Dartmouth vs. Wellesley

<p>Just in terms of the prestige or the name recognition when I go on to grad school or search for a job. Of course, that's not the only thing I'm considering but I feel that I have thoughts already about the difference of the two in terms of campus, etc. Thanks!</p>

<p>Any differences in name recognition or job opportunities that may exist (and I think few do) between the two schools are far outweighed by the company of men as part of the daily experience at D, IMHO. Enough said.</p>

<p>Lol so true balletgirl.</p>

<p>wellesley is a great school… but dartmouth really wins big on every single count i can think of (and of course, all the counts that you mentioned). go dartmouth and you wont regret it!</p>

<p>^^ and you don’t have to take a bus to meet guys.</p>

<p>[Wellesley</a> College Senate bus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellesley_College_Senate_bus]Wellesley”>Wellesley College Senate bus - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>Wellesley has a good name but it’s far less selective than Dartmouth which is a well know fact to grad schools and employers.</p>

<p>You are all a bunch of sexist $##&(@!s.</p>

<p>In terms of prestige/name recognition, perhaps it depends whether you want people to think that you went to the alma mater of Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, or whether you went to Animal House. Because that’s the way a lot of people think about Dartmouth.</p>

<p>People on this thread who are quick to trot out inaccurate stereotypes about women’s colleges might pause to think whether the equivalent stereotypes about Dartmouth are accurate. (Of course they may be. When I was at Wellesley, and the name since bestowed on the Senate bus by a bunch of hopeful men was unheard of, we would annually be invaded by drunken guys from Dartmouth screaming something about “bleets.”)</p>

<p>How do you read sexism into those posts?
I’m guessing BalletGirl is a female.</p>

<p>Easily. Try following the link provided by BalletGirl. That kind of stuff just mightily ticks me off.</p>

<p>Consolation, it’s just hard to believe you are of an age to have a kid in college. The tone and language sounds more like a 17 year old having a bad day.</p>

<p>Danas, it’s just hard to believe that you feel compelled or qualified to make such a statement. I am astonished that you would take it upon yourself to do so. </p>

<p>BTW, do you seriously think that females are incapable of making sexist statements about other women?</p>

<p>Consolation, face the facts. Women’s colleges are dying. There is simply an increasingly diminishing role for the finishing school or feminist training camp that characterized women’s collleges in your day. All the data suggest that most women, even those attending single-sex colleges like Wellesley, prefer coeducational institutions. And if you look at this data over time the proportion of college-bound women who say they’d consider a women’s-only college has been on a long and steep decline. </p>

<p>The old, thread-bare argument that women need a special environment, free of men, to develop leadership skills, etc. has been thoroughly debunked, though it is still used by women’s colleges to market themselves. They continue to present themselves as places where women can thrive without having to compete with men. But, increasingly, today’s female applicants do not see themselves as needing protection from competition with men. High-performing women today see themselves as high-performing students, and not as students in need of some kind of special care. You need to completely recalibrate your assumptions in line with what’s happening today, not what may have occurred thirty years ago.This may be intellectually and emotionally difficult, but you’ve got to get a bead on what’s going on now. </p>

<p>And Consolation, a woman has needs.</p>

<p>Consolation - I think you are being incredibly oversensitive. Frankly Dartmouth is a higher level in terms of selectivity and according to placement stats (recruiting/ grad placement). Wellesley is a great school but going to an all women’s school is a very different experience from a co-ed school - for better or for worse. I think the decision should be weighted heavily based on that alone.</p>

<p>I think overall Dartmouth would offer much better prospects for grad school and job search. I was also admitted to Dartmouth, and my research shows excellent grad school placement, as well as apparently having a very good reputation in the business world. As far as Consolation’s generalization of “most people” thinking of Dartmouth as “animal house”, I can confidently say that this would not be true among the educated and knowledgeable, and those that would believe that know nothing about the institution itself. </p>

<p>My vote is for Dartmouth in terms of prestige and grad school acceptance prospects.</p>

<p>This is really unrelated to the subject of the thread, but I think both Consolation and BalletGirl are reading too much into each other’s posts and imputing things that aren’t there.</p>

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<p>I think Consolation was using the Animal House reference as a relevant example of how (mis)applying nicknames and stereotypes from popular culture can easily lead to unfair, unkind, and just plain wrong conclusions about the students at excellent schools - be they Dartmouth or Wellesley.</p>

<p>@coureur: Point taken. I simply included that since I would not want the OP to get a negative idea of how people view Dartmouth. To be fair, it would also be completely incorrect to saying that all-women’s colleges are “dying” or undesired. I’ll again reiterate that all biases aside, Dartmouth does seem to have very good grad-school acceptance rates and a strong network in the business field.</p>

<p>haha so i make a post in this thread and come back 24 hours later and guess what happens? it explodes! (lol… calling wikipedia article sexist… sorry im just rather amused, lol)</p>

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<p>Precisely.</p>

<p>I just started at Wellesley this fall, and I can say that I’m sooooo happy I didn’t end up going to the ivies I had applied to (including Dartmouth) because I truly believe I wouldn’t be as happy if I was at those schools. I was very concerned when I chose Wellesley about the having problems with the all-women environment. I used to think the all-women thing was Wellesley’s only flaw, but now I see it as the school’s greatest asset. I’ve never been in an environment as wonderful, friendly, and empowering as Wellesley. The women there are SO smart and dedicated and very few are the crazy, competitive types that many people wrongly assume go to the school. In terms of name recognition, Wellesley’s rightfully up there with the best of the liberal arts and Ivies. One of my senior friends just landed a job at a management consulting company that rejected students from Dartmouth, MIT, and Princeton.
Unfortunately, people who have never visited Wellesley often stereotype it as a nunnery, or a “safety school” for Ivy-bound women, and before attending a part of me bought into these stereotypes. But almost none of Wellesley’s stereotypes turned out to be valid. Going to Wellesley was the best decision I ever made.
(And for the record, I see men all the time, and it’s not difficult at all.)</p>