<p>I had asked this question at various sites already and got various answers. I have been accepted to both Wash U and Dartmouth, but don't know for sure which is the right one for me. </p>
<p>I want an all-around education with the possibility of entering pre-med, which says that Dartmouth is the one. One the other hand, my home is very close to Wash U, which suggests that I can come home often.</p>
<p>Maybe I'll just flip a coin........</p>
<p>Well, it's really pretty personal, only you can answer that. You have acknowledged that Dartmouth would be superior for pre-med, but how important is being close to home? I can tell you from my friends' experiences at various colleges, the ones who went to school close to home rarely went home, because there is so much to do on campus, if you're not playing on campus, you're working! Only you know how much weight that factor carries in the decision. It is relatively late, are you a transfer student? If so, reflect on what aspects of your previous college you didn't like. Visiting really is key, I don't know if you have the time to visit, but it could make a huge difference. I would, of course, recommend Dartmouth, but both schools have very high med school acceptance rates, so I would just pick the one that you feel most comfortable at. I had to make a pretty tough decision between two schools, but ultimately I decided that both had great programs in my area of interest, so I picked the one that had the best environment, and I haven't looked back! Good luck!</p>
<p>wash u is the best pre-med out there without question...i think it is well understood that wash u is superior in the sciences</p>
<p>I was accepted to both Dartmouth and Wash. U., having significant family ties to the latter, yet ultimately decided upon Dartmouth as the place to spend the next four years. Thus, I hope I could provide some insight for you from my own choices and jorney.</p>
<p>I liked my visits to both Dartmouth and Wash. U., as the students were friendly, the campuses beautiful, and each university well respected in its respective fields. However, I found Dartmouth students to be more intellectual in nature, as Wash. U. students seemed to have a more Big-10 air to them. Indeed, Wash. U students partied harded, were less passionate about their classes, and seemed to look upon academics as an afterthought, not as the main focus. I felt a serious pressure to drink at Wash. U., unlike at Dartmouth, and was rebuked by my floor for reading a book on a Friday night, instead of partying. I was told by many students that non-drinkers, non partiers, nerds, etc, were invisible and ignored at the school. From my observations, a lot of Wash U. students were there to have a good time-one student I met in fact, passed up MIT for Wash. U, for he thought he could have a better time in St. Louis. Many were bitter about being at Wash. U., as opposed to someplace else, and all in all, the students were definitely not as accomplished as the ones at Dartmouth, no offense to any specific person, of course. Dartmouth's academics are superior without question, the school has more character, and I say this with a father and a cousin who are Wash. U graduates. Now, I understand your concern about being close to home, and that may well outweigh everything else. However, being happy on campus is also important, and you should spend an overnight at Wash. U. before deciding. I learned more about Wash. U. after one overnight than after 10 years of being the son of an alum. </p>
<p>As for Pre-Med at Wash. U, I'm afraid you're mistaken Sangel. My cousin was a Pre-Med student at Wash. U., and made the cardinal error of thinking she'd be off to the Med School in Wash. U. in no time, or otherwise would greatly benefit from its presence. In fact, from her class of 1500, only a handful made it into the Med School, and the benefit she ended up receiving from the Med School was minimal. In addition, she said the Wash. U. administration made life hell for pre-meds, as they were constantly trying to get lower achieving kids to drop out of pre-med, sending threatening e-mails and the like, to raise their Med-School acceptance rate. If she could rate Wash. U. from 1 to 10, with 1 being loving and compassionate, and 10 being lean, mean, marketing machine, she would rate it 7.5. She's now in Med School, says it's far more pleasant than undergrad, and wishes she went to an LAC where the administration didn't treat people like dirt. I hope I've been of help.</p>
<p>SOmething is wrong here. Wash U has great feeder placement into Med School. I am not sure where those last comments are coming from. However, Dartmouth has great feeder placement into business/law schools.</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>hm... i'm not sure if wash u is really as bad as luckystar41 had described, but a really good friend of mine who's a biz/comp sci double major freshman there also thinks that the student body puts a pretty low priority on academics. he says that sometimes during class discussions he wonders how some of them got there. granted, he went to a very competitive/high caliber high school (Thomas Jefferson Sci/Tech), which is a total pressure cooker (i should know; i'm about to blow, hahaha).</p>
