I am wondering about the strength of Dartmouth’s computer science program. Does it rival that of Yale, Stanford at the undergraduate level? I know it is not known for it, but I also realize that it does not have a large graduate school so it would not be known for it. If the program is not strong, is it rare for students to take transfer terms at a stronger institution for computer science? I really like the school for its setting, sense of community and laid back intellectual vibe and I could see myself loving it, I just worry that going there would be at the expense of my passion for computer science. FYI I am not accepted, or considering enrollment at the last moment, it is more a preemptive strike in my consideration for applying early decision. I also know that there is an old post from 11 years ago, but I want a more updated opinion.
@cookiemonsterman First of all Stanford CS is way better than Yale so these two are not peers for CS (and STEM in general).
Amongst the ivies , Cornell and Princeton have the best CS by far . The schools that follow are pretty equivalent for undergrad CS: Columbia, Harvard, Penn, Brown, Yale. Dartmouth is significantly behind. Of course Stanford is miles ahead of all the ivies in CS. So Dartmouth is definitely not a rival of Stanford at the undergrad or grad level for CS and not really of Yale either but it is def more comparable to Yale than Stanford.
OP, You might find this article interesting: http://www.dartblog.com/data/2016/03/012517.php
My son, a '19, has decided to be a math and CS double major at Dartmouth. Honestly if he had known before college application season that he wanted to major in CS, he might have made a different choice of school. But since he didn’t know that beforehand, and since he is happy and doing well at Dartmouth and really enjoying his CS classes, he is going to hang in there. I read another article somewhere that Tom Cormen, who literally wrote the book on algorithms, is doing a great job at Dartmouth building the department, so it’s on its way up for sure!
Quora question: “Does Thomas Cormen encourage students who want to study computer science and be programmers to apply for Dartmouth?”
Answer: “You know that I’m going to say yes! We have excellent undergraduate and graduate programs in Computer Science. You should note, however, that our undergraduate curriculum is a liberal-arts curriculum and not, say, an engineering curriculum. If you’re a Computer Science major at Dartmouth, you’ll learn a lot more than just CS. You might also realize that many career options exist for talented CS majors other than programming.”
My son had Cormen for his intro course, believe it or not, and that is what sold him on the major!
D had Cormen as well. Fall 2009, her first term. Not interested in CS, but she wanted to get her lab requirement out of the way, and it was something she had never studied. Had to work her butt off but got a B, which was better than I had expected, and I was the one who told her that college was a place for trying new things, so I was not going to freak over a C (although I didn’t tell her that until later …)