1956

The freshmen start off their college careers each fall as a class unit rather than as the group of individuals they will gradually become in the College consciousness. If one wants to know what the newest Dartmouth class is like, and this seems to be a perennial sort of curiosity, it is necessary to fall back on statistical delineation. Fortunately, the Committee on Admission and the Freshman Year comes through each fall with a sprightly report that provides just the facts and figures needed for such a characterization. We pass along some of the highlights of the latest committee report, distributed to the faculty last month.

In general, the Class of 1956 is "very closely similar" to the two previous entering classes. All its members were required, as a new admissions rule, to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test of the College Entrance Examination Board; but this failed to make any appreciable change in the admissions system or to have any adverse effect, as some thought it might, on the number, quality or sources of applications. In the first year of the new requirement, the proportion of freshmen entering directly from high schools reached a new high of 63%, and that would seem to supply a conclusive answer to the question of whether the College Boards would scare off or work to the disadvantage of high school applicants.

The Class of 1956, numbering 745 (second in size only to the 760 freshmen of last year), was selected from 3,730 men who made preliminary applications and 2,465 who carried their applications through to completion. This preliminary total was 200 higher than for the year before and the completed figure was 150 higher.

The number of applications for scholarship aid was vastly increased, with the result that 290 men selected for admission had their scholarship applications denied, compared with 199 the year before. A good part of 1956's attrition over the summer was among this group, containing many fine applicants.

The academic qualifications of 1956 are a whisker below those of 1955. The present freshman class includes 27 men who stood No. 1 in their secondary school classes. Ranked in the top tenth were 50.6%, in the top quarter 61.6%, and in the top half 86.8%.

The 449 different secondary schools represented in the freshman class are a newrecord number. The record proportion of men from public schools, 63% compared with 60% last year, is a resumption of this trend after a two-year leveling off. Before World War II the public and private schools were about equally represented in Dartmouth's entering classes, but since the war the public school representation has steadily climbed.

Schools with six or more men in the Class of 1956 are New Trier High School, Winnetka, Ill., top with 14 men; Deerfield Academy, a close second with 13; Vermont Academy; Scarsdale (N. Y.) High School; Choate School; Ramsey (N. J.) High School; Lawrenceville School; Phillips Academy, Andover; Hanover High School: Kimball Union Academy; Plainfield (N. J.) High School; South High School, Denver: and Taft School.

A total of 37 states are represented in the freshman class. In common with other Eastern private colleges and schools, Dartmouth has been experiencing an enrollment shift from the New England to the Middle Atlantic states. The latter section has provided 46.1% of this year's entering class, compared with 43.8% last year and 39.9% the year before that. New England in the last three classes has dropped from 33.2% to 26.9%. The Middle West, Far West and South fluctuate within a very narrow range from year to year.

Eighteen foreign students were admitted to Dartmouth this fall, 11 in the freshman class and seven temporarily unclassified pending assignment to advanced standing. The new foreign students come from Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, China, Austria, Norway and Latvia.

On the side of extracurricular prominence in secondary school, the Class of 1956 bests last year's freshmen with 115 class presidents to 92. It also contains 56 presidents of student councils, go newspaper, yearbook and magazine editors, and 91 others who headed glee club, dramatic, musical and debating organizations. Hundreds of '56ers were engaged in these activities before coming to Dartmouth.

Figures about the athletic prowess of the freshmen are a bit misleading because of duplications, but as announced by the Committee on Admission and the Freshman Year, 1956 garnered 940 varsity letters in 23 school sports, ranging all the way from tumbling and bicycle racing to football, in which 244 letters were won. Captains and co-captains numbered: football 46, basketball 39, track 18, baseball 13 and tennis 13. The class also managed 101 teams.

The average age of the entering '56er was 18 years, two months —one month younger than '55. The colleges of parents were tabulated this year, for the first time since the Class of 1939. During this 17-year period the proportion of fathers who attended college increased from 51% to 70%, and of college-educated mothers from 22% to 49%. After Dartmouth, the colleges most numerously attended by '56 fathers are Columbia (15), Harvard (15), Illinois (15), Michigan (15), and Pennsylvania (15). The mothers' colleges are led by Smith (22), Wellesley (14), Columbia (11), N. Y. U. (9), Northwestern (9) and Vassar (9).

The fathers of '56 men are engaged approximately two-thirds in business and one-third in the professions. Only eight are in agriculture. Of the professional fathers, 25% are in the law and judiciary, 24% in medical callings, 16% in education, and 14% in engineering.