
How to Write the Dartmouth College Supplemental Essays 2019-2020
Tucked away in the idyllic greenery of Hanover, New Hampshire, Dartmouth College has long been a sought-after institution of higher education since its founding in 1769. At the center of this community is its small, tight-knit group of 4,400 undergraduates, who enjoy the resources of over 40 departments and 60 majors.
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Due to the bucolic nature of its location, approximately 70% of undergraduates participate in Greek life, as it serves as the hub of social interaction. Athletics and outdoor activities are also extremely popular â 75% of students are involved in a varsity, club, or intramural sport.Â
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Dartmouth College currently sits at #12 in U.S. News and World Reportâs National Universities Ranking, and its low acceptance rate reflects its prestige. For the class of 2023, only 7.9% of applicants were accepted.Â
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To apply to Dartmouth College, candidates may submit either the Common Application, or the Coalition Application. In addition to the required essay in the Common App or Coalition Application, Dartmouth requires two supplemental essays: applicants are all required to complete the first prompt, but may choose from 6 different options for the second prompt. Read on to find out how to tackle them! Want to know your chances at Dartmouth? Calculate your chances for free right now.
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How to Write the Dartmouth College Admissions Essays
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Dartmouth asks for two supplemental essays â one in 100 words, and the other in 300 words. Your response to prompt 1 needs to be tailored to Dartmouth specifically. If in your prompt 1 essay, it is possible to switch out the name âDartmouthâ for another schoolâs name, with the essay still making sense, then you need to dive into greater detail.
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Remember that every essay you write in this college application process, including the Common App, is a component of your candidate profile. To help maximize the admissions committeeâs understanding of you, for each schoolâs essay portfolio, be sure to choose topics that complement each other.
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For example, if you wrote already about a personal geology project in your Common App, donât also write about your aspiration to solve a geological crisis in the second supplemental prompt, or only concentrate on the geology program in the first supplemental prompt. You want to showcase other elements of who you are in the supplemental essays.
Prompt #1:Â Please respond in 100 words or less:
While arguing a Dartmouth-related case before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1818, Daniel Webster, Class of 1801, delivered this memorable line: âIt is, SirâŠa small college. And yet, there are those who love it!â As you seek admission to the Class of 2024, what aspects of the Collegeâs program, community or campus environment attract your interest?
This is essentially the classic âWhy X School?â essay. With only a meager 100 words available, the goal of this is not to mention every program or component of Dartmouth that attracts you, or give an elaborate praise of those programs. Rather, you have to demonstrate why the essence of Dartmouth resonates with you. Here are some dos and donâts to get you thinking in the right direction:
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Do
Pick one of Dartmouth that you feel deeply connected to. For example, if your academic love is environmental science, consider writing this essay on Dartmouthâs prioritization of sustainability through emphasis on programs like beekeeping, ethical fish farming, and proper extraction of maple syrup from sugar maple trees.
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That said, keep in mind that ultimately, you need to present a holistic candidate profile to the school. That means showcasing as many aspects of yourself as possible â if you focus on an academic interest in this prompt, make sure to hone in on your favorite aspects of campus life and extracurricular offerings in the next prompt.
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Donât
Do not, however, dive into a detailed dissertation of why the program you choose to write about is so necessary in our world today. Whichever reason attracts you to Dartmouth, chances are, someone else wants to attend the college for the same reason.
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The admissions committee is not interested in reading the 1052nd essay on why the school made the right choice to implement these sustainability initiatives â the admissions officers likely know the school well enough to understand why Dartmouth initiated those programs. Instead, what admissions want to know is why these are deciding factors for you to choose Dartmouth.
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For example, perhaps you lived in an area that was affected profoundly by a catastrophic natural disaster, and since then, you have been hyper-aware of the interactions between people and their habitats, and want to devote your energy towards decreasing the likelihood of a natural disaster happening to someone else.
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Do
Focus your essay on one core theme. For example, if you choose to write about Dartmouthâs unique outdoor-centric student life, structure the entire essay around this topic. 100 words do not provide you with enough leeway to cover multiple topics well. That said, if there is a tangential factor relevant to your core theme that attracts you to Dartmouth, do add it in to spice up your essay.
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Do not write a list of everything you love about Dartmouth. Donât try to expound on your love of the collegeâs vibrant Greek life while attempting to describe your passion for sustainability and your appreciation for the schoolâs flexible curriculum. Doing so would only allow you to mention each element in passing without connecting it to you personally.
