CSLI's Dubious Admissions

by Matthew Tokson

On Page 8 of the Student Life Initiative report, the Committee on the Student Life Initiative argues that Dartmouth's current “social system” (i.e. the “Greek system”) reduces the College's ability to attract prospective students, especially “high-ability” and minority students.

The report explains that Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Karl Furstenburg met with the committee, and employed data from an admissions survey to show that students with average SAT scores of 756 Verbal and 739 Math rated the CFS system as a higher concern than average applicants.

Some undisclosed number of prospective students, Furstenburg reportedly explained, are concerned that the CFS system “undermines the intellectual climate at Dartmouth and encourages excessive use of alcohol.” What's more, negative perceptions about Dartmouth lower the number of minority applications to the College; those perceptions, say the Committee, “could be addressed in part through substantive changes in the social and residential environment.” The implication is that the Greek System creates an environment of discrimination and anti-intellectualism that deters prospective high-ability and minority students from considering Dartmouth—and that Dean Furstenburg confirmed this fact to the SLI Committee using data from an admissions survey.

This is simply not true. I recently spoke with Dean Furstenburg. Our discussion focused on the three major concerns common to admitted students who opted not to attend Dartmouth. The three concerns are identified by a survey given to all admitted students, which asks the students to indicate why they did or did not choose to attend the College.

The first and most common concern is the location of the College and the isolation and lack of social and cultural options that characterize Hanover. As the SLI report admits, this is a consideration largely outside of the sphere of College influence.

The second and second-most prominent concern is the high cost of attending Dartmouth. Dartmouth recently increased tuition 3.5%, noted Furstenburg, bringing Dartmouth's tuition plus room and board expenses to $33,198 per three terms—placing the College with the highest of the high in terms of cost of attendance.

The third-most prominent concern is social life. It is this concern that is distorted—and, indeed, lied about—in the SLI report. The salient falsehood is on page 8, second paragraph, of the report: “Dean Furstenburg told the committee that those students who are admitted to Dartmouth choose not to come here for three principal reasons... [As their third reason,] they express reservations about Dartmouth's social system, its reputation as a conservative party school and the domination of its social life by fraternities.” This is the only explicit link between the admissions statistics and the fraternities in the whole report, and it is a false one.

As Dean Furstenburg revealed, the poll question on which the Committee focuses makes no mention of the fraternities, a “social system,” or of Dartmouth's reputation. The question simply asks if social life was a concern to the student.

“Social life,” as Furstenburg readily confirms, could include the Greek system, as well as several other aspects of campus and community life in Hanover completely unrelated to Greek societies, such as (his suggestion) the lack of social options in Hanover, or (my suggestion) that great crippler of Dartmouth social life, the D-plan. There is no evidence that any of the students who cited Dartmouth's social life as a concern in admissions were referring to the Greek system, or any other kind of Dartmouth social system.

Perhaps one-third of the roughly one-third of students who expressed a concern with social life were referring to the Greek system, or perhaps all of them were. Without further data, it is misleading and unsubstantiated to say that the system is of any concern to any prospective students. The Committee's claim that Furstenburg confirmed their contention is dishonest, and untrue.

What about the “high-ability students,” who rated social life as a concern by (according to Furstenburg) a roughly 3 to 1 margin? Again, there is no evidence to determine whether these students were concerned about the Greek system or were simply looking for the independence and stimulation offered by an urban environment.

There is, in fact, empirical evidence that suggests a more intelligent student body means higher membership in Greek organizations: The 2002 class was known as the most highly able and intelligent class in Dartmouth's history, and this past fall's rush class (that of the class of 2002) was the largest in the past 20 years.

How about minority students, who, as the report points out, constitute only 20% of the applicant pool compared to the 31% average at the other seven Ivies? Minority applicants do not cite social life as a greater concern than other applicants, nor would such a fact indict Greek societies, anyway. Furstenburg asserts that Dartmouth's location makes it difficult to gain applicants of any race from suburban and urban areas, and easy to gain applicants from rural areas. Since a large proportion of minorities live in urban and suburban areas, Dartmouth's location attracts a smaller proportion of minorities than do urban campuses, like Harvard or Columbia.

Many less affluent applicants, explains Furstenburg, rebuff Dartmouth for its high cost, and choose to attend Ivies—such as Harvard and Princeton—with huge endowments and more generous financial aid (though Dartmouth has recently made significant progress towards increasing its financial aid packages).

Some poorer applicants also choose to attend state schools and other more inexpensive institutions (perhaps a wise choice since recent studies have established that high-aptitude, motivated students who attend non-elite schools are equally successful as their equivalent peers at top institutions). Minority applicants, on average, tend to be less affluent than whites; Dartmouth attracts a smaller proportion due to its high cost and less competitive financial aid.

The Committee's claim, that the presence of Greek societies lowers the number of “high-ability” or minority students who matriculate at Dartmouth, is inaccurate and deceptive. The notion, moreover, that dismantling the Greek system against student wishes will yield a more intelligent student body is demonstrably false. Policies that deprive Dartmouth's students of their independence and influence in campus life will hardly make the College more attractive to prospective matriculants. The opposite—allowing students to control Dartmouth's unique social system—would seem to make more sense. In fact, in the “campus overview” section of the Brailsford & Dunleavy study commissioned by the College to assess its athletic and extracurricular facilities, the professional consultants explain how matriculation at Dartmouth can be increased: “The high quality of life combined with the unique atmosphere may allow the College to further differentiate itself and increase matriculation.” The future of Dartmouth lies in improving its uniqueness, not in turning it into the Hanover version of Harvard.