<p>i think luckystar is being somewhat unfair. having visited both schools and stayed at both for a couple days, i would say the biggest differences would be:
1. washu students are just as smart as dartmouth students, they are just less pretentious overall (they play it down more instead of throwing their intellect in your face)
2. washu is more "midwestern" in that the students are humble and nice and dartmouth is more "new england" in that the students are equally nice but less friendly
3. the food at washu is hands down the best
4. i think there is going to be pressure at any school for pre-med and i also think that the med school acceptances are ultimately the same everywhere in that it all depends on whether or n ot YOU really want it, the school is not going to make or break you. i think you have the same chance at med school coming from either place. and remember, sooo many ppl start premed at washu that theyu are naturally going to switch to majors they would be better at (w/out parents influence). and the same thing happens at dartmouth with 50% starting pre emd</p>
<p>According to WSJ elite grad school rankings for med/law/bus WUSL was #47. Dartmouth was #7. I know that WUSL has a great Med school but I wonder how many undergrads get into the top med schools, even including WUSL's own.</p>
<p>Morehouse, Bates, Tufts, Colby, Reed, Trinity, Macalaster and New College of Florida were ranked higher than WUSL.</p>
<p>I'll visit Wash U tomorrow.</p>
<p>I also visisted several ranking sites online including USWR, Brody, Princeton Review, StudentsReview, and of course, the WSJ mentioned by meltingsnow. I none of these rankings is perfect and they have different methodological shortcomings, but one thing seems clear: Dartmouth has never been ranked lower than Wash U.</p>
<p>Meltingsnow, those rankings are pretty pathetic at best. It is using specific schools (Dartmouth Tuck School of Business, Harvard Med,etc.) as the control. That's not right considering as how a lot of Wash U people don't opt to go to those schools!!!!</p>
<p>I'm not sure what you mean by "pretty pathetic", though I'm sure you do.</p>
<p>Of the 15 elite schools considered in the WSJ rankings for one year, the results are what they are. If on the other hand you believe that there will be a radical shift in trends when you consider the next 10-15 schools, you should check out those schools and see if they offer their own (valid) statistics. </p>
<p>Short of that, it is one of the only objectively statistcal references available to those considering elite med/law/bus grad school placement (top 15 or so schools) .</p>
<p>...of course you could simply ignore them and throw darts.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <blockquote> <p>It is using specific schools (Dartmouth Tuck School of Business, Harvard Med,etc.) as the control.<<<</p> </blockquote> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Of course it must use specific schools to get a result; Which schools would you prefer? and why?</p>
<p>Should Harvard Med be excluded from the top schools? or Tuck (WSJ top 5 every year--USnews #6 this year)? or Wharton? or Yale? Which?Or does every school need to be included--good luck waiting for that one.</p>
<p>it seems to be no more than a quibble...hardly pathetic. Of course it should only be one factor, but still, a factor it is.</p>
<p>As European I find it really funny how seriously you take all this rankings. I do not doubt that rankings provide a rough overview about different universities, but I do think, that is not so easy to measure like usnews and others want to believe us.
It's not so important what top 20 university you attend is more important what you make out of it!</p>
<p>Agreed.</p>
<p>However, why would they use Dartmouth's Tuck instead of Northwestern's Kellog? Little things like this seem to slowly invalidate these rankings. Would not seeing the actual numbers of people at these grad schools not be more fulfilling? Moreover, the rankings encompass all three field ranges (business, law, and medicine). But as we all know..WUSTL is primarily a med school generator. So, that is already a disadvantage since Dartmouth is both a solid Law and Business school feeder school. But that was not the question, was it? The question deals with medicine only and in that aspect WUSTL beats Dartmouth hands down. You simply cannot beat a state of the art hospital on campus for infinte amounts of research.</p>
<p>The WSJ methodology is flawed because
1. It only covers alums over the past year as opposed to a running average over the past 5,10 or 15. Year-to-year these admissions do vary considerably in tandem with the changes in the applicant pools.
