Tuck (Dartmouth): Class of 2017 - Calling All Applicants!

Nice work. I will hopefully be applying EA and couldn't be more excited.

Can I ask what you used to create the plot chart with GPA/GMAT and admit color? It does an excellent job visualizing the trending.

Eric

Thanks! Looks like the wheelhouse for admission is in that 740 range or so. I certainly have my work cut out for me.

Best of luck in your reapplication; your work on these forums is really appreciated - the 2016 version of this thread has been a great resource for me.

Sure - it'll be a novel but I'll give it my best shot.

Although I scheduled my visit well in advance and live in Boston, I decided the day before that I would drive up that night and stay at a local hotel, rather than make the trek in the morning. I arrived at the Harwich Inn, which is in Vermont and across the Connecticut River from Tuck, around 8pm. I spent most of the evening looking through their various course offerings and studying from the Advanced Quant MGMAT book. I was so excited that I could hardly sleep and was suddenly really happy that I had decided to get the room for the night.

That morning, I woke up at about 5am and decided that I would study at the local Starbucks for a few hours prior to my visit, which started at 10:30. Most all of the people that I encountered seemed to either be students or teachers; certainly a great small college town vibe. Around 9, I decided that I would take a drive around the town and campus and get a feel for the area. The campus seems to be built directly ontop of the large grass square in Hanover center. There's an enormous white colonial Dartmouth building with black shutters that sits up on a grass hill over-looking the square. It is seared in my mind: . The rest of the center is lined with impressive brick buildings. I was very surprised with the size of the campus, it was much larger and more grand than I had expected. The parking is terrible; don't be fooled by the map, you basically have to park illegally or park in a large lot about a half mile from Tuck and take a bus.

After the cruise around campus, I decided to take a drive down some side streets as I was bored and didn't want to arrive too early. The road towards the country club is lined with very nice houses with rolling front lawns and nice porches. The course itself seemed a little shoddy, but the actual layout and location of it were really awesome. Seemed very beginner friendly, although it's hard to say without getting out of my car. I felt for some of the other Tuck visitors because they didn't have cars, my drive around campus and the surrounding area was as much of a selling point to me as the experience at Tuck itself.

The visitation itself started with me trying to find the Admissions office, which is on an upper floor an older wing which seems reserved for administrative offices. There were two girls manning desks in the admissions office, both of which were very friendly and one of which was drinking coffee out of a goofy owl mug. I was escorted to a waiting room across the hall which soon began to fill with people. My group ended up being two more folks from the Boston area, two folks from India with their wives, one from Toronto, one from NYC and one from Japan. Their careers spanned Investment Banking, Corporate Finance, Consulting, Investment Management, and one who worked for a media company in New York. All were various degrees of pleasant. We also had a few folks from the undergraduate program who were fairly quiet. I received the impression that our group was quite large, so I think in general the visits were probably normally closer to 5 rather than the 10 that we had. Once it was time to head out, they had a first year that escorted each of us separately to the class and afterwards back towards the room where we ate.

My student escort spoke with me about whatever I liked, it was very casual and informal as mentioned earlier. The visitors all sat in the back of the class and each had to give a brief description of where we worked and what we did. We were told that the visit was observational only, and that we were not to ask questions. The classroom was a decent sized lecture hall with pretty nice chairs and a large window that looked out to a forest of thin evergreen trees swaying in the distance. After class, we were taken to a private room where a small lunch was available to us.

During lunch, we said goodbye to our escorts and had a first year and second year sit with us at a small table and answer any questions we had. Very easy going and relaxing lunch. I think our group may have been a little large for what it was meant to be, but it was still really cool. I could see through a window behind one of the speakers a courtyard with nice tables where there were some students doing work. Everything in Tuck's MBA complex is expertly interwoven.

One thing I noticed was that everyone really did seem very friendly and engaged with one another. There was definitely a feeling that nobody was left out, even as part of the visitation group, you sort of felt sucked in. During our tour following the lunch, we actually had some second years pretending to inconspicuously follow the guide as a joke. Seemed very much par for the course. I was really struck by how nice the actual building was. Unlike the heartless monolith that was MIT MBA building, Tuck felt like it was constructed by artists rather than engineers. The corridors were wood paneled and each section of the interconnected building had its own slightly different but very cozy and friendly style. There must have been 30 or 40 different private study rooms for the MBA's to work in, and there were also several different distinct areas that one could relax in with some peace and quiet. A large main room with a wide stone and slate fireplace sits right ontop of the forest. The below picture is a bit of a mess, but gives you a good idea of the layout:


After the tour, we were escorted back to the admissions office where Amy Mitson answered our questions for as long as we pleased. She confirmed that the MIM program is on hold due to the Dean stepping down and not wanting the replacement to walk into a program in flux. She was very encouraging of all visitors to try to put forward their best applications and gave us tips and advice as to how to do so. They really seemed to be pulling for each of us.

Overall, Tuck lived up to my extremely high expectations. Although it is probably too late to do any more class visits prior to next fall, I hope my post can impart some of the vibe that I got from the visit.

Regards,

Eric

Domotron was nice enough to do a write up on his experience becoming a T '16!
Check it out above or click this link: tuck-dartmouth-class-of-2017-calling-all-applicants-171360.html#p1365152