How to Write the Dartmouth College Admissions Essays

 By Sarah O'Neill, Supreme Editing, Coatesville, PA

Dartmouth Excerpt:

According to Dartmouth admissions (via the website):

We read every single application carefully, looking for strong-minded, multi-talented people eager to live and learn together with mutual respect for each other’s differences.

Listen to: Admissions Beat Podcast

“Your essays should help us understand those intangibles that can't easily be reflected in a resume. Show us the qualities that make you you. Your sense of humor, your passion, your intellectual curiosity, your self-awareness, or social awareness, or some mix of these. Your writing lets us get to know you and we read every word. Help us envision what you'll bring to Dartmouth.”

Your essays should help us understand those intangibles that can't easily be reflected in a resume. Show us the qualities that make you you. Your sense of humor, your passion, your intellectual curiosity, your self-awareness, or social awareness, or some mix of these. Your writing lets us get to know you and we read every word. Help us envision what you'll bring to Dartmouth. Click here for video- values.

To educate ethical citizens, a university must be driven by a set of values embraced by the entire community. At Dartmouth, we integrate our core values into our curriculum, our culture, and our campus so that students, staff, and faculty live those principles. Here's what that looks like day-to-day at Dartmouth:

• We expect academic excellence, encourage independent thought, and promote a robust culture of interdisciplinary collaboration.
• We support a faculty of scholars who are leaders in their fields, passionate about teaching, and committed to mentorship and collaboration with their students.
• We recruit and admit outstanding students from all backgrounds, regardless of their financial means, so that finances are never a barrier to admission.
• We build a diverse community of faculty and students and leverage that diversity to enrich and deepen the education of our future global citizens.
• We foster lifelong bonds among faculty, staff, and students to encourage a culture of integrity, collaboration, and collegiality.
• We instill in students a sense of responsibility for one another and for the broader world and give them ample opportunities to share their expertise and passions.
• We promote the vigorous and open debate of ideas while encouraging mutual respect for diverse opinions.
• We provide comprehensive out-of-classroom experiences, including service opportunities, international study, and global engagement.

The history of admitted essays has a clear pattern of confident tone, the culmination of passion, and the intermingling of personal growth. Writers were specific in their information and what piques their interests about academics, community, and/or campus environment. It was clear that they researched well to make the essays memorable.

Supplemental Essay Example:

Prompt: In the aftermath of World War II, Dartmouth President John Sloane Dickey, Class of 1929, proclaimed, “The world’s troubles are your troubles…and there is nothing wrong with the world that better human beings cannot fix.” Which of the world’s “troubles” inspires you to act? How might your course of study at Dartmouth prepare you to address it?

Volunteering in a local senior home, I closely connected with a resident named Agnes, a Canadian military veteran, an inspirational advocate against sexism—and, heart-wrenchingly, a recent victim ofAlzheimer’s disease (AD).

With Agnes in mind, I sought out AD research opportunities and thus

began working with AD-expert Dr. Moustafa Gabr of Stanford University. I discovered acetylcholinesterase inhibitors as potential therapeutics for AD. My passion expanded as I recognized AD’s puzzling and intricate complexity, strengthening my resolve to continue pursuing AD research and to fight against this devastating and debilitating disease.

Through this internship, I not only engaged in scientific research to discover promising inhibitors but also actively tried to help Agnes delay AD using the knowledge I gained. I learned teaching her basic, coordinated movements in Latin and Ballroom dances such as samba and waltz would delay the disease progression. Agnes’ cheerful smile when dancing reinforced my determination to contribute to curing AD.

At Dartmouth, I will continue to delve into AD by taking advantage of the plentiful Undergraduate Advising and Research programs and the Center for Social Impact. I would be honored to work alongside Associate Professor Mark Spaller; I am fascinated by his research on the discovery of next-generation compounds to cure AD, which perfectly aligns with my own research. Through his mentorship, I will gain greater insights into the mechanisms behind AD, and hopefully, our research can contribute to critical AD drug-creation efforts. Furthermore, with Dartmouth’s distinctive D-Plan, where I will have the flexibility to invest time every academic year solely to research, I will grow one step closer to realizing my vision of finding potential treatments and cures for AD.

Ultimately, at Dartmouth, I can fully unleash my intellectual curiosity, pushing my knowledge deeply and vastly to better the lives of people like Agnes.