Saw this post in the past for a few other schools and so I just want to see what did you guys choose Dartmouth over?
Personally I did not choose Dartmouth as my final choice(it was my second choice because Dartmouth did not pay to fly me out) but I am still interested in what you guys selected.
Chose Dartmouth over Duke, JHU, UPenn, Northwestern, Cornell, UVA, and Penn State.
I chose Dartmouth College over JHU, Northwestern, UVA, and BC.
I chose Dartmouth over Georgetown, Tufts, Colby, Colgate, and BC
I chose Dartmouth over JHU, Northwestern, UCLA, USC, Cornell, Rice, and Pomona.
waterboarding.
Kidding… kidding… some of my dumbest best friends went to Dartmouth!
I have to ask a serious question. (background: I’m a Boston born, NY and Philly raised long-time relocated to West Coast from a long line of west Conn/Mass/South NH/VT swamp-Yankees.) In my conversations with my friend’s kids many will mention Dartmouth and Columbia or Penn