A Prospective Student's Question?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Dartmouth College
1

So just today I got into Dartmouth via waiting list (so hyped right now!) and I have some questions about its college life:

  1. I heard and know the location is rural, but how rural is it? Like, is it difficult to go to the cinemas on Friday nights? Can we hang out at malls, if any, on weekends? Are there streets of stores of any kind outside of campus?

  2. Do Dartmouth students do road trips on weekends/holidays? Going down to Boston/New York? What kind of recreational fun do they have aside from Greek life?

  3. Generally, what is your take on Dartmouth’s college life? Is it dull like some haters say? Does the winter suck?

  4. I don’t live in the States but in my country, the only people who have ever heard of the name Dartmouth are either educators or Americans themselves. In the US, does Dartmouth have a good reputation? Do a lotta people know about it?

  5. Going to Dartmouth means I have to give up UCLA (MechE Dept.). What are you guys’ take on this?

2

  1. Rural here means Quaint New England Town, with true forests and hiking trails and mountains 15 minutes outside of town. It’s a real town, with multiple restaurants and stores and a movie theater. Plus if you have a car, a lot of chain stores like walmart are 15 minutes away in West Lebanon. I wouldn’t say people really hung out at malls there. On weekends, I had a lot of prospective students tell me “Well, I’ll just take the Dartmouth Coach bus down to Boston every weekend to get my entertainment fix”, and once they get to campus, none of them ever leave campus on weekends regularly. There’s just too much stuff to do on campus and all your friends are there, so most students just realize they’re not just staring at trees until Monday comes.
    There are clubs and events and parties and comedy shows and bingo nights and hiking and IM sports and ponds to skate on all giving you plenty to do.

  2. Most common road trip is to Boston or Montreal (both a couple hours away) although in summer people get more creative with random Maine lobster trips and in winter it might be Vermont skiing. It happens enough that it’s not a rarity, but it’s not an every weekend event because of the above comments in number 1

  3. Dartmouth knows it’s in a rural setting, so really strives to bring events to campus, and really different events. The social aspect still revolves around greek life parties, but not where you are forced to get wasted every weekend to have any fun. It just means if you want to go to a big party with your friends, it’s probably going to be a dance party at a frat. You want to drink, fine. You don’t, fine. You want to avoid fratds altogether, also fine. I never went freshmen year, and I was never bored, and although I did have to actively search for things to do without “frat party” as my Friday fallback, I was also never actually bored.
    Winter, a lot of people take as their off term. Suck is relative. I was from a town that had more snow than Dartmouth, but wasn’t as cold. Hanover winters tend to be cold and slightly windy, with occasional blizzards, but generally sunny in between those blizzards. The snow won’t really melt until March though. It’s totally fine if you have a warm coat and hat and don’t get super grumpy the second it snows. Only exception is there seems to be one week every year that gets negative windchill every day, but you plan your walks to cut through buildings and it passes.

  4. Dartmouth is extremely well known when applying for jobs, in that your interviewer will know about it. Normal everyday people you’ll find Northeasterners know about it, the further away from NH you get, the more you’ll get looks like “That sounds really familiar, where is that?” So if you’re using it to get a job, it will help. If you’re using it to name drop at a bar and show how sweet you are, it’s kinda lame and you shouldn’t be doing that anyway.

  5. Dartmouth Engineering has a bunch of threads on this. The quick summary is UCLA mEng will be more of a typical engineering major (albeit a very good one) with solid engineering principles and formulas. Dartmouth Engineering has a liberal arts spin to it where it’s geared more towards working through problems and understanding big pictures.
    So if you want to build a robot, do UCLA. If you want to manage a team of people building a robot and present your robot to investors, do Dartmouth. If you’re not sure you want to do engineering, do Dartmouth (the liberal arts slant means it’s much easier to switch majors with minimal hassle)

3

@Tank07 Thanks for your response! It really clarifies a lotta things. BTW, you mentioned winter sometimes lasts until March, but when does it start then, assuming the first sight of snow is the start of winter (feeling I’ll be living in Westeros if you know what I’m saying…)?

And about the reputation, from what you said it feels like most Northeasterners, maybe most Easterners, know about Dartmouth. How about the west coast? If I take a leave-term to intern in California, will Dartmouth’s name still work?

It seems like you are either a current or a graduated Dartmouth student. How are (or were) your four years at Dartmouth? Do you love it?

4

Winter would generally start in late October, early November. It won’t quite be Westeros in either temperature or rate of snowfall fortunately.

To clarify, pretty much every company you go to work or intern at would know about Dartmouth because they look at resumes all day and it’s their job. Additionally, Dartmouth’s alumni network is very strong nationwide so there may already be Dartmouth alums in the area willing to help out. The career services office has a whole directory of where alums are and in which companies and industries.
The folks that wouldn’t know about Dartmouth would be the everyday people you meet on the street where in say, Utah, they’d probably reply with “where?” but in New York they’d reply with “aha yes.” So really, if it matters for your career, you’re totally fine. If it matters for your ego, responses will vary.

