<p>Hi! I'm seriously considering about applying to Dartmouth but I'm pretty worried about the gay scene. Is it gay friendly? How big is the gay dating pool? I've also heard that dartmouth's greek life is a pretty HUGE factor in the social scene, will I have any trouble joining a frat for being gay? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>[TheDartmouth.com:</a> GLBT students voice mixed views of frats](<a href=“http://thedartmouth.com/2008/04/02/news/glbt]TheDartmouth.com:”>http://thedartmouth.com/2008/04/02/news/glbt)</p>
<p>Dartmouth churns out economic tories for sure. But they’re quite socially liberal in my opinion. It’s New Hampshire so the gay dating scene isn’t going to be astounding, but the bigger cities are close enough that this should not be prohibitively oppressing.</p>
<p>I’ve run into several LGBT Dartmouth alums. All of them absolutely LOVED their time there and felt very comfortable. Some were in Greek life, and some were athletes. I think you’d be fine.</p>
<p>You may want to consider Penn and Duke as well, both of which have a good mix of academics and social life and are extremely gay-friendly.</p>
<p>Thank you guys! That’s makes me feel much better!!</p>
<p>Athough am certain that the Dartmouth student body and administration is accepting of, and welcoming to, gay students, I think options will be lacking. Dartmouth has fewer than 6,000 students and Hanover fewer than 15,000 residents. One would be better off going to a larger university in a larger town.</p>
<p>If you’re interested in Greek Life in particular, then I’m sure Dartmouth is more open and friendly than a big state school in the Midwest or the South. However, if you want to be independent and have as wide of a gay friend and dating pool as possible, you want to go to a big college in a lively college town or a cosmopolitan city. If you’re Dartmouth caliber academically, some schools to consider include NYU, UCLA, USC, Cal, Boston College, Columbia and Northwestern.</p>
<p>I second warblersrule’s recommendation of Penn, as would some other significant sources:</p>
<p>[The</a> Daily Pennsylvanian :: Penn tops gay-friendly ranking](<a href=“http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2011/07/penn_tops_gayfriendly_ranking]The”>Penn tops gay-friendly ranking | The Daily Pennsylvanian)</p>
<p>
My thoughts on the matter are divided, hence why I recommended a couple of similar universities in my earlier post. On the one hand, gay students are attracted to Dartmouth for all the same reasons straight students are – the cohesive student body, the beautiful rural campus, the focus on liberal arts, etc. For some gay students, wanting a small rural college like Williams may well trump limited dating opportunities, and a school like Berkeley would simply not be an option. Recommending colleges merely because they’re in a large city, as goldenboy seemed to (Columbia? really?), trivializes other very important factors in the college selection process. I’m gay but would take a college like Bowdoin or Haverford over UCLA or NYU any day. Admittedly, the US has enough colleges that I think slightly larger or slightly more urban versions of Dartmouth are available.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it is true that small colleges often run the risk of being accepting but having insufficient critical mass. I have criticized LACs for this before. After all, typically only 50% of a college is male (40% at some), and only about 10% of those at a typical top college are gay or bisexual (Yale is something of an outlier at 20%). About 5% of the total student body would therefore be viable options for a gay male – at Dartmouth, around 200 guys. When one factors in that many of these are closeted or in relationships, the figures don’t look that great. Size is not everything, of course; the Ivy with by far the most complaints about a limited gay dating pool is oddly enough the much larger Cornell. Personally, I’d say Dartmouth is just barely big enough to be a viable option for an LGB student. Others wanting more options may differ.</p>
<p>I think the best option for the OP is to go straight to the source and talk to people at Dartmouth, either through the [LGBT</a> advisor](<a href=“Home | Office of Pluralism and Leadership”>Home | Office of Pluralism and Leadership) or the [gay-straight</a> alliance](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gsa/]gay-straight”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gsa/).</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I have a good friend who is gay and attends Dartmouth. He is in a fraternity and loves it.</p>
<p>Campus Pride’s Campus Climate Index gives Dartmouth its highest LGBT-friendly rating, 5 stars (out of 5). Others in that group: American, Amherst, Carleton, Emory, Humboldt State, Indiana U, Ithaca College, Michigan, MIT, Oberlin, Ohio State, Oregon, Oregon State, Penn, Penn State, Princeton, San Diego State, Southern Oregon, Stanford, Syracuse, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, UC-Riverside, UC-Santa Barbara, UC-Santa Cruz, University of Maine-Farmington, UMass-Amherst, USC, U Vermont, U Washington, Whitman, WUSTL. Fourteen of these are on the West Coast, 12 in the Northeast, 6 in the Midwest, and only 1 (Emory) in the South.</p>
<p>Most of these are either large (the public universities and a few of the privates), or small but in close proximity to other and/or larger schools (e.g. Amherst, Ithaca College), or in major gay-friendly population centers. Only a few are as small and isolated as Dartmouth; Whitman also fits that category, I suppose, and is even smaller. Carleton is small and a bit isolated but it shares the town of Northfield with the somewhat larger St. Olaf and is about a 40-minute drive south of Minneapolis which The Advocate recently named the most gay-friendly city in the U.S. Oberlin is small and a bit isolated but about a 40-minute drive from Cleveland which The Advocate somewhat surprising named the 12th-most gay-friendly city in the nation, one spot behind San Francisco.</p>
<p>From this I’d gather that Dartmouth is LGBT-friendly but as others have suggested, the LGBT dating pool might be rather smaller than at other, comparably gay-friendly colleges and universities.</p>