<p>I made this thread already in the dartmouth forum but want to hear the other opinion. I'm leaning toward dartmouth right now because of its more normal student body, flexible academic planning, greater personal attention. I would appreciate any info about Harvard's student body since that may be the deciding factor. Pluses for Harvard so far include location, lots more course options in the classics (I'm planning on classics/econ as a pre law ) and more extracurriculars I like, I.e. competitive ballroom dance team and tae kwon do team</p>
<p>Well, in addition to Harvard and Yale being indisputably the most highly-regarded undergraduate institutions in this country, both Harvard and Yale are home to premiere Classics and Economics departments and both Harvard College and Yale College alumni receive substantial admission preference from Yale Law School and Harvard Law School, the premiere law schools of this country, and, arguably, the only two law schools worth risking $225,000+ to attend in this day and age.</p>
<p>Student body wise, Yale students seem to be the most friendly kids you will meet. They are surprisingly all cheerful there and I think that is because the residential college system fosters the growth of a family like bond. Harvard kids are pretty friendly too and the city, I believe, helps to keep the kids pretty happy there. And like in all colleges, the student body of both Yale and Harvard is so diverse in personality, ethnicity, and opinions that you will always find someone you fit best with. Dartmouth is exactly the same way, expect I believe it is a little bit more isolated than Yale and harvard. Wherever you fit in best though, is where you should go! Good luck in your decisions, there is no losing. </p>
<p>However, there is varying degrees of winning (as Charlie Sheen would say) and that all depends on you. :)</p>
<p>S at Dartmouth, D at Harvard. The campuses are very different and sometimes S wishes he could be closer to a city. D loves visiting him in the country. The education is excellent at both schools (and possibly Yale too ) but opportunities may be more abundant at Harvard. I’d go with the school that offers the extracurriculars you enjoy. S loves concerts and didn’t think about how far he would be from venues.</p>
<p>I’m very surprised that you would bring up that article when the general consensus is that those allegations by lohse are false. I’ve done my research on Greek life and am well aware of the positives and negatives as they pertain to dartmouth. </p>
<p>^^Many of Lohse’s allegations have been shown to be either exaggerated or simply false, causing all charges arising from his allegations to be dismissed:</p>
<p>IMO, the most preposterous of Lohse’s charges is that DOC trips are a form of hazing. That’s total nonsense. That’s the exact equivalent of saying that Harvard’s FOP trips are a form of hazing.</p>
<p>Whether the dismissal of charges, Lohse’s ludicrous inclusion of DOC trips as part of the problem, and other holes in his story constitutes a “general consensus” is another question. </p>
<p>All that said, speaking as both a Dartmouth parent and a Harvard parent, I would be happier if the frats weren’t so socially dominant on the Dartmouth campus. Dartmouth is not unique in that by any means, but the typical frat/Greek trifecta of hazing, underage & binge drinking, and occasional sexual assaults are often going to be recurrent problems on any campus where Greeks dominate the social scene. </p>
<p>I know, I know, Final clubs are just as bad, blah, blah, blah. And they ARE just as bad. Maybe worse. But Final clubs and the few Greek frats at Harvard make up a much smaller part of the over campus scene at Harvard than the frats do at Dartmouth. You can completely ignore the Final clubs and frats for your entire four years at Harvard and still have a vibrant and varied social life - usually centered around your House. That’s much harder to achieve at Dartmouth. And that respect I wish Dartmouth were a lot more like Harvard.</p>
<p>Eh. I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Maybe my expectations were calibrated by one too many SHOCK AND HORROR article or movie or whatever about them, but they’re not that bad. (As a female guest, not an initiate. Although their initiations seem to involve as much “lol let’s take the pledges [sober] skydiving” as drunken escapades I am obviously not privy to.)</p>