I loved my 4 years there - that’s why I spend free time volunteering for the school in my home city as well as on here. The key part of it was that it fit me and felt like home. The reputation and academic statistics and PrincetonReview rankings and all that was all excellent, don’t get me wrong, but going to the #1 ranked school isn’t worth it to me if you don’t feel like you fit in. Go to #5 in a place that feels like your 4-year home, not school, because college is also about clubs and activities and meeting different people and trying different things and volunteering different places and growing socially and learning about the world, not just a 4.0 boarding school.

Best advice I have for you in college search as a whole is to pay attention to those rankings and stats, sure, but also learn about the school and students there, because that’s the part that will complete your college experience and prepare you for the real world. For Dartmouth specifically, see if you can go visit. A huge proportion of students I know, myself included, were totally convinced the minute they step foot on campus… that’s when something “just clicked” and it felt like their future home, not just a school on a resume.

Good luck in your search!

5

Dartmouth has a very strong & active alumni club in the Bay Area. Any professional will recognize the “brand” and respect (the latest contretemps over sex & alcohol notwithstanding). D’s first year had a little bit of snow that didn’t stick and. of course, the first huge storm came the day she left to come home for Christmas, so it was kind of late that year (before winter break started before Thanksgiving). Agree with everything Tank07 said above. Good advice.

6

@AboutTheSame What do you mean by the latest contretemps? I know that alcohol plays a big part in Dartmouth’s social and Greek life, but didn’t the principal issue a statement earlier this year strictly banning alcoholism on campus?

@Tank07 Thank you! Your advice is so helpful! Speaking of alcohol, how big of a role did it play in your four years of college?

Also, does anyone know anything about Dartmouth’s Outing Club First-Year Trips? Has anyone been to the trips before? What is the general experience of them?

7

Um. Phil is the president of the college, not the principal, so let’s start with that. If you have not read about Dartmouth and alcohol and other colleges with similar issues over the last few years, you really need to do more research, and I do not have the time to do that for you. Sorry. Phil does not have a Harry Potter magic wand. He can try to ban hard alcohol on campus (but he will not succeed, nor could anyone); I do not believe he can ban alcoholism (would that he could).

Go on a first year trip. It will be one of the defining experiences of your time at Dartmouth.

8

Alcohol for me was minimal freshman year, because I didn’t want it to be a large part. I just wasn’t into that. Sophomore-Senior year, I’d drink and play pong, but even then it wasn’t like Animal House every night. Students then, and maybe even more so with students now, didn’t have that “CHUG CHUG CHUG” peer pressure mentality. What I ran into more often was people more laidback about your drinking. “Want a drink?” “Naw, I’m good for now” “Ok.”

I think I noted either above or elsewhere on here that there are places for everyone on both ends of the spectrum. If you don’t want to drink and can’t stand being around it at all, then there are other things to do besides go to frats – you just need to actively seek them out sometimes.If you love to party, then some frats are all about that and you can easily make that a central aspect to your college career. If you’re in between like most of us, there are frats that aren’t as alcohol-centric that would fit you better, or just go unaffiliated and simply attend the parties they throw on weekends and go play a game of pong with your friends there on other nights, with alcohol or water.

Agree with AboutTheSame on Phil… not to derail the discussion, but my personal thought on this is he’s coming out overly aggressive on the policy as a response to the rising tide and sensational stories that were everywhere for a bit, then he’ll back it off when students and alums pressure him. I think some reform is needed because college kids sometimes do dumb things, but not all college kids do dumb things all the time, so some balance of personal responsibility, responsibility towards your fellow students, and college oversight is needed.

Freshmen trips should not even be a question. DO IT. You hate the outdoors? That’s ok, do some organic farming or stick a little toe outside your comfort zone and do some easy hiking or nature photography. Like to hike? Try rock climbing or canoeing next. The trips are an amazing bonus/selling point to Dartmouth as it gives you time to learn what Dartmouth is about from current students, and you’ll start off Dartmouth orientation with a pre-made package of friends to help the transition. The only thing better than going on one is leading one.

9

This is exactly my scenario. Exactly, these answers help me so much!

10

“For Dartmouth specifically, see if you can go visit. A huge proportion of students I know, myself included, were totally convinced the minute they step foot on campus… that’s when something “just clicked” and it felt like their future home, not just a school on a resume.”

I can really resonate with this. OP, I’ll be at Dartmouth this fall, and when I visited, I was positively blown away. All the dimensions weekends had been kind of dreary I’d heard, but when I was there the first week of may (made my decision late), the choice was crystal clear. I was there for 2 hours; between the first coach arriving and the last one leaving for Boston that day, and I knew it was somewhere I’d want to be for the next four years.