<p>Refer to above. Any feedback would be really appreciated.</p>
<p>Hey, they are both amazing schools and are also very similar, in my opinion. Dartmouth is obviously quite a bit bigger than Bowdoin (with nearly twice as many students) and has more name recognition. </p>
<p>I also think that you are likely to find more diversity at Dartmouth (in every sense of the word “diverse”), because Dartmouth works so hard to reach out to and admit a diverse group of people, while Bowdoin lags behind in this area because a lot of kids that want to go to Bowdoin are upper-middle-class whites from the northeast. </p>
<p>Dartmouth has the added advantage of having the resources of its medical/engineering/business schools, and it attracts a lot of well-known speakers and visiting professors. That being said, I think that the quality of education you could get at Dartmouth is exactly equal to what you could get at Bowdoin. </p>
<p>A few more things to consider:
- Dartmouth’s quarter-system academic calendar vs. Bowdoin’s more traditional semester calendar
- the dorms at Bowdoin are nicer than the dorms at Dartmouth
- which school can give out the best financial aid packages? Dartmouth’s endowment is larger than Bowdoin’s, by far, but Dartmouth can no longer promise not to include loans in its financial aid packages
- Polar Bear mascot vs. Big Green mascot
- Dartmouth’s reputation for being a “drinking” school vs. Bowdoin’s lack of reputation (don’t get me wrong - people who have heard of Bowdoin know how awesome it is. But there are many more people who will think it’s some sort of 3rd-tier community college because they don’t know better.) So what would you rather put up with? the misconception that Dartmouth is all about partying/drinking or the misconception that Bowdoin isn’t a good school?</p>
<p>I was lucky enough to choose between Bowdoin and Dartmouth last year, and I am very happy with my decision to join the Big Green. However, I don’t think Dartmouth is automatically the better school. It was just the better school for <em>me</em>. </p>
<p>PM me if you’ve got any questions!</p>
<p>Both wonderful schools. Other differences: no frats at Bowdoin; food is amazing at Bowdoin and all you can eat-rather than paying for each item; I believe, Bowdoin assigns freshman to a social house from the beginning. Bowdoin near the Coast/Dartmouth in the mountains.</p>
<p>i don’t know about this one. i think it’s about fit, really. but i will say this, with respect to reputation: while dartmouth is an ivy, it is not exceptionally well known among the lay folk (admittedly, none but harvard or yale are very well known among my lay folk). when i was about to go to bowdoin i remember going to a high school party and being asked by a few people what bowdoin was like. they hadn’t heard of it. i asked if they had heard of amherst. they hadn’t. dartmouth? they hadn’t. i said it was like a very small harvard for lack of a better comparison because there honestly wasn’t any school they had heard of that was similar. they asked me why i wasn’t going to UVA. i’m from a non-rural area of virginia. this is to say that the argument about reputation, especially with respect to dartmouth, is not a terribly strong one. go to dartmouth because it’s much larger. because it’s an ivy (if that matters to you). but don’t go because you think it has far greater name recognition. i’m not sure what sectors of the country would be familiar enough with dartmouth to think it great, but not familiar enough with bowdoin to have an opinion.</p>
<p>Highly educated people – i.e., employers at major firms – will have heard of Dartmouth, no matter where in the country they’re from. Even if they haven’t heard of it – which is unlikely – you can tell them it’s an Ivy. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the same isn’t true of Bowdoin. </p>
<p>Name recognition matters. It’s an unfortunate reality. Therefore, I’d strongly encourage you to go to Dartmouth.</p>
<p>(I was also admitted to Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. If I thought Dartmouth’s name recognition was lackluster, I would have attended one of YPS.)</p>
<p>well, we aren’t disagreeing on whether dartmouth doesn’t have name recognition. it does, inarguably, among the people you mention. where we do disagree is whether those same people who have heard of dartmouth (“highly educated people – i.e., employers at major firms”) will have also heard of bowdoin. in my and my friends’ experiences, they have. i have never had to explain my alma mater to members of that class. my point instead was that beyond the people you mention (who, i assure you, have heard of both schools), name recognition drops substantially outside of harvard and yale, or, say, well known sports schools. </p>
