoir Year of Yes and has built multiplatform partnerships with such leading brands as Dove, Peloton, St. John, Masterclass, Microsoft, and Mattel.
Rhimes has three times been included in the TIME 100 list of most influential people, has been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her service to U.S./UK relations, and her work has been celebrated with numerous awards including induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame.
Rhimes, an English literature with creative writing major who was director of Dartmouth’s Black Underground Theatre and Arts Association as an undergraduate, offered a spirited account of the central role that Dartmouth, where she is now a trustee, has played in her career trajectory.
“I mingled with professors and I befriended people from wildly different backgrounds, and I learned to advocate for myself,” she said. “I was introduced to new interests. And for the first time, I began to think of myself as a global citizen. But most of all, Dartmouth embedded in me the belief that hard work is necessary. That obstacles are not obstacles, they’re just to be climbed. That determination and grit and intelligence made me feel unstoppable.”
This story was adapted from an article that appeared on the Dartmouth News site in May 2024.
PHOTOGRAPH BY DON HAMERMAN
Pictured: In the philosophy department’s faculty lounge
A Philosopher Draws Inspiration from Hanover’s Surrounds
AMIE THOMASSON
she/her/hers
DANIEL P. STONE PROFESSOR OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY
“I don’t think I can imagine myself at this stage of my life without philosophy,” muses Amie Thomasson. “It informs everything I do and how I live.”
Professor Thomasson, who made strides early in her career as the second woman from her program to earn a PhD, was named one of the top 50 living philosophers an accolade she shares with famous academics Judith Butler and Noam Chomsky. “I first took a philosophy class my first term in college and I didn’t know what it was,” she says. “I didn’t know what ‘metaphysics’ and ‘epistemology’ meant. But in the longer description, it seemed like a lot of the questions I’d always been asking myself and hassling my mother with.”
Today, Professor Thomasson is known for her scholarly work in philosophical methodology, the philosophy of the mind, phenomenology (the philosophy of lived experience), and metaphysics at large. The research for her most recent book, Rethinking Metaphysics, was funded by her 2022 Guggenheim fellowship. The prestigious award provides support to outstanding scholars and artists in midcareer to allow them to pursue their work without restriction. “I’ve been working a lot recently on questions about what philosophy can do,” she says, explaining that philosophy can help with practical aspects of our lives. “There are all these increasing divergences of opinion. Do we want to just say, ‘Oh, we can never know the truth,’ or is there a way to resolve these questions and move forward?”
Professor Thomasson has taught and traveled all over the world from Austria to Australia in pursuit of her work. She agrees, though, that there is nowhere quite like Dartmouth and the surrounding Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont. “I’ve never lived in any place with such a strong sense of community before, and I’ve lived all over,” she says. Hiking, paddleboarding, kayaking, and cross country skiing are among her favorite activities she enjoys with her husband, who is also a Dartmouth professor, and their two daughters.
By breaking down complex concepts in class and applying them to examples from everyday life, Professor Thomasson hopes to “invite students to join into the great discussion.” Her existential advice to prospective students is to be open to and aware of all of their academic options. “Find something you’re passionate about and make the world your own.”
Selin Hos ’25
Alan Ngouenet ’25
he/him/his
Hometown: Medina, Washington
Major: Engineering Sciences
Minor: Mathematical Statistics
D-Plan
Dartmouth has a distinctive year-round quarter system the D-Plan that enables students to customize their individual academic calendars across four years. Dartmouth offers four, 10-week academic terms per year that loosely align with the four seasons. Within some guidelines, students choose how and where they’ll spend each of those terms, whether taking classes in Hanover, studying away on an off-campus program, or embarking on a “leave term” to pursue an internship, research, creative pursuit, or time off. Here, Alan Ngouenet ’25 shares snapshots drawn from his D-Plan, organized by season.
FALL
During sophomore fall, I frequented farmers markets, hiked the nearby Gile Mountain trail, went for walks around Occom Pond, and picked apples from local orchards. I also began work at Dartmouth Engineering’s MShop, an instructional workshop where students learn about computer numerical control (CNC) milling and other manufacturing essentials. To cap off an excellent term, I traveled to Germany and Poland as part of the Migration and Memory program, a three-week course taught jointly by the German Studies department and Jewish Studies program. There, we studied the lives and culture of Jewish communities prior to the 20th century and visited culturally significant sites. Junior fall, I served my community as an undergraduate advisor, or UGA student leaders who support their fellow residents for West House, one of Dartmouth’s six residential house communities.
