I was on the Dartmouth website and it seemed to emphasize the “green” aspect a lot. It had a lot of pride for the outing club and the sustainability projects. I was wondering if this was all as good as it is said to be on the website?
I like the idea of students that are more attuned to outside activities, but I also know that you can’t trust everything on the college websites. I would love to visit, but unfortunately, I’m an international student a little too far away to simply drop everything and visit colleges.
Could someone tell me what the atmosphere of Dartmouth is like in regards to its natural surroundings? How would it compare to other schools? Are Dartmouth students more or less active/outdoorsy compared to their peers? (I know some people will deviate from the norm, but as a whole, what’s the atmosphere like?)
I would say that most Dartmouth students and alums enjoy the outdoors. The Dartmouth Outing Club has 1500 members and is the most popular club by far. The Connecticut River is at the bottom of the hill and through the Ledyard Canoe Club, you can rent kayaks, canoes, and SUPs. In the winter, you can go downhill skiing at the Dartmouth Skiway or make the short drive to Stowe, Killington, etc. XC skiing trails are also easily accessible from campus as there are trails on the golf course. Mountain biking and road biking are also popular. There’s also the Second College Grant - 27,000 acres of woods owned by the College where you can go hiking and rent one of three cabins. It’s a bit far away though. The area is pretty much reserved only for people affiliated with Dartmouth. The DOC also has 8 other cabins for rent that are much closer to campus. As for hiking, pretty much everyone I know has climbed Mt. Moosilauke - the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge at the bottom is run by the DOC. It just reopened after having gone through some extensive renovations. If you are more social, the DOC runs regular trips that range from rock climbing to hiking to canoeing. Difficulty ranges from easy to completely nuts. If you need gear, the DOC rents out pretty much anything you can imagine as well. Are there students who don’t like the outdoors at Dartmouth? Of course. And they do just fine. But Dartmouth has a lot to offer people who love nature.
As for other colleges, I would say that among the Ivies, only Cornell can compare with its access to the gorges and Cayuga Lake…then again Cornell has about 5 times the number of students as Dartmouth, so I don’t really know what the vibe is there. I would think some of the LACs in the boonies may have outdoorsy student bodies as well…I’m thinking the Maine schools (Bowdoin/Bates/Colby), Williams, Middlebury, etc.
Thank you so much for a detailed reply! I really do appreciate it very much. I hadn’t realized just how natural the surroundings would be at Dartmouth. Thank you again!
I can’t be impartial on this because of my love for Dartmouth and my belief that there’s no more beautiful campus around, partly because of its natural surroundings. (Or as President Eisenhower said, “This is what a college campus should look like.”) So, no, the college’s marketing material isn’t exaggerating about this, and @Shrmpngrtz did a great job dealing the various outdoor opportunities. But I also had to mention Occom Pond. There’s something very special about ice skating on it in the winter and taking long walks around it in the summer–both were just magic for this California girl.
Dartmouth’s reputation for attracting outdoorsy students in a beautiful natural setting is completely justified. It contrasts sharply with other elite northeastern universities (e.g. most other Ivies, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown), which have obviously urban settings. Cornell does have a nice natural setting, but it’s a bigger school in a bigger community, and is noted for lakes, rivers, and gorges, rather than mountains.
If Dartmouth’s proximity to the mountains is attractive, then the most obvious alternatives are Williams and Middlebury, which are small New England liberal arts colleges. Williams is a particularly close match for Dartmouth in terms of selectivity and is about as close to the mountains as you can get; however, the school and community are significantly smaller than at Dartmouth, and more difficult to travel to (no regional airport, train service, or interstate highways, all of which exist in the Hanover area).
Dartmouth is pretty outdoorsy and the campus is beautifully integrated into nature: it is surrounded by Hanover (a tiny New England town), a river, and a golfing course / forest.
If you love nature and seek a world class education as well as THE best alumni network in the world, the best professors that actually teach, and the most amazing and caring classmates, definitely look into Dartmouth more. Schools like Amherst and Williams are also good options, but Dartmouth is the king of the liberal arts colleges. I’m an international student too btw (no I’m not Canadian), so hit me up with any questions you have. I’d love to answer them more objectively than my attempt here