<p>name recognition, i repeat, is not a reason to attend dartmouth. it’s actually a rather bad reason. if what you mean by “name recognition” is prestige, however, then you’re right, dartmouth is one of the most prestigious schools in the country, and, i admit, more prestigious than bowdoin. in fact there are few schools as prestigious as dartmouth. but it’s prestige is most certainly not an effect of its widespread name recognition. (whereas, one might argue, duke’s prestige is, in part, causally linked to it’s widespread name recognition.) </p>
<p>nevetheless, the difference in prestige between bowdoin and dartmouth is, obviously, not sufficient for some people to automatically choose dartmouth. otherwise this post wouldn’t exist, and i and others who went to bowdoin wouldn’t know people who chose it over dartmouth. you wouldn’t make the same choice. a majority of people wouldn’t. i don’t argue that bowdoin would lose most common admits to dartmouth. but an increasing number of students are making this choice. and it’s not an unreasonable choice.</p>
<p>Lots of highly educated people here in the South have never heard of Bowdoin. The vast majority, however, have indeed heard of Dartmouth. That’s because, as you admit, Dartmouth is more prestigious.</p>
<p>As toolish as it is, follow the prestige. If you were choosing between two ivies, it would be different – but you aren’t. The prestige differential is way too large in this case.</p>
<p>I feel DmouthGrad2014’s thinking is quite parochial. And I am not from the South but from the Northeast.</p>
<p>Are y’all seriously trying to make the argument that Bowdoin has as much prestige and national name recognition as Dartmouth? I mean, really? Dartmouth is an Ivy; Bowdoin isn’t. Very few schools match the Ivies in name recognition, and Bowdoin isn’t one of those schools.</p>
<p>Plus, another thing to consider: pb2002 noted that most of the people in your situation would choose Dartmouth. What you can infer from this is that Dartmouth has a stronger student body in virtually every context (e.g., academics, diversity, etc.) because the students who are admitted to both – i.e., the stronger students – tend to choose Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Good luck with your decision. </p>
<p>P.S. Out of curiosity, why are you making your decision this late? The national response deadline, May 1, has already passed, and Dartmouth has yet to announce if it is taking any students off of its waitlist.</p>
<p>DmouthGrad2014, I’m actually amazed that this argument is so baffling to you, particularly since you turned down indisputably more prestigious institutions to attend Dartmouth. You must have done it for some reason. Probably that Dartmouth felt better for you. Rest assured, there are people on this board who would find your decision to turn down Yale for Dartmouth as baffling as you find people turning down Dartmouth to attend Bowdoin. I also bet, although feel free to provide the stats to prove me wrong, that Dartmouth loses its common admit battle with Yale. Of course, your claim that a debate between two “ivies” is somehow different feels especially unsatisfying. Very few people I know would choose Cornell over Williams. </p>
<p>You’re right, your advise does sound toolish. And I’m sure you’re experience in the working world, and in top grad schools supports your claims entirely. </p>
<p>I’ll reiterate. Reasons to go to Dartmouth: it’s bigger. It has slightly higher SAT scores. It’s an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>I know lots of people here in the South who have chosen Cornell over Williams – and that’s because it has more name recognition.</p>
<p>The reasons you listed at the end of your post are excellent reasons to attend Dartmouth in this case. The prestige differential is huge.</p>
<p>Yale is indeed more prestigious than Dartmouth, but the difference between the two isn’t absolutely massive. In the OP’s case, however, Dartmouth is so much more prestigious than Bowdoin it’s not even funny. * Lots * of highly intelligent, well-educated professionals here in the South don’t know of Bowdoin, but the vast majority of them have at least heard of Dartmouth and know that it’s an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>In this case, as I said earlier, follow the prestige. Bowdoin just doesn’t match up.</p>
<p>You can call me a tool, and criticize my logic all you want. At the end of the day, I’m attending the school that is one of the top feeders to the nation’s top graduate schools, and whose graduates are recruited to work at the country’s top firms. When’s the last time Goldman Sachs or Bridgewater came to do on campus interviews at Bowdoin? Thought so. Dartmouth, on the other hand, is a pipeline to those firms.</p>
<p>The choice is pretty obvious. Dartmouth will provide a springboard to * any * career or graduate school of your choosing. Bowdoin will not.</p>
<p>(This is also why I ended up choosing Dartmouth over Yale – I can go anywhere in the world with a degree from either institution. Therefore, I didn’t care about the difference in prestige.)</p>
