may 1st is in a week and i’m stuck between duke and dartmouth. im from new jersey and would be a Rubenstein scholar at duke (so i’d have a full ride) and am expected to pay 6.1k to attend dartmouth annually (i’m being considered for the hsf scholarship and a local one that would put 2.5k towards my college education per year). i’m not interested in studying art, but have done visual arts for the entirety of my high school career, so want art resources on campus. i know dartmouth has the hop and duke has an art annex, etc. i’m interested in studying poli sci and english but would be open to gender studies. i want to study abroad in south korea and dartmouth has the yonsei university exchange program in seoul south korea. i was going to commit to duke but ive been told that i’d be stupid to go to duke over dartmouth, etc. sorry if this isn’t coherent (i’m writing this in ap bio LMAOOO)
i’m also lgbtqia+ and latina so those communities are important to me, and my experience on campus has shown me that duke maybe a better place for me in those aspects
Duke.
Duke is higher ranked than is Dartmouth College so why would you be “stupid to go to Duke over Dartmouth” ? Especially considering that you have been offered a “full ride” to attend Duke.
In my opinion, Duke is more prestigious than Dartmouth & certainly more welcoming for your situation.
Dartmouth is small with undergrad focus. Difference in cost is not enough to be considered for this choice. Unless you prefer Duke and consider it a better fit, no reason to go there.
I’m not sure why this is a question. The less expensive, super elite that you like better. Go have fun!
Dartmouth has an undergraduate enrollment of slight over 4,000. Duke has an undergraduate enrollment of about 7,000. Dartmouth is a great school but any suggestion that Duke is not focused on undergraduates is completely misguided; the size difference is not significant in terms of attention. Additionally, Duke offers far greater academic opportunities on campus than Dartmouth in a wide variety of areas and is one of the leading universities in the entire world. No one makes a mistake by going to Dartmouth but by virtually every measure, including undergraduate opportunities, Duke is at least Dartmouth’s equal. The idea that it would be stupid to go to Duke is absurd.
“In my opinion, Duke is more prestigious than Dartmouth & certainly more welcoming for your situation.”
Being from a similar place to OP (NJ, upstate NY), Dartmouth was in my day considered far more prestigious than Duke. It was a safety school for kids to applying to Harvard, Yale, may be even Dartmouth. So I can see how people the OP talks to think that. And in the northeast, an ivy has a lot of pull, it just does. Now of course things have changed, as the nobel laureate Dylan noted.
That all being said, Duke is probably more welcoming for a LGBTQIX, Latina. I have not been at Duke, I have been at Dartmouth, many times, as surprising as that may sound.
One has to go back at least 40 years to find a meaningful difference in academics and selectivity, I suspect. Duke has been a top 10 school in the USNWR rankings every year since 1985 with only one exception (#12 in 1989).
Duke was not as much of an academic powerhouse in the 1960s, though it was already pretty strong. In the 1964 Cartter Report, Duke ranked #20 for departmental strength, coming in 11th among private universities (behind Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, JHU, Penn, and Northwestern, in that order).
I grew up in the Northeast as well. No way Dartmouth College is more prestigious than Duke.
FWIW US News’ Peer Assessment Score rates Dartmouth College as a 4.3. Equivalent to UCLA & CMU & Georgia Tech.
Sixteen (16) National Universities have higher Peer Assessment Scores than does Dartmouth College. (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Duke, Northwestern, Michigan, Caltech, Brown, JHU, Penn, Cornell, UCal-Berkeley & Columbia.)
“I suspect. Duke has been a top 10 school in the USNWR rankings every year since 1985 with only one exception (#12 in 1989).”
Actually the very first ranking was in 1983 and set the perception for applications in the early to mid-80s, had Duke unranked and Dartmouth 10th. So at least then the perception was that Dartmouth was a a little better than Duke.
Anyone who tells you that you are “stupid to go to Duke over Dartmouth” is woefully uninformed.
^ Duke wins cross admit battles with Dartmouth (pretty handily).
The “Ivy League” has to be one of the biggest triumphs in marketing history. Schools like Dartmouth and Brown piggybacking off the reputation of HYP.
Give me Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, etc. over Dartmouth and Brown any day of the week…
I think they are peer schools – both outstanding. In early 80s, Dartmouth was the tougher admit and more prestigious. Today I’d say it is flipped in Duke’s favor on both counts. But we are talking about two great schools with different pros and cons. Generally I would say pick just based on fit and it would be perfectly reasonable to pick either. But with the $ difference and being a Rubenstein Scholar, seems like the best decision is Duke unless you really feel Dartmouth is a better fit (e.g., you want the quarter system, cold weather, a very high % of students it Greek system, rural location) and you can afford it.
Adding to the above, undergraduate focus could be another reason to prefer Dartmouth, as it is more like a LAC in size. But prestige would not be a good reason to prefer Dartmouth, as that should not matter between these two (plus I think Duke is at least as prestigious). Adding that you are LGBTQIA+ and Latina, and given your experiences on both campuses, Duke seems like the pick.
Full ride at Duke, absolutely no question. Prestige is, at best, a bad way to choose almost any school, and even in that, there is no real difference - while Dartmouth has the “Ivy” label, Duke has more name recognition. In any case, even if Dartmouth WAS more prestigious, it is not $24,400 more prestigious.
Duke is more diverse and has more poor and minority students. While Dartmouth has a higher Pride index, and better residence solutions, Duke is considered much safer a place for LGBTQIA people.
I received an incredibly nice DM from a parent who has a child at Brown. In response, I wanted to clarify that I think Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago are all superior from the standpoint of research but Brown and Dartmouth are obviously their peers when it comes to undergraduate education.
I just get tired of uninformed posters making comments like “X is obviously better than Y because X is an Ivy”. It is absurd. Especially considering how the Ivy League is literally nothing more than an athletic conference (one whose membership is confined to a tiny geographic region).
Even around 1960 Duke tended to enroll academically strong students – equivalent to those at schools such as Penn, Berkeley, Northwestern, Michigan, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Tufts, Union, Kenyon – while Dartmouth students matched with those at Cornell, Brown, Brandeis, Stanford, Chicago, Hamilton, Oberlin.
@JenniferClint I do think there is validity to someone wanting to attend Dartmouth (or Brown) because they are undergraduate focused – or because of other fit issues – instead of Duke and the other outstanding schools you mention. Agree that people should not be obsessed with a school being an Ivy. But people also should not be overly focused with a school’s ranking or prestige (lay or otherwise). I understand that Duke is a great school and you support it as an alum, but for some kids Duke would not be a good fit even if they were fortunate enough to get in. But circling back to OP’s question, Duke seems to be the clear choice.
@merc81 What a fascinating link! Many of the college descriptions sound like they could’ve been written yesterday.
It’s hard to believe that Harvard cost only $20,000 a year in 1960, let alone the paltry $10,800 price tag for Stanford (adjusted for inflation). Times have changed indeed.