2. It only counts top 5 biz, med and law schools [not the 15 schools like you were saying].
3. It discounts students who eventually return to school a few years after graduation.
4. In Brown's case I'm not sure how S/NC is handled.
5. I can't say for sure, but I would imagine that at some schools like U.Chicago or Penn more pre-biz applicants would exist than at Brown which isn't factored into the numbers.
6. The incoming diversity of Reed and Swarthmore are probably far different numerically. This probably has something of an effect on input and output.
7. HOW THE HELL IS YALE MED A CONTROL FOR THIS RANKING? WHERE IS WUSTL MED?</p>
<p>One more thing: I don't quite understand why you don't get the meaning of pathetic. Perhaps I was too harsh when I said it, but it was not aimed at you. It was primarily aimed at your evidence.</p>
<p>OP: I want an all-around education with the possibility of entering pre-med, which says that Dartmouth is the one.</p>
<p>WSJ: So for medicine, our schools were Columbia; Harvard; Johns Hopkins; the University of California, San Francisco; and Yale</p>
<p>ME: Not to put to fine a point on it, but nothing you mentioned is a flaw. To have been a flaw, WSJ would have disregarded the things you noted, which they did not and that is why you, or anyone else, knows the limitations of the survey/ranking and consider them having read it. </p>
<p>If you happen to think you would like to go to Harvard, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, UCSF or Yale for Med school, you may want to consider, amongst other things, WSJ or should it be utterly disregarded in favor of popular assumptions?</p>
<p>It would be silly to base an undergrad choice on grad school placement, but if you intend to go to grad school it might be worth considering. </p>
<p>Moreover, to say one is better than another might require more than You simply cannot beat a state of the art hospital on campus for infinite amounts of research when the issue is not infinite amounts of research but rather an all-around education with the possibility of entering pre-med.</p>
<p>I think it is better to consider as much as possible, not as little as possible, in an imperfect world.</p>
<p>It occurs to me: In the WSJ, Duke Med was also overlooked in favor of the other 5; however, Duke does just peachy in the undergrad survey at 5...it's all good.</p>
<p>Sangel, perhaps I should rephrase myself. Dartmouth students aren't necessarily "smarter" than Wash. U. students, but by all available indicators, they're certainly more academically able and better prepared. Consider:</p>
<p>Wash U's SAT median is 1405
Dartmouth's is 1470.</p>
<p>2 Wash. U graduates are currently enrolled at Harvard Law.
For Dartmouth, the number is 34. </p>
<p>The difference in the results is clear, whether you are a firm believer in standardized tests, or not. </p>
<p>Going on, there is truth to the phrase-you, not your undergrad institution, get yourself into grad school, as you may very well be accepted into the same school, whether you went to Dartmouth or Wash. U. However, you would not enjoy the same quality of peers, or the same sort of intellectual experience, at Wash U. throughout your four years, as at Dartmouth. If anyone disagrees, feel welcome to cite quantitative figures that refute what I have to say, instead of making loose statements, like, "it is cuz i said so."</p>
<p>Keep in mind you are speaking of Harvard Law, thus your point is nullified since we are discussing medicine.
Luckystar, with the exception of your Harvard Law stats (which are irrelevent), your whole last paragraph has been a qualitative analysis based on your own preconceived notions!</p>
<p>To Ms. Snow:
Why would a WUSTL undergrad want to go to Yale Med school when WUSTL's Med program trounces it utterly? Just wondering.
However, I completely agree with you in the sense that the rankings are purely circumstantial. If I wanted to go to Harvard Med, these rankings could give me ballpark figures on my chances. Agreed?</p>
<p>Did you not see the 65 point difference in Median SAT between Dartmouth and Wash. U? I think that is quite indicative. </p>
<p>Sigh, I give up.....</p>
<p>(By the way, I would have posted the numbers at Harvard Med., if HMS had made those numbers available....but they didn't, so i didn't)</p>
<p>What's your point? Just because a school has higher SAT scores it is better? What about research schools? Is MIT/CIT more prestigious than Harvard by default?</p>
<p>I wasn't discussing prestige, or how "good" a school is. Rather, I was touching upon the quality of the student body, and as flawed an indicator as SAT scores might be, I know of none better.</p>
<p>DMC,</p>
<p>why, of course.</p>