<p>^Not what my current student reports. He gets comments on his high end car. And while there are of course many wealthy kids at Dartmouth, he finds keeping in mind that many have limited funds important. He went to a HS where pretty much everyone was wealthy. Now he realizes he needs to be sensitive because many of his friends can’t afford a ticket to go somewhere for spring break, visit him across Country or travel following a study abroad.</p>
<p>I’d highly recommend it. You will commonly hear “don’t have a car, have a friend with a car” but that will not get you to where you want/need to go when you want/need to go there. Vandalism to my knowledge is not a big problem, although a few years ago there was a rash of out-of-state license plate thefts in A-lot. Parking at frats is MUCH more expensive than A-lot, but may be worth it.</p>
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<p>In my experience, the vast majority of the student body was VERY wealthy. Most students could afford the kind of trips that you mention (and I’m including study abroads when I say that, because even taking tuition out of consideration since it could conceivably be covered by financial aid, study abroads are very pricey due to the high cost of living (which students are for the most part expected to cover themselves) in most of the cities/regions in which the study abroads are held. And yet, as I’m sure you are aware, a sizable majority (>60%) of Dartmouth undergrads partake). Sure there were a few students from poor families, kids that needed to work to support their families (as opposed to working just to get some extra disposable income/beer money), but they were a tiny, tiny category. Look at it this way. 50% of Dartmouth undergrads are on some sort of financial aid. That means 50% aren’t - half of Dartmouth students come from families that can afford to plunk down 50K+ plus year. On top of that, the 50% financial aid figure includes students getting nominal packages (i.e. $1,000 unsubsidized Stafford loan-type packages). The amount of students getting anywhere near full financial aid is much smaller than the literature would have you believe. This isn’t just the case at Dartmouth, of course, a lot of the top school are like that. I can, however, personally attest to this fact being true at Dartmouth based on empirical observation (of dress, traveling habits, etc.).</p>
<p>And I also went to a prep school where nearly everyone was super rich, so I too have a strong basis for comparison.</p>
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<p>In fact, financial aid covers (at least at homestays) housing and two meals a day on study abroad terms. Students and their families do have to cover their airfare and spending money, which might include some things not normally encountered in Hanover, such as local transportation to class. </p>
<p>Obviously not everyone can afford to travel around outside the program while on a term abroad, and everyone can’t do a lot of shopping and eat at pricey restaurants, but pretty much everyone ought to be able to go.</p>
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<p>Don’t know when you attended, but a quick look at the financial aid stats shows this is far from true today. These numbers are a little old, more get aid now and get more aid because of the current no loan policy, but it gives you the idea:</p>
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<p>I would generally say that students here tend to be upper-middle class. Definitely some kids from wealthy backgrounds and some from less privileged backgrounds but I would say all in all most students come from an upper-middleclass background.</p>
<p>I think it’s quite possible to have the impression that Dartmouth is mostly lower- to middle-class, depending on who you hang out with, but I would definitely say our student body is quite well off. The majority of cars I see on campus, especially parked at frats, are pretty high end – I rarely see real “college clunkers” around. It is hard to tell who is well-off and who isn’t until issues like travel, etc. come up, because the culture here does not centre around ostentatiousness, but we’re still very much a rather upper class school, at least in terms of the median student’s background.</p>
<p>As Xanatos notes, the median student is either not on financial aid at all, or receiving a nominal amount of financial aid. A substantial enough part of the student body is preppy and/or from some sort of monied background; much of the rest (including probably those around the median) are from the upper middle classes.</p>
<p>None of the official statistics contradict what Xanatos said; half the student body does not require any financial aid to attend, and a decent number of those on financial aid don’t really get a great deal of it. The mean (which is what I assume the figures refer to when they say “average”) package is obviously skewed upward because while quite a few students require full rides (or virtual full rides), the figure doesn’t take into account the fact that about half of campus has a financial aid package of zero. The median financial aid package is almost certainly much smaller than $30,000, and I’m pretty sure the median student gets little to no financial aid.</p>
<p>Xanatos may be exaggerating when he says that the vast majority of the student body is extremely wealthy (most of my friends are well off, but not dramatically so, and certainly not from old money like the Kennedys or what-have-you). But they’re certainly richer than most people I’ve previously known in my life – especially since a plurality, if not a majority, of the folks on campus can afford to drop 50k a year on college without any difficulty.</p>