<pre><code> My daughter and her friends had four wonderful years. Her education has been stellar, her opportunities limitless,her friendships life-enhancing, and her career path developed. My husband and I will miss the visits to the beautiful campus; the acapella shows; visits to the art museum; and the knowledge that our daughter is safe and secure at a second home where many people care about her.
As we reflect on our daughter's four years at Dartmouth, the word that comes to mind is GENEROSITY. From the moment she arrived on campus, there were people (with funny clothes on and dyed hair) to greet her. Orientation trips were carefully planned to orient her and her peers with humor, tradition, and the enormous generosity of meticulous planning. From her arrival, she found many generous and interesting people to join her in studying, exploring, exercising, relaxing, and supporting one another. I think that Admissions does a terrific job of choosing, bright, nice, interesting, generous students.Our daughter's friends are from all over, of different backgrounds, religions and interests, but all wonderful people.
Dartmouth is repeatedly rated number one in undergraduate teaching for a reason. Whenever our daughter needed help, her professors took the time to meet with her. They were generous in giving of themselves, as were TAs and classmates who studied and reviewed with her. Her peers shared notes and cared for each other. There were endless opportunities to travel abroad, to work in labs, to earn money as a tutor, an intern, or a notetaker. To deepen knowledge in her major, and to learn completely new things. She was lucky enough to work in a lab and also in a prison, the latter through a women and gender studies class. She volunteered with autistic children, and with Alzheimer's patients. Our extended family is shocked and pleased that no less than five professors joined us at her graduation dinner. She has even received Dartmouth grants to support her volunteer efforts post-graduation.
Our daughter's professors and advisors went beyond the call of duty in a manner so superb it is hard to imagine better. Everyone from deans to housekeepers in the dorms to nurses in Dick's House were available and kind. Of course, my daughter has engaged others generously herself, worked very hard, and taken advantage of the many opportunities available. Yet there were far too many opportunities offered for her to participate in them all.
This may sound like the one-sidedness of a sentimental mother of a recent grad, and it is. Still, I am not naive to some things that could be improved, or the fact that others have different experiences. However, I am deeply grateful for a president, trustees, administrators, and faculty who care and move toward improvement while trying to preserve the best of this generous place.
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<p>I’m thrilled that your daughter had such a positive experience, and my D had the very same. I agree 100% with your post!</p>
<p>Our daughter had a similar experience. I often called it intellectual DisneyWorld. Dartmouth is a very special place. Wonderful education, great students and profs and a beautiful location. A great way to spend 4 years.</p>
<p>I’m right there with you all. Our daughter had nothing, NOTHING, but positive experiences during her four years at Dartmouth, and though ready to greet the future, she was so sad to leave. She was greeted with joy from the outset and then greeted others in return by participating in orientation and trips, ski patrol, her sorority, senior society, hikes, club teams, etc. Despite its small community, she reveled in meeting new people every term, because of (or in spite of!) the D Plan. She had amazing intern opportunities and traveled to India with a class. She knows that Dartmouth isn’t perfect, or perfect for everyone, but it was for her. We loved visiting; my husband and I would retire to Hanover in a heartbeat if it wasn’t so expensive!</p>
<p>PS Funny story: Our D and I visited Dartmouth the summer before her junior year of high school. We hated it. There were hundreds of people at the info session. The admissions person running the session was, in our opinion, terrible and had a tough time selling the school. The tour was crowded. My daughter stated in the car on the way home that that was one less school to apply to. Fast forward a couple of months. D insisted upon revisiting Dartmouth. She had done a lot of research and visited several forums (including CC!) and said that something must have been wrong with our first visit: all signs pointed to Dartmouth being the perfect school for her because of location, sense of community, non-competitiveness amongst students, etc. So against my better judgment (you can’t visit every school twice!!!) we tried again and fell in love. Applied and accepted ED. The rest is history!</p>
<p>Love the stories. D spent many weeks of her rising hish school junior summer in Hanover at the debate workshops. Was convinced she could not stand 4 years after that experience. Guess where she had a great 4 years …</p>
<p>OK so this thread about Daughters at Dartmouth was going on while I was on the road moving S from Dartmouth to the West Coast. But I have a D story. My D only spent a year there getting her MPH but was excited about it because S was having such a great experience. She loved it and met some lifelong friends there. In fact she insisted on flying to Hanover for graduation last month even though it was a 10,000 mile weekend trip just to catch up with friends and spend time in Hanover. Go figure. We did not expect to be a Big Green family even after the High School visit 7 years ago, but here we are. So prospies, whatever negatives you read, or whatever naysayers may preach, rest assured, you can have a great experience there. Miss it already.</p>