Prompt #2:Â Please choose one of the following prompts and respond in 250-300 words:
Option A: The Hawaiian word moâolelo is often translated as âstoryâ but it can also refer to history, legend, genealogy, and tradition. Use one of these translations to introduce yourself.
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Option B: In the aftermath of World War II, Dartmouth President John Sloane Dickey, Class of 1929, proclaimed, âThe worldâs troubles are your troublesâŠand there is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix.â Which of the worldâs âtroublesâ inspires you to act? How might your course of study at Dartmouth prepare you to address it?
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Option C: In The Painted Drum, author Louise Erdrich â76 wrote, â⊠what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?â Tell us about something beautiful you have made or hope to make.
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Option D: âYes, books are dangerous,â young peopleâs novelist Pete Hautman proclaimed. âThey should be dangerousâthey contain ideas.â What book or story captured your imagination through the ideas it revealed to you? Share how those ideas influenced you.
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Option E: âI have no special talent,â Albert Einstein once observed. âI am only passionately curious.â Celebrate your curiosity.
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Option F: Labor leader Dolores Huerta is a civil rights activist who co-founded the organization now known as United Farm Workers. She said, âWe criticize and separate ourselves from the process. Weâve got to jump right in there with both feet.â Speak your truth: Talk about a time when your passion became action.
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Here, you select one of the 6 options below to answer the question in 250-300 words. Though precision and conciseness are hallmarks of quality essays, you are not recommended to go below the 250 word benchmark. These are all open-ended questions that could elicit a much longer response â if you find yourself dipping below the minimum by more than 50 words, you probably are not optimizing your opportunity to showcase your personality.
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Some tips on prompt selection:
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Tip #1: Read through each of the 6 prompts.
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Tip #2: Immediately categorize them into 3 segments: âlikely,â âpossible,â and âunlikelyâ.
(a) Under âlikelyâ are all of the prompts that you have an immediate answer for upon first read
(b)Â Under âpossibleâ are all prompts you find interesting and would be open to
(c) Under âunlikelyâ are prompts that you find are prone to cheesy answers, or those that you simply cannot relate to at all
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Tip #3: Jot down an idea or anecdote for each topic under âlikelyâ and âpossibleâ.
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Tip #4: Review them and select the topic with the most unique story, or one that best showcases your wit and intellectual prowess.

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Calculate your acceptance chancesYour GPA and SAT donât tell the full admissions story
ÂOur chancing engine factors in extracurricular activities, demographics, and other holistic details. Weâll let you know what your chances are at your dream schools â and how to improve your chances!
Calculate your acceptance chancesOption A: The Hawaiian word moâolelo is often translated as âstoryâ but it can also refer to history, legend, genealogy, and tradition. Use one of these translations to introduce yourself . (250-300 words)
This prompt cannot be immediately categorized as one of the âclassicâ essay questions and requires a bit more creativity for effective execution. It also adds yet another layer of decision-making to essay-writing â choosing the translation to continue with.
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A few tips on which interpretation to choose and how to write your essay:
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Tip #1: Out of all available translations, the term âstoryâ is the most generic of the five. It is easy to argue that your story encompasses your history, your familyâs legends, your genealogy and your cultureâs traditions. If you do not have an instinctive response to this prompt, but still prefer this question as a whole, then choose this interpretation. The broad scope of this translation will allow you to take your essay in whichever direction you see fit.
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In regards to writing the essay, you can choose to narrate a defining moment of your life that does not easily fit under any of the other four headings: perhaps on a family hike on Chirico Trail during winter break in your sophomore year, you witnessed the majesty and freedom of paragliders and became fascinated by this extreme sport ever since. You can then expand on how the sport has changed your perspective on the feeling of existence, of your resoluteness to live every moment to the fullest, etc.
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Tip #2: History here can refer to family history, academic history, employment history, recreational history, etc. Choose this translation if there is a chronology in a certain aspect of your life that you want to highlight, a more or less linear process through which you matured.
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Perhaps your illustrious history in competitive chess is especially important to you, and was critical in shaping your attitude towards work. Then use this opportunity to delineate your competitive history, and delve into the intellectual, and emotional impact it has imprinted on you.
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Tip #3: Legend is one of the trickier ones, and will likely be a less popular selection. If you are particularly confident in your creativity, and prefer to distinguish yourself from the onset, then this is the one for you.
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One way to interpret this is to relate a folktale important to your culture, and use it as a segue to introduce your culture and the role it has played in shaping your values and character. The same thing could be done with a âbedtime storyâ that you grew up on â you could use the fable as an entry point to describe your upbringing and the continued impact it has on your personality today.
