Dartmouth's reputation on the west coast...

<p>...that's "amaze" and "create"...way too much typing today.</p>

<p>Hi, on a somewhat related note, does anyone know how easy/difficult is it to get a career in a west coast city with a Dartmouth degree? I'm from the midwest & I absolutely knew that I wanted to end up on the west (in particular CA), so I thought that if I went to the east for college I'd get a better perspective of this country, but now I'm absolutely terrified that I may be stuck here. Last summer when I was applying for internships I applied for about a dozen on the west coast -- I only heard back from a few of them, and I only got one offer back -- though I was happy for that one! Some of them wouldn't let me in because I wasn't going to college in CA, and many of them only knew Dartmouth was somewhere in the east but didn't know anything else about it. So I'm afraid that looking for jobs will be like my experience with looking for internships, maybe worse. Can someone please put my fears to rest? :-/</p>

<p>Well from my own personal experience: this married couple I know (family friends) are doing pretty well for themselves... one is a lawyer (one of the top attornies for the recent PeopleSoft merger), and he is also on the SONY USA Sailing Team (or something like that). His wife has her own toy designing/selling business. She does very well. Both are Dartmouth alumni, and they are very rich.</p>

<p>phenemyst:</p>

<p>I understood your post and did not think you were whining at all. It is fun to get a high five and not so fun to get a baffled look.</p>

<p>We live in Calif, also a smaller town, & my D is experiencing similar blank looks with her top LAC. It is a mixed thing... the good part is, nobody thinks you are bragging! The bad part is just as Raspberry points out, not so fun when you want to share and be pumped up & celebratory.</p>

<p>The typical non-college-obsessed person will know HYPS, plus their own State Schools and nearby privates, plus they will know the names of schools that have TV-worthy football or basketball teams. And that about wraps up the colleges on the typical person's radar.</p>

<p>It was really fun for my D when she recently visited some old childhood friends in a big city a few hours away. (These are kids at a high-caliber private HS.) They had ALL heard of her college, and many had even applied there. She came home and happily mentioned how fun it was to get the congratulations, whoops, and hollers she had not been getting from her own HS gang.</p>

<p>Dartmouth is on my Son's list so we'll have more blank stares if he gets into his wish school. It runs in the family; seemed like noone had heard of Brown in Calif 25 years ago.</p>

<p>So let me say FOR THE RECORD,</p>

<p>Wow, Dartmouth?!? That is awesome!! I know all about that school! What an honor! :)</p>

<p>haha phen, we're in the same situation in norcal. its like they go "you got into yale, and you're thinking of Dartmouth?" but it is funny. someone asked me if UCMerced was a good school. It hasn't even opened yet!!! its going to be a bad school for quite a while. I mean Cal Poly, Stan State (CSU Stanislaus), CSULB, and some others are better than even UC Riverside. People think Stanford, Harvard, and Yale are the top three schools in the country over here. Stanford has such godlike status, its discusting. so I'm slightly biased cause I'm from a long line of Cal (yes i said it not Berkeley) alums.
but just spread the word. thats what i do. the first thing i say is, its an ivy that focuses more on undergrad than the others. plus in the most gorgeous (joke on cornell) location out of them all.</p>

<p>Dartmouth? Who has a dart mouth?</p>

<p>At least thats the reaction i get around here.</p>

<p>dcd, its not easy to get a job in california period (or at least where I'm from, silicon valley). however, top firms will know dartmouth no matter where you go although you will be in a distinct minority among UCLA, Cal, and Stanford grads.</p>

<p>From UC Davis:</p>

<p>"How have the top-rated campuses differed from UC Davis in the shares of their resources they allocated to the social sciences versus other fields? Their strategies vary, of course. Some have made less relative commitment to social sciences than Davis. MIT and Caltech have succeeded by insisting on good engineering, math, and physical sciences, with only a few pockets of excellence in social science. Closer to our strategy is Cornell, the main example of excellence with heavy commitment to biological sciences and agriculture. At the other end of the spectrum, social sciences and the humanities are the main reason why Princeton gets the top rating for overall undergraduate excellence. Six other Ivy’s have done something similar. This is the prevailing success story, even in public universities. Among the public campuses ranked above us, the tendency is for a larger commitment to social science than Davis has given (as we have seen for Berkeley, UCLA, and UC San Diego in Table 2)."</p>

<p>alphacdcd,</p>

<p>this reminds me of one of byerly's post. you don't by chance plan to go to pton do you? you two should talk. he's equally proud of harvard and puts cute little posts designed to enhace Harvard's image on the dartmouth forum. i think it's cute.</p>

<p>Doesn't suprise me. I went to a very prestige conscious high school in Northern California and Brown/Dartmouth/Upenn (people always confuse them with Penn State) don't seem to carry the same wow factor as Harvard/Princeton/Cornell/Columbia/Yale.</p>

<p>I am not sure about Cornell and Columbia having more of a wow factor. I think clearly its HYP, then Dartmouth Columbia Brown Penn, then Cornell.</p>

<p>I really think it depends on who you are talking to. John Doe probably has little knowledge of elite east coast/ivy schools in general. People for who education is a priority know, I believe.</p>

<p>When I was accepted to Dartmouth my mother let it be known to one of her colleagues in San Jose. He was, according to my mother, very “wowed.” His son had been accepted to Berkeley with a Regent's Scholarship but was denied flat out by dartmouth. He was apparently aware of dartmouth and generically impressed.
Of course all of these things are anecdotal, certainly mine is, for what it's worth.</p>

<p>Slipper wat ru talking about. I am from California and trust me man, ppl respect Cornell and Columbia a lot more than Dartmouth. Dartmouth is great, but Cornell and Columbia and I even thing Penn get more respect than Dartmouth. I mean if Dart was that amazing, then they wouldn't have to send like a 100,000 likely letters to steel the best applicants from these other schools. BTW, I applied to like 6 ivies, and dart wasn't one of them b/c I couldn't stand spending 4 years in Hanover, New Hampshire. I still think its a great school.</p>

<p>dog87,</p>

<p>you sound so lovely, even tempered and wise. I lament the fact that you will not be in Hanover next fall...I'm sure we all do.</p>

<p>6 Ivies ehh? Speaks volumes.</p>

<p>FountainSiren, your sarcastic comment was very appreciated. BTW, how does applying to 6 ivies speak volumes? Dart is just not my type of school. I also applied to duke, northwestern, stanford, and rice (accepted already).</p>

<p>You'll love rice, it's a great school. Good luck with the others.</p>

<p>slipper, I disagree. Not that it is a direct indication of how good the school is, but Dartmouth/Upenn/Brown simply do not carry the same name recognition on the West Coast and internationally that the other Ivy League schools do. Have you ever lived on the West Coast?</p>

<p>nocalguy,</p>

<p>would I be suprised to find out you plan to attend Cornell? It's a great school if you are (I wouldn't be suprised, really).</p>

<p>The only thing this discussion lacks is quantitative evidence of any of the claims. </p>

<p>A discussion among Liberal Arts majors?</p>

<p>Actually, I already do:) I'm a sophomore there. </p>

<p>These are my first posts in this forum. I was actually looking for another post but couldn't help reading a post about the West Coast. God I miss CA. I think it'll only be another 2 months before I see the sun again in Ithaca.</p>