Enrollment Smaller
Total Enrollment for Dartmouth's 181st academic year is expected to be somewhat less than 2,900 men, a drop from the total of 2,961 who registered in all departments of the College last fall. The Registrar's Office, which has its own time-tested ways of forecasting enrollment figures, breaks the 1949-50 estimate down into approximately 2,700 men in the undergraduate classes and 190 men in the second-year classes of the three associated schools.
The incoming freshman class of about 700 men will be slightly smaller than the Class of 1952 which started off last year with 724 members. Those who make book on the freshman-sophomore rush will have to discard the numerical factor this fall, because the '52s, who suffered surprisingly few academic casualties as freshmen, will be nearly 700-strong themselves this fall.
In geographical distribution the incoming Class of 1953 seems to be just as nationally representative as Dartmouth's classes have always been under the Selective Process. Somewhat unusual perhaps is the large number of foreign lands represented by boys in the new class. In reading the most recent "active list" of 19535, one spots Germany, England, Iraq, Korea, British West Indies, Belgium, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Mexico, Norway, Netherlands West Indies, and China, plus several freshmen from the Territory of Hawaii.
Veterans—that almost meaningless term for all men who have seen some form of military service—will comprise only about 3% of the freshman class, compared with about 10% for the previous two entering classes. For the first time since the war, veterans will be a definite minority in the Dartmouth student body. They are expected to number about 950, roughly onethird of the total enrollment, and will be concentrated in the senior class and associated schools. Married students will continue to make up a sizable segment of the student body. Housing contracts for Sachem Village and Wigwam Circle have been signed by 165 married men, and in those two strongholds of domesticity the diaper will continue to wave as the pennant of the most contented and hardesworking students on campus.
Many of the married students who were enrolled at Dartmouth last semester remained in Hanover during the summer, some to enjoy the long vacation but most to improve the family exchequer by working. The electric power dam being thrown across the Connecticut just below Hanover offered the best employment opportunities to those who did not mind rugged work. Real progress has been made on the dam in the past few months, and for students driving back to Hanover by way of White River Junction and for alumni taking the same route to the home football games this fall, a surprising sight is in store. Hanover residents found the dam construction a novel form of summer diversion, and made good use of the special parking area and roadside grandstand provided for spectators by the electric power company.