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Tip #4: Genealogy is also an interesting one â similar to âlegend,â you could leverage the anecdote of your family lineage to depict important family members, or even family heirlooms, and the significance of their role in shaping how you feel about your culture.
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Perhaps you share an unique bond with your grandmother, who was your primary caretaker while you were growing up. Her lineage could be traced back to Edinburgh, Scotland, where generations before, her ancestor braved the extreme weather and fed their community as hardy wheat farmers. Though you had previously hated your ginger hair, and purposefully distanced yourself from Scottish culture because you were teased, you feel more grounded and closer to your origins through the family tales passed through generations.
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Tip #5: Tradition can be approached in a very similar manner to genealogy, or legend. Choose this translation if the topic you wish to discuss is more a custom than a linearly chronological account of a cultural phenomenon.
Option B: In the aftermath of World War II, Dartmouth President John Sloane Dickey, Class of 1929, proclaimed, âThe worldâs troubles are your troublesâŠand there is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix.â Which of the worldâs âtroublesâ inspires you to act? How might your course of study at Dartmouth prepare you to address it? (250-300 words)
This prompt gives you an opportunity to discuss a current political or social issue that you are passionate about and to explain how it motivates you to pursue educational opportunities at Dartmouth. You should select this prompt option if you are someone who is interested in service, social action, and policy. You need to be able to clearly articulate the âtroubleâ in your society that you find particularly compelling and worthy of tackling, explain why it matters, and tell the reader what you plan to do about it one day.Â
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There is no shortage of topics you can tackle. âThe worldâs troublesâ is an intentionally broad category that allows you to hone in on your particular interest. Are you passionate about defending womenâs rights and expanding their right to affordable reproductive care? Do you volunteer at your local soup kitchen and ponder solutions to urban homelessness in your social science courses? Do you participate in marches and political actions that focus on preserving the environment and combating climate change? These are just some ideas for possible âtroublesâ you could explore in your response.Â
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In fact, your topic doesnât necessarily need to be national or international in scope. If the âtroublesâ that keep you up at night are closer to home, donât be afraid to tell the reader about them! For example, if you are planning to study civil engineering at Dartmouth because your rural community has struggled with transportation access, leading you to become curious about better ways to develop road networks, you can, and should, write about that.Â
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Once youâve outlined the âtroubleâ of your choice, donât forget to answer the second part of the prompt. Tell the reader how you hope to address the problem, what actions you want to take and what tools you need in order to do so. Be sure to mention specific programs, courses, or extracurricular opportunities that Dartmouth offers that will enable you to tackle the problem of your choice.
Option C: In The Painted Drum, author Louise Erdrich â76 wrote, â⊠what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?â Tell us about something beautiful you have made or hope to make. (250-300)
This prompt is ideal for those who are keen to exercise and demonstrate their creativity. It gives you great flexibility to explain what âbeautifulâ means to you and what youâve done (or plan to do) to share that beauty with the world around you.Â
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Some clear choices for something beautiful to describe include an artwork youâve created, a film or play that you wrote, a song youâve performed, or any other artistic endeavor youâve participated in. Remember that the prompt asks you to describe an object or idea that you deem beautifulâit doesnât at all need to be a widely acclaimed piece of art that youâve exhibited or sold. In fact, if you have created something beautiful that you havenât shared with anyone but yourself, that doesnât mean you cannot use it as the subject of your story! Just be sure that you can articulate what it makes it beautiful and meaningful to you.
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Note that the prompt doesnât even require you to have already created your something beautiful. Do you aspire to become a novelist one day and to write a story of your childhood? Are you even an amateur guitar player who hopes to one day be a part of a small band? Do you plan to study architecture so that you can one day build elaborate apartment buildings? Talk about that! The key in discussing any future pursuit is to explain to the reader why you think that a book/song/building can and should be a thing of beauty and why you want to become someone capable of creating and sharing such beauty with the world.
