@luckymama64 There’s also a small airport in Lebanon. CapeAir - and possibly others - fly in/out once or twice a day.
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What colleges are similar to Dartmouth? Where else would apply if you didn’t get accepted ED?
Hey @Diaz42 ,
I personally did not choose many colleges similar to Dartmouth as often I appreciated different things about different schools, and my choices were often governed by the environmental studies programs at those schools as well. So, my choices directly after Dartmouth were Stanford and Yale.
As to colleges similar to Dartmouth, different ones are similar in different ways. Brown and Princeton, also being undergrad-focused research universities also combine a significant research presence with a strong commitment to undergrad education, meaning small class sizes and close relationships with professors, as well as research participation are much easier to come by in these schools.
Meanwhile, top LACs like Williams and Middlebury also mimic the close-knit community, somewhat isolated campus, as well as undergrad focus of Dartmouth. Dartmouth is in fact often compared to these schools due to their similar campuses and campus feels, such that Dartmouth is sometimes called the biggest, shiniest and best (though this is subjective of course) rural LAC.
I would say many people’s second choice after Dartmouth, for the majority of students for whom this was their first choice, would have been Princeton, Brown or Williams.
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Do students who attend Bound/the Indigenous Fly-In generally have higher chances of admission?
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Is Dartmouth really in the middle of nowhere? Is it hard to have an active social life? Are the people cutthroat?
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I’ve answered these questions in parts of others before, but suffice to say that the answers to your three questions are sort of, no and no respectively.
Dartmouth is in a picturesque college town in New Hampshire. There are multiple coaches per day to Boston and New York should you want to visit for a weekend, and there is a network of small towns in the vicinity to go around. Lebanon, New Hampshire, is the town where most people tend to visit to go shopping etc.
However, not being directly in a city is. a good thing to me, as it encourages people of all backgrounds to socialize with each other campus. There always loads of things happening on campus to do, from parties to guest speakers to extracurricular events and get-togethers to concerts and on-campus movie screenings. I never feel stifled, and even wish often I had more time to do these things.
It is certainly not hard to have an active social life. Most ivies, Dartmouth included are academically rigorous, but you still have more free time as you are spending far less time in class, even including the far greater workload outside of the classroom and higher expectations of the quality of that work.
Like at any top tier school, you will be working much harder in bursts than before, but most people here are still able to find time to socialize and do whatever activities they are interested in. We are not like some other elite schools where academics are the focus of their students’ lives.
As for the cutthroat, Dartmouth students are the opposite. We are a collaborative community, and work together and encourage each other rather than compete. Students here are still ambitious and high-achieving, but they set personal targets for themselves rather than deem beating other people as a marker of success.
From what I’ve seen, this kind of community is unusual for elite universities.
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I’m sure they do, but I didn’t do either or was involved with either so I’m not aware of what the exact boost to admission chances is.
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Hi, I’m reaching out to any Dartmouth students / recent grads.
Would you happen to know: How many students come in wanting to study STEM? How many leave STEM for other subjects? What are some of their reasons? I am trying to gauge if STEM is as well supported there as the social sciences / other areas. And are minority students / POC more affected by this than other groups?
Thanks.
This is a very old thread haha but I’ll answer your query. STEM is very popular here, with engineering, computer science and biology in particular being very well supported and popular. From my friends’ experience and my own they are excellent, with not only the care and attention devoted to undergraduate teaching expected from Dartmouth classes but a strong diversity of options of classes and study abroad programs that allow you to customize your learning in many ways. If you count environmental and earth sciences as STEM, then those are just as excellent. The only areas of STEM comparatively less supported is pure math, which is just alright. If you choose your professors carefully even in this department, however, you can still get a great experience out of it.
I don’t believe minority students are disadvantaged in the pursuit of STEM at Dartmouth. I am an Indian in Environmental studies, and I have found no disadvantage. There were resources and student groups available specifically to support them, and, more significantly for first generation students who need it the most. Students from these groups develop a fairly unified network to support each other, and there is funding to help their pursuits available as well.
That said, some STEM intro courses are premed prequisites, and those tend to be especially hard. Once you get past the intro courses, while the academic rigor is still high, you will get access to more personal attention and more specialized course material which you may enjoy more.
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If you are able, can you address the strength of the astronomy program? And how lgbtqia+ friendly is the campus? Do many students hold progressive political views? Thanks.
The Astronomy program is excellent! I’m not an astro major but I just took an introductory astro course this last term, which was taught by a tenured faculty member who also chairs various comittees for NASA and recently spoke to the class about the next-generation telescopes that he’s helping NASA design and hopefully eventually build. Through his NASA connections, we also were able to have as a guest lecturer one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s architects. The JWST is the successor to Hubble, so that was extraordinary. And very often when we discuss a topic in class he refers to his Dartmouth colleagues as one the two or three global experts in this field, which has been corroborated by Astro majors I know, which is awesome. We also host a great research observatory on campus, have frequent telescope stargazing nights due to the lack of light pollution here, and have an excellent foreign study program at an observatory in South Africa with a strong focus on research experience. Furthermore, if you want to work wih any of these professors in terms of research, or gain personal attention from them in class, it is much easier than it would be at most other schools due to our undergrad focus.
As for lgbtqia+, the vast, vast majority of the campus is at least socially liberal in that regard. I’ve been here for two years and I have only met one person who isn’t. A significant majority are politically liberal as well, if that matters to you. In short, being progressive is pretty common, it is not being progressive that is rare.
In addition there is a center called the Triangle House specifically forlgbtqia+ students which holds events, and also acts a social center and potential living space for students who are lgbtqia+ to explore their identity and find community. All my friends who are lgbtqia+ are really enjoying their time here.
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