WINTER
After a delightfully busy first-year fall, I settled into Dartmouth for my firstyear winter. I met some of my closest friends, tumbled down the end-ofseason slush at the Dartmouth Skiway on a snowboard, and bonded with club basketball teammates on and off the court. Sophomore winter, I learned how to row and was welcomed by an amazing community during my brief stint as a walk-on to Dartmouth’s team. I learned how to ski and leveled up from the greens to expert bowls in Park City. In my Computational Methods class, I learned about assumptions in models, interpolation, and approximation, which led me to learn more about industrial engineering. I explored an industry-specific topic while writing a paper on telecom network optimization in my Introduction to Operations Research class junior winter, and outside of the classroom, our club basketball team qualified for the National Club Basketball Association’s regional tournament.
SPRING
During my junior spring, I interned at a biomedical engineering startup in southern New Hampshire, where I revised a device that helps tackle nerve damage complications from surgery. I drove up to campus on weekends to fly fish, explore the outdoors, and hang out with friends at Green Key, an annual Dartmouth event featuring live music and free food. I also presented a poster about my research on female health disparities in the United States under the mentorship of public health demographer and Dartmouth professor Alka Dev. The research, which I’ll continue my senior year, was made possible by the funding I received as a Class of ’74 Health Equity Scholar. It’s a reminder of how far I’ve come since my first-year spring, which marked the beginning of my formal engineering education. In my Introduction to Engineering class, I teamed up with peers to build a portable hydroelectric generator. I also worked as a teaching assistant in the Jewish Studies program during sophomore spring, a term after I’d returned from Berlin.
SUMMER
During my first-year summer, I designed weekly STEM camp curricula at the Museum of Flight in Seattle that helped to inspire and foster curiosity in the next generation of engineers. In Dartmouth tradition, I spent sophomore summer on campus. After finishing a problem set on queuing theory or reliability for my Discrete & Probabilistic Systems class, my friends and I would meander down to the Connecticut River to fish off of our kayaks. I lived in sandals all summer and while that meant I was always ready to fish, I had to run back to my room more than a few times before returning to my shifts at the MShop. During my junior summer, I lived in Boston and traded my sandals for penny loafers as a summer analyst for a consulting firm that specializes in telecommunications, media, and technology strategy.
Courses of Study
Curious about the areas of study that Dartmouth has to offer? Dartmouth students can wait until sophomore year to declare a major, leaving plenty of time for exploration. Regardless of what you choose, the classes you take at Dartmouth will span disciplines far outside your chosen concentration. Here, Mariya Vahanvaty ’25 highlights the departments in which she’s taken courses—and shares the inside scoop on her
African and African American Studies
Ancient History
Anthropology
Architectural Design
m
Art History
Asian Societies, Cultures and Languages
Astronomy
Biological Chemistry
M
Biological Sciences
Biomedical Engineering Sciences
M
Biophysical Chemistry
M Chemistry
Classical Archaeology
Classical Languages and Literatures
Classical Studies
Climate Change Science
M
Cognitive Science
Comparative Literature
m
M
M
Computational Linguistics
Computer Science
m
Digital Arts
Earth Sciences
East European, Eurasian, and Russian Studies
Economics
Education
m
she/her/hers
Hometown: San Mateo, California
Major: Sociology modified with Education
Minor: Spanish
ASTR 001
Exploration of the Solar System
I took this class on a whim during my sophomore summer to satisfy one of my distributive requirements (every Dartmouth student takes at least one course in the areas of inquiry that make up the “distribs”). I spent my evenings that summer with my classmates on the Green, using telescopes to search for constellations and taking measurements to use in my lab reports. Our professor was extremely passionate about his field and came to class with new demonstrations each week to show us the real-world applications of the class material.
ENGL 63.02
Toni Morrison
This course explored a large portion of Toni Morrison’s body of work and allowed my classmates and me to discuss the complex themes of her novels. The small class size and student-led discussions led to enriching conversations, and the chance to read novels by one of my favorite authors provided a welcome contrast to the academic writing I was tackling in my other classes. This class significantly enhanced my analytical skills as I engaged in stimulating discussions and debates with my classmates.