<p>I don’t go very often (any more), but I don’t think final clubs are more dangerous than a typical frat at a typical school. If anything, I’d guess a bit less. More obnoxious, given the amount of money they have–sure, absolutely. More dangerous? I can’t speak with any authority because I neither have nor know of statistics to this effect, but as a woman, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Harvard women do have to be careful, of course, but I haven’t even heard of very many close calls. The last time I saw a girl get into a potentially unhappy situation–she was very drunk and looked to be (willingly) leaving with a boy who was rumored to be sketch–word went up that this was happening and literally six people, 2 women and 4 men, including the club’s president, went charging to intervene. (The main thrust of her response: “no, I was not going to have sex with him!!! I just was happily making out. And not leaving with him.” One of her friends then got her home.) The Ivy I have most friends at is Brown and, while I don’t wanna hate and again have not one statistic on this subject, I had a friend visit two months into freshman fall. We went to one of the “lower rent” final clubs. She was very drunk and found herself a dance partner. She also dropped her phone. Calling it, I found the phone. I could no longer find her on the dance floor. Obviously, I was like **** **** **** *<strong><em>ing *</em></strong>. So I ran around that club for like half an hour looking for her. At the end of that half an hour, I get a call from one of my roommates. “Hi, it’s friendfromBrown,” she said. “He walked me back to your room–which was great because I had forgotten where it was. Dropped me off and made sure I was okay. WOW” and I left. Next morning, I asked why “WOW” “Oh, because people have roofied me twice at Brown. Well, the second time it didn’t really work, but yeah I was not expecting a random guy at a party to be nice.” Me: “TWICE, FRIEND???” and then that was a conversation.</p>
<p>But basically, Harvard’s final clubs, while they may be bad–havens of safety and light they ain’t–are not the dens of sketch and evil they’re sometimes seen as in popular media (and that I was therefore expecting when I reached campus.) My knowledge of what a “regular” frat at a regular school is like is limited, but I doubt they’re an order of magnitude safer.</p>
<p>There are some d-bag types in the final clubs, and there are some not-so-great people NOT in one. Likewise, there are some really nice/awesome/chill people who are club members and plenty of great people not into that scene. I don’t know why anyone else would think otherwise.</p>
<p>Which I think is true of social organizations/not most any place, Dartmouth included. Some people tend to think Harvard’s final clubs are somehow different because they have a different name–or at least I did when I was a prefrosh. Maybe I was extra silly, but I don’t think it’s that uncommon a view. At least during “The Social Network” season every relative I spoke to was like OMG IS IT REALLY THAT CRAZY AND MESSED UP [although possibly I have more puritanical relatives than most, hem.]</p>
<p>Yeah. People tend to develop idealized (good or bad) conceptions of any group/organization/type which they view from the outside. It’s especially easy when they’re organizations associated with a place like Harvard. People have the same attitude towards Yale senior societies, the Princeton eating clubs, and so on. Seriously. They’re just a bunch of social organizations comprised of people. They have resources that lots of other orgs at newer/younger schools do not have (much like the fact that some of the Ivys have super swanky alum clue houses in NYC), party because of the age of the schools. But they’re at their core, not all that different than any other social org at other schools. And to be fair, most of the members are normal people, normal kids not much different than everyone else. But people sometimes do stupid/not so awesome things…but when it’s at Harvard (or Dartmouth), it’s often made out to be much worse than if the same thing happened elsewhere.</p>
<p>“You can completely ignore the Final clubs and frats for your entire four years at Harvard and still have a vibrant and varied social life - usually centered around your House. That’s much harder to achieve at Dartmouth.”</p>
<p>This is the rub, for me. Of course, some folks will see this difference as a plus for Dartmouth rather than for Harvard.</p>
<p>Texas is right, Yale really likes their own college grads. I can’t say this about HLS however. I know one person who did Harvard Law after the College, and one who did College > HBS.</p>
<p>If you go to Dartmouth, you will be in the <5% or so who choose Dartmouth over Harvard. Not that this is a bad thing. If you’re really humble and truly don’t care about elitism (I applaud you endlessly if this is true), then Dartmouth has allot to offer that Harvard doesn’t. However, most of the time people pick which is most prestigious, since this is what seemingly only matters in this day and age.</p>
<p>As far as education quality, all schools, from Harvard to UMass, are nearly identical - absolutely serious. The difference between Harvard and most, minus the elitism, is that it’s a dominate community of people who enjoy taking in knowledge all day long. It is also diverse, however almost all have this academic trait. Academics are academics…nothing really happens until you step into the real world. Don’t forget that your goal is what is after school, not school itself. :)</p>
) but opportunities may be more abundant at Harvard. I’d go with the school that offers the extracurriculars you enjoy. S loves concerts and didn’t think about how far he would be from venues.</p>