<p>P.S. Since you want to make * ad hominem * attacks, I’ll stoop to your level since you make it so damn easy. Please, next time you try to insult me, know the difference between “advise” and “advice.” Also work on the difference between “your” and “you’re.” </p>
<p>* Your * Bowdoin education seems to be serving you well. My * advice *, however, is to learn the fundamentals of grammar in the English language before you begin insulting a stranger.</p>
<p>i didn’t call you a tool, but i did agree with you that your reasons sound toolish. it was not intended as an insult. i’m sorry you took it that way. </p>
<p>you sound perfect for dartmouth. congratulations.</p>
<p>It’s astonishing that such a prestigious institution would allow itself to be served by a president who received his undergraduate education at a vastly inferior one, albeit in the nineteenth century.</p>
<p>[Office</a> of the President - The Wheelock Succession of Dartmouth Presidents](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~president/succession/lord.html]Office”>Past Presidents | President)</p>
<p>I concur with pb2002, both in spirit and substance.</p>
<p>They are both amazing schools. One big difference I have noticed is leadership. Dr. Kim is one of the most inspiring people I have ever met. I think he is a person that can inspire the next generation to change the world. I am not sure how you measure something like that but it should be considered. We did not get the same feeling at Bowdoin.</p>
<p>Bowdoin is a good school but its not at the same reputational level as Dartmouth, not even close.</p>
<p>Dartmouth is NOT “so much more presitgious than Bowdoin it’s not even funny.” That is an absolutely absurd statement. Yes, Dartmouth has better name recognition, and yes, it is an ivy. But there are many people who choose bowdoin over ivys. there are at least 10 people in my incoming class who chose bowdoin over brown, i know one girl who chose bowdoin over harvard, and many others who chose bowdoin over cornell. </p>
<p>Dartmouth may have an edge over Bowdoin, but it is not as great as you think it to be. </p>
<p>xylem, go wherever makes you happiest. Dartmouth and Bowdoin are very similar in terms of student body and quality of life, and if you find yourself a better fit at dartmouth, go there. you can’t go wrong. I don’t know which one I would’ve chosen, but if you’re having trouble sticking to Bowdoin, maybe it’s because your heart is telling you to go to darmouth.</p>
<p>10 people in a class choosing a school over Brown isn’t that many. I would bet 85% of people choosing between Dartmouth/Brown and Bowdoin would choose Dartmouth or Brown.</p>
<p>Admitone is correct – your anecdotal evidence is not convincing.</p>
<p>The real cross-admit matriculation rate would vividly illustrate that the vast majority of students in the OP’s situation choose Dartmouth over Bowdoin.</p>
<p>I don’t know how y’all can concede that Dartmouth is an ivy, more prestigious, and socially similar to Bowdoin – yet still argue that the OP should go to Bowdoin.</p>
<p>It’s absurd. Truly.</p>
<p><a href="http://college./college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=Dartmouth+College&with=BOwdoin+College%5B/url%5D">http://college./college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=Dartmouth+College&with=BOwdoin+College</a></p>
<p>More like 60/40 based on the stats found at that link. Based on my impressions, Bowdoin in terms of prestige is similar to Brown and Cornell, a bit above Cornell. Dartmouth would be above Bowdoin in terms of what people like to think of prestige, but not by the amount you’d find between Princeton and Dartmouth (which is pretty big I feel, although both are amazing places).</p>
<p>But I feel that there is so much to lose by going to Dartmouth; it’s culture is kind of different when compared to that of Bowdoin.</p>
<hr>
<p>Link doesn’t work, but it’s from my chances dot net.</p>
<p>That’s such moronic anecdotal evidence. I mean, seriously, this is absurd. </p>
<p>[The</a> New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html]The”>The New York Times > Week in Review > Image > Collegiate Matchups: Predicting Student Choices)</p>
<p>That data is obviously not perfectly representative of the population, but it’s far closer than ************** or whatever other rubbish y’all have proffered thus far.</p>
<p>70% of students admitted to both Dartmouth and Duke choose Dartmouth. Do you seriously think Bowdoin fares better than Duke in the cross-admit battle? If you do, perhaps your lackluster critical thinking led to your rejection from Dartmouth (if you even considered yourself intelligent enough to apply). If you were admitted, thank God you’re not coming – the admissions committee always makes mistakes. If you’re attending, fortunately you’re one of only a few morons on campus.</p>