Each November, students at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business host a conference designed to showcase the school’s diversity to prospective applicants. Called Divco for short, the student-run Diversity Conference has been bringing together prospective students from around the United States and the world for the past 20 years.
Tuck first-year student Ryan Golden attended Divco last year as a prospective applicant, learning enough about the school to feel like it was the right place for her. “It just showed me this is a good place to be and that if I came I’d be really well supported and have a good experience,” she said in an article about the conference on Tuck’s website. The Divco conference, held over a three-day weekend each November, provides a unique opportunity for prospective applicants from diverse backgrounds to get a feel for what the Tuck community is like. The format of the conference is designed to give attendees exposure to the school’s academic and social life, while also bringing together prospective applicants with similar backgrounds to discuss issues common to diverse candidates.
Attendees are responsible for their own travel to Hanover, but once they are on campus, meals and accommodation (with current students in residence halls) is provided. Conference days are filled with alumni speakers, panel discussions on admissions and student life and sample classes taught by Tuck faculty. Evening activities include an international party featuring food from around the world and the famous “Black Light party” on Saturday night, with music and dancing.“It was great to see the daytime Tuck and the nighttime Tuck,” Golden recalls. “I don’t think you could get a better sense of the school any other way.”
Golden co-chaired the 2013 conference with another student, Ali Bachani T’14, who also attended Divco as a prospective. They each decided to help organize the conference once they enrolled because they had such memorable experiences when they themselves attended. “I was personally touched by the program and really impressed by what the co-chairs did,” Bachani said as part of the article on the Tuck website. “So being a co-chair was a chance to give back, to show prospective students this great experience and perpetuate it for another year.”
Bachani led external marketing for Divco 2013, using posters, postcards and emails to get the word out to prospectives and the Tuck community. Golden served on the registration committee, spoke at a welcoming gathering and as part of a panel discussion, hosted a student and put on a small group lunch. “I tried to be as active as possible,” she said. “I wanted to make sure the attendees left with no questions and had a good understanding of Tuck.”
Golden and Bachani both say that Divco was the event that made Tuck their first choice for business school. Plans are already underway for the 2014 Tuck Diversity Conference, which will take place from November 6th through 9th.