Engineering Physics
Engineering Sciences
English
Environmental Studies
Film and Media Studies
French
French Studies
Geography
German Studies
Global Health m
Government
History
Human-Centered Design m International Studies m
Italian
Italian Studies
Jewish Studies
Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies
Linguistics
Markets, Management, and the Economy
m
m
Materials Science
Mathematical Data Science M
Mathematics
Medieval and Renaissance Studies *
Middle Eastern Studies
Music
Native American and Indigenous Studies
Neuroscience
Philosophy
Physics
Portuguese (Lusophone Studies)
Psychology
Public Policy
m
Quantitative Social Science
Religion
Romance Languages M
M
Romance Studies
Social Inequalities m
Sociology
Spanish (Hispanic Studies)
Statistics m
Studio Art
Theater
Translation Studies
m
m
Urban Studies
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Writing Program
EDUC 27
The Impact of Poverty on Education
Though I had always had an interest in education, I did not decide to add it to my major until I took EDUC 27 with Professor Tine in my sophomore spring. This class explored the multifaceted impact of poverty on education in the United States. Each week, I was astounded by the far-reaching effects of socioeconomic disparity on education and beyond. Not only was it an interesting topic to learn about from a sociological perspective, but it was a powerful call to action. We delved into several concrete issues that I am now determined to see change in during my lifetime. For our final project, we wrote grant proposals aimed at addressing one of the challenges we studied throughout the term. It was incredibly inspiring to witness the wide range of innovative solutions proposed by my classmates and to envision a world where these improvements could become reality.
SPAN 40.13
Modern Saints: Religion and Politics in Spain
This was the first class I took upon returning from my off-campus program in Madrid. We read books and poems and watched movies pertaining to the importance of religion in modern Spain. It was a fantastic opportunity to contextualize everything I had experienced during my time in Madrid and build upon my understanding of Spanish literature, architecture, and art. Most importantly, this class gave me the opportunity to speak Spanish—both conversationally and academically—as well as improve my Spanish writing skills. Each student in the class was committed to speaking entirely in Spanish, making this course an immersive language-learning experience right in Hanover.
WGSS 7.20
Gender & U.S. Militarism: Woes in Warfare from the Vietnam War to Today
Every Dartmouth student takes a first-year seminar, and this class was mine. My professor connected course material to current events, enabling us to critically analyze the United States’ role in global geopolitics. Examining war through the lens of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department was particularly impactful, offering a distinctive perspective on major world events that might be interpreted differently in other departments. For my final project, I expanded my focus beyond U.S. militarism to explore the Japanese occupation of Korea. My professor provided valuable support, guiding me through the research process and helping me apply the ideas we had studied throughout the term to investigate this important historical topic.
Aleaokalani “Alea” Kahele ’27
she/her/hers
Hometowns: Sandy, Utah and the Big Island of Hawaii
Majors: Earth Sciences and Native American and Indigenous Studies
Activities: Hōkūpa’a (Dartmouth‘s panPasifika organization), campus tour guide, support crew for first-year trips
Olivia Ajdler ’27
she/her/hers
Hometown: New York City, NY
Majors: Sociology and Music
Activities: club baseball, guitar, campus band
Pictured: In their on-campus dorm room
Living the Green
Tell us a little bit about yourselves before Dartmouth.
Alea: I was born in Hawaii and then moved to Memphis for a little while before my family eventually settled in Utah. I went to Catholic school from first through 12th grade, all on the same campus. I was very close with my community and involved in my high school. I miss it sometimes I had a great high school experience.
Olivia: I attended a Jewish high school in New York City. People from all over New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut went there, too. Not many people from my school lived near me, which is very different from my experience at Dartmouth. Here, you can walk for two minutes and be with any of your friends. I really appreciate that.
How did you two become roommates?
Alea: We were randomly matched. I loved that there was no pressure for us to be very best friends or to have the same friends. Olivia is a very chill
person and I’m very high energy. We have our own interests and places we fit on campus, and I think that makes us better roommates. I really enjoy meeting Olivia’s friends and interacting with people that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise met.
Olivia: My friends seep into your life just by us being roommates. We both have different social circles, but we’re still tied to each other. We are more like family than friends, in a sense, because you don’t choose your family; it’s built in. Family is always there for you at the end of the day.
How do you two handle conflict?
Alea: I think we are really good at creating a safe space to bring up issues. We work together and do not let things fester.
Olivia: Right. We’re good at asking each other, “Do you mind this? Do you mind that?” If one of us minds, we say that. We talk in respectful language and communicate well enough to anticipate each other’s needs.
Alea: We don’t think of our room as “this is my side, and that’s your side.” That isn’t how it works. We are one room, and we have a responsibility to make sure the other person is cared for, safe, and comfortable. What I appreciate about Olivia is that she is a very sensitive person. When I was having a tough time earlier this term, she asked, “Hey, do you want to hang out tonight? We can do face masks.”
Do you have any roommate traditions?
Alea: Our getting-ready anthem is Hips Don’t Lie by Shakira. It’s such a fun way to wake up together.
Dartmouth’s financial aid covers 100% of the demonstrated need of all its students, but the opportunities for funding don’t stop there. Dartmouth students have access to resources that make all kinds of experiences possible and ensure that every student can take advantage of the range of opportunities Dartmouth has to offer. We asked current students to share experiences made possible with Dartmouth’s financial support.
