A legacy's lament

Fall term in Hanover is a mixed-up time for me. During the week I soon begin to suffocate under the pressure of impending papers and exams. But unlike other terms, the weekends bring hundreds of alumni flocking back to Dartmouth carrying perspectives quite removed from those of the present students. For the two days of each weekend, I find that I can loosen myself from the harried life of the student and appreciate Dartmouth from the same perspective as the alums. I see the beauty of the campus and the bonds between the people ]more clearly than is normally possible amid the distractions during the rest of the week. For me, it is easy to assume this appreciative perspective because I grew up in a Dartmouth family, and I felt the emotions and pride associated with the Dartmouth fellowship every day. I fell heir to the "Dartmouth Disease" (as George O'Connell described it in these pages three years ago) at birth. I consider the time spent as a student here only a brief remission from the disease.

As in many other Dartmouth families, bits of memorabilia from Hanover are scattered throughout our home. Our mantel is graced with a large framed drawing of Dartmouth Hall. Memories of Dartmouth people and places are among the happiest I have of growing up. Of course there were the football games and tailgate parties in the fall when we stayed with friends at their farm across the river in Vermont. In the winters we drove up and stayed at Pierce's Inn in Etna, spending a week at a time learning to ski and on the way back home driving through campus to marvel at the snow sculptures. Spring brought the excitement of reunions when fathers delighted in taking up once more their undergraduate personalities that seemed new and exciting for us kids. These things I remember from growing up in a Dartmouth family. But when I came here as a student, this place took on a whole new meaning.

There have been moments in these college years when I have wondered by what accident I slipped into Dartmouth, when I have felt tortured and helpless by the pressure placed upon me by such things as exams and papers, as well as concerns with relationships and with my place in the community. At these times I lose the sense of fellowship I grew up assuming Dartmouth would make me feel; I lose even the ability to appreciate Dartmouth's beauty.

But other times I feel like running up the steps of Dartmouth Hall (all five of them) and pumping my arms like Rocky, as a sense of euphoria surges up through me. During Freshman Week each year, or when exams are finally over, or during commencement and reunions period it has felt nearly intoxicating to be a part of the Dartmouth family.

But while being a part of Dartmouth can be (naturally) intoxicating, there are also times when it can be paralyzing. Is it healthy for legacies to spend their entire childhoods dreaming of (and later agonizing over) Dartmouth? My opinion is that it's unhealthy. For the crucial last years of high school I tried to convince myself that there were other schools besides Dartmouth, and this allowed me to spend more time doing some serious studying. I never talked about Dartmouth, and for a while I even managed not to think about the place. But there are kids out there who remain obsessed with Dartmouth right through high school. A former teacher of mine told me recently of a current high school senior brought up in a Dartmouth family. For the last year or so the student has been unable to make a move without wondering how it will affect his chances of being accepted into Dartmouth. With the distraction of that immense goal gnawing at him, paralysis is understandable.

In the admissions office they call sons and daughters of alumni "D-legs." Legacies make up 17 percent of the class of 1990. While only 57 percent of admitted applicants choose to attend Dartmouth, 80 percent of admitted legacies attend. For most legacies it appears that Dartmouth was their first choice. The high figure seems to indicate that these applicants thought they already knew the school from growing up around it. They have seen the place often and they have felt the emotions that are attached to it. But my experience has been that they end up possessing a completely different set of images and impressions as students here. A friend of mine who comes from a Dartmouth family said that when she visited Hanover as a kid it always seemed like "Dad's place." As a student in her own right, the school has become partly hers, but it has also helped her to understand her father's feelings about the place. As she said, "Coming here myself makes Dad's experience more real for me."

But by letting the green lights of Hanover blind them early, I suspect that many legacies set themselves up for great pain if the mail brings a letter of rejection. Some will refuse to attend schools equal in quality to Dartmouth (because there aren't any, right?) but will opt instead to wait a year and reapply, perhaps spending that time more paralyzed than ever in a post-graduate year at a private secondary school. I can understand that feeling.

As George O'Connell quoted an alumnus in "The Dartmouth Disease," "You spend four years trying to get out of this place and the rest of your life trying to get back." How true, except that before arriving here and trying to get out, legacies must first get in. That step of the process consumed much of my energy in high school. Having accom plished that seemingly impossible goal, I spent three years here picking up speed, moving quickly through courses and terms, excited as the number of terms completed grew ever larger. But in the last month or so my momentum has carried me screeching around a corner, and there, plainly visible, looms the end of my life as an undergraduate. Terrifying. Like some contorted cartoon character, I have frantically begun to backpedal, trying to slow down time, to make the most of these senior class moments, to solidify friendships, to absorb every detail from my few remaining courses, to do everything I have put off until the end. But every year goes by faster than the last, and before long I know that I will find my hand reaching for my checkbook, as I long for the smells and sounds of Hanover in the fall. I guess I'm one more statistic proving that this unique disease, this feeling of fellowship towards Dartmouth College, has no cure.