VOTE CHANGE IN DARTMOUTH ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

A change in the usual admission requirements to Dartmouth College was voted at a recent meeting of the faculty. Beginning with the year 1921-22, any student from an approved school, graduating with an average in scholarship for the four years of his school course which places him in the first quarter of his class, and offering three units of English and one-half unit of mathematics among his list of subjects, may be admitted to the college without conditions.

Pres. Hopkins' Statement.

President Ernest N. Hopkins has explained this vote as follows:

"The requirements for entrance to the American college have long been subject to criticism as so mechanical and formal as in many cases to exclude the men with capacity for superior intellectual accomplishment, while admitting the men of less potential ability but with a record of more precise conformity to technical routine.

"The natural results of such procedure have been that the men who late in his preliminary school course has acquired ambition for a college education, and who unquestionably would have been able to do work of distinctive merit in college, has found admission to the college of his choice disproportionately difficult, if not impossible.

Responsibility is College's.

"It is recognized that there is a constant demand upon the American college to improve the intellectual quality of its accomplishment, but responsibility for meeting it cannot well be transferred to the already heavy burden which rests upon secondary or preparatory schools of the country. This responsibility logically rests upon the college through, securing increased effectiveness in its own work, and this responsibility Dartmouth stands ready to assume.

"The evidence in hand indicates that in the great majority of cases the man who shows marked ability in his school work preparatory to college demonstrates like ability in his college work. It is to such men in approved schools that Dartmouth would offer a simplified procedure for qualifying for entrance to the college. It is this group, further, that Dartmouth would definitely assure admission under circumstances in which, of necessity, the college can admit but a decreasing proportion of those who apply for enrolment in its student body.

Opportunity for Qualified Men.

"The policy does not permit the graduation of a man from college lacking any of the requirements before held to in the combination of preparatory school work and college course, but its does offer to the qualified men who offer the required quantity of work that the exact prerequisites which may be lacking will be compensated for in the opportunity of the undergraduate work. In other words, the college will assume responsibility for the quantity and scope of the candidate's preparatory work so long as the quality of this work is guaranteed:

"1--In that the man shall come from a school of properly certified grade.

"2--In that he shall have qualified for graduation from that school after a full four-years' course.

"3--In that he shall have consistently ranked in the first quarter of his class.

"For men of such proved ability at the time of entrance only the minimum of specific prerequisites is to be required."