Paid Research at Dartmouth’s Medical School
“With funding from Dartmouth’s Presidential Scholars program, I applied to work in the AIM HIGH Lab run by Dr. Nick Jacobson at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine. The goal of the lab is to make mental health treatments more effective and accessible through novel technological and computational methods. I’m helping with the chatbot training project, which aims to create and test a new generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot treatment for multiple mental disorders.”
’25 from Turkey
Cost-Covered Outdoor Adventures
“What would you call it if you spent six days canoeing down the Green River in Utah, marveling at the most gorgeous of canyons, yapping with the most hilarious of Dartmouth students? A Dartmouth Outing Club break trip! The DOC helped pay for students’ plane tickets to make this dream trip come true.”
’27 from Bulgaria
Funds to Attend a Film Festival
“I received funding from Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center for the Arts to attend HotDocs, North America’s largest documentary film festival, in Toronto. I watched 11 films at the festival and the directors were available for Q&A sessions after each screening. As someone who’s passionate about watching and creating documentaries, it was incredibly rewarding to get a deeper understanding of how these films were produced.”
’25 from Illinois
A Class Trip at No Cost
“For our class The Making of 21st Century Exhibits: Curating a National Black Theater Museum/ Institution, my classmates and I curated an exhibit about Black theater for Dartmouth’s Rauner Special Collections Library. To prepare, we spent a weekend visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. It was so special to explore the museum with people who care about Black history as much as I do, and the cost of the trip was totally covered by Dartmouth.” ’27 from Washington
TAPESTRY :
A THREAD FROM DARTMOUTH’S HISTORY
Take A Stroll Around Occom Pond
The idea to create the iconic pond nestled at the north end of Dartmouth’s campus originated with Elizabeth Washburn Worthen, the wife of mathematics professor and Dartmouth graduate T. W. D. “Tute” Worthen, in 1897. More than 125 years later, Occom Pond named for Samson Occom, a member of the Mohegan Tribe who was instrumental in raising funds for the fledgling College is both a peaceful retreat and the setting for some of Dartmouth’s most enduring traditions.
For instance, the Polar Plunge one of the most anticipated events of the College’s annual Winter Carnival takes place in the
pond’s frigid waters each February. Perched on its north edge is the Dartmouth Outing Club House, which provides free ice skate rentals in winter months. And in a simple but beloved tradition all across all four seasons, Dartmouth community members invite friends to go on a “Woccom” an affectionate nickname for a walk around Occom Pond. “It’s not uncommon to see other students running, local residents walking their dogs, and even deer frolicking,” says Liliana Ciraulo ’26, who is from Hawaii. “A Woccom always brings a smile to my face.”
Admissions Editorial Board
Erin Burnett, Editor
Isabel Bober ’04
Clarissa Hyde
Sara D. Morin
Jacques Steinberg ’88, Editorial Advisor
Produced by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions of Dartmouth College Design: Hecht/Horton Partners
Student Contributors
Clara Goulding ’25
Lauren Halsey ’26
Selin Hos ’25
Joanna Jou ’26
Chukwuka V. Odigbo ’25
Sydney Wuu ’24
Caroline York ’25
Note: The officers of the College believe that the information contained herein is accurate as of the date of publication, and they know of no significant changes to be made at the College in the near future. However, Dartmouth reserves the right to make, from time to time, such changes in its operations, programs, and activities as the Trustees, faculty, and officers consider appropriate and in the best interests of the Dartmouth community.
Equal Opportunity: Dartmouth is committed to the principle of equal opportunity for all its students, faculty, staff, and applicants for admission and employment. For that reason, Dartmouth prohibits any form of discrimination against any person on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, age, sexual orientation, marital or parental status, national origin, citizenship, disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other legally protected status in the administration of and access to the College’s programs and activities, and in conditions of admission and employment. Dartmouth adheres to all applicable state and federal equal opportunity laws and regulations.
Dartmouth College
Office of Undergraduate Admissions
6016 McNutt Hall
Hanover, NH 03755
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On the Admissions Beat, veteran Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Lee Coffin provides high school juniors, seniors, and parents, as well as their counselors and other mentors, with “news you can use” at each step on the pathway to college. With a welcoming, reassuring perspective and an approach intended to build confidence in prospective applicants, Dean Coffin offers credible information, insights, and guidance from the earliest days of the college search, to applications, decision-making, and arrival on campus. He does so by drawing on nearly 30 years of experience as an admissions leader at some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions. Listen at dartgo.org/3Dpodcast.