Option D: âYes, books are dangerous,â young peopleâs novelist Pete Hautman proclaimed. âThey should be dangerousâthey contain ideas.â What book or story captured your imagination through the ideas it revealed to you? Share how those ideas influenced you. (250-300)
If you are someone who has a favorite book that you reread over and over, or an aspirational novel that you recommend to all of your friendsâthis prompt is for you! In the next 300 words, you have the opportunity to tell the reader of all the reasons this book is worthwhile and how it has inspired you.Â
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While you have the worldâs entire supply of books to choose from, there are some guidelines to keep in mind. The main one is that you must be able to explain why this book is important and what you have learned from it. If your favorite book of all time is the third installment of Harry Potter because youâve read it with your sister when you were 10, thatâs great! However, you will need a more nuanced reason if you are going to write about it in response to this prompt.Â
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For example, maybe youâve read Chinua Achebeâs Things Fall Apart in your English class and the story of Nigerians struggling against colonial oppression sparked your interest in international affairs. You could talk about the importance of studying other peopleâs perspective and taking it into account when developing foreign policy or providing aid to underdeveloped nations. Maybe you want to talk about how reading Why Most Things Fail by Paul Ormerod solidified your interest in economics and inspired you to open your first business venture in high school. Or, maybe your favorite book has nothing to do with career interests at all. Perhaps Kurt Vonnegutâs Mother Night has helped you work through a challenging personal issue and led you to evaluate how you respond to emotionally difficult situations in your life. Whatever book you choose, make sure you can articulate how itâs had a meaningful impact on your lifeâyour academic interests, your career aspirations, your relationships with others and with yourself.
Option E: âI have no special talent,â Albert Einstein once observed. âI am only passionately curious.â Celebrate your curiosity.
Though this may appear like an âanalyze the quoteâ prompt, you do not actually have to make any reference to it. The Albert Einstein quote is only a way for the prompt writers to frame this topic. Focus instead on an anecdote in which your curiosity produced a tangible result.
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For instance, you may describe the time when after hearing about a friendâs horrifying experience with a violent teacher, your curiosity urged you to investigate the schoolâs protocol for managing these type of complaints, only to find that a standard procedure does not exist. After realizing that cases like your friendâs are evaluated on an individual basis that downplayed the seriousness of the issue, you started a widespread petition among the student body and parentsâ association to pressure the school into establishing a safe channel for students to express their concerns.
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If the example you are thinking of using did not necessarily produce a distinct change in a public setting, that is completely fine. It does not preclude you from this prompt.
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For example, you can also write about your curious fascination with electronics â how you tirelessly disassemble every device in your house, sometimes leaving a trail of scattered parts around your room. Though you were not able to fix any of the devices you dismantled, this determination to understand the components of every machine piqued your interest in mechanical engineering, and encouraged you to devote your academic career to understanding, improving, and inventing more machines.
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Try to keep the timeframe of your anecdotes to your high school career â though the chocolate volcano you engineered in 5th grade may have been cool, the more recent your example is, the easier it is for the admissions committee to get an accurate picture of who you are now.
Option F: Labor leader Dolores Huerta is a civil rights activist who co-founded the organization now known as United Farm Workers. She said, âWe criticize and separate ourselves from the process. Weâve got to jump right in there with both feet.â Speak your truth: Talk about a time when your passion became action.
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This prompt gives you the opportunity to talk about a project or extracurricular activity where you were able to put your skills and knowledge to practical use. If you choose to answer this prompt, be sure youâre not just using it to highlight an activity on your resume that you think looks impressive but that you only have lukewarm feelings about. The key word in this prompt is passion, so be sure whatever your subject, you feel strongly about it and can articulate why.Â
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âActionâ does not necessarily have to mean political action, the way it did for Dolores Huerta. That said, if you are someone who is closely involved with a local campaign to lobby for landmark status in your favorite park, or someone who participates in every climate change march, you should feel free to use those examples.Â
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However, you could also tell the reader about your efforts to launch a coding club in your school and the administrative resistance youâve had to overcome to secure the necessary funding. Or about the time you opted to write your own play after two years of starring in school productions that you didnât find inspiring. The key is to show the reader that you did something about the challenge you encountered.
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It is okay to tell a story of taking action that may not have been as successful as youâd have liked: not every social movement brings about political change and not every school club gets funding. What matters most is outlining the steps you took, the reason you decided to take them, and the conclusions you drew from your experience. Failure is one of the best teachers, and if you can tell the reader how your unsuccessful action motivated you to keep pushing, youâll have a much more impressive and interesting tale.Â
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The most important thing to remember is that this prompt doesnât want you to just point out a problem or contemplate the way you may want to solve it in the future. This prompt wants you to evoke a time that you encountered an obstacle or an injustice, and you got up and did something about it. You have a virtually limitless supply of possible topics, and there is no right or wrong issue to take action onâas long as you can explain why you were motivated by this particular subject.Â
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