<p>Lol, that's good Strawboy isn't doing that.
I would agree with EAD's comments supporting Duke.. however, when I visited Dartmouth I didn't get the impression that the social scene was simply
[quote]
kids going down in to the basement of a frat and playing Pong all night long.
[/quote]
.. I found it to be somewhat richer and the parties I went to were similar to those at Duke (except Duke kids are more awesome ;), jk, I love Dartmouth too.. it was a tough decision last year..), maybe they were 'acting cool' for pre-frosh or something, who knows? :-p</p>
<p>Yeah its far more rich than EAD describes. House parties, theme parties, frats, formals, big dance parties, lots of big weekends, concerts, etc.</p>
<p>Reasons (in brief) I chose Duke over Dartmouth:</p>
<ol>
<li>Weather</li>
<li>Diversity</li>
<li>Not as isolated</li>
<li>Better fit</li>
<li>I didn't like the D-Plan at Dartmouth</li>
<li>I don't really care about the "Ivy League" rep</li>
</ol>
<p>My reason for choosing Duke over Dartmouth and Georgetown was somewhat ridiculous at best.. I felt that Duke had a stronger Math program and now I'm probably not even majoring in it. Go figure.</p>
<p>
[quote]
^That is the STUPIDEST list I have ever seen in my life. There is no credibility to those statements whatsover as you get your info from "Campus Dirt" and "the U" lol.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Like I said, I doubt that you have attended both Duke and Dartmouth, so you really can't talk. And I'm getting data from two separate sources. I'm reporting what those sites said, not pulling things from my head.</p>
<ul>
<li>Edit - here's what I don't know - whether Duke's 43.8% and or Dartmouth's 33.4% includes international students. If Duke's does and Dartmouth's does not - which is what I would be led to believe by the way categories are listed - Dartmouth may be 42.5% students of color/international.</li>
</ul>
<p>** Edit II - Dartmouth has "Nearly a third of the students identify themselves as students of color or non-US citizens. " in the preamble to this profile. It means (a) whoever wrote the profile doesn't realize that 33.4% is past "nearly a third," (b) 33.4% is the overall total, and (c) the labels on the Dartmouth page should be re-written to include people who aren't American...</p>
<p>Why do you think that the 43.8% figure includes international students? Looking at the link you provided, it mentions 28.4% Asian/Asian American, 9.3% African American, 5.9% Hispanic/Latino, and 0.2% Native American/Alaskan/Hawaii. Those add up to 43.8% and international students aren't mentioned at all. Perhaps I'm missing something....I guess this could include international students from Asia, but not from Europe.</p>
<p>Edit: According to that same link, 9% of the Class of 2011 is international, so that would be ~53% minority + international students if the minority representation figure doesn't include international students.</p>
<p>Bluedog - good point. I think, given Duke's category labels, that the "Minority Representation" pie chart is independent of home address - so 43.8% would include international students of color. Dartmouth's page was confusing to me because of what I assume is a more limited assignation of "Asian American" and "African American" in the "Students of Color" list juxtaposed with their international student number; but then coupled with the "nearly 1/3" statement... Gah.</p>
<p>On diversity, I couldn't be more happy with Dartmouth's international student population. They are absolutely AMAZING people and provide an incredible amount of refreshing/deep insight... It's really hard to describe, but when you talk to them, there's a certain sense of maturity...and a different world view than Americans (Not being Anti-American here, I'm from the states obviously, just saying they're different). If you want an indication of the diversity here. I live in a Cluster that's pretty small as it is, and on my floor there's a total of 20 kids. One's from Israel, another Pakistan, Afghanistan, Norway, and last one's from Uruguay. The floor above me (also freshmen) has a Venezuelan, girl from London, guy from Nigera, and then a girl from Shanghai. Also 20 kids total.</p>
<p>In short, there are a crapload of internationals...and I absolutely love it. I met a guy from Shanghai who's Muslim (and believe me, they're rare in mainstream China). I'm surprised that Dartmouth doesn't stress the diversity factor more.. I mean I understand people of different races (fine) but in my opinion, a college's main asset is being able to conglomerate all of these international beliefs/values and channel them towards some higher end. </p>
<hr>
<p>As for the social scene, some kids said that colleges put on a show. That's not true at all for Dmouth. During Dimensions I was absolutely blown away, but that sense of school pride definitely continues as the year goes on. J</p>
<p>Just a sidenote: I was in NYC for the Harvard v. Dartmouth b ball game, and during Harvard's foul shots one random guy kept standing up and reading lines from Dr. Seuss (alumni).</p>
<p>In all seriousness, my advice would be to visit both and see which school you have a better feel with!
If I didn't visit Duke, I would have probably picked Dartmouth, for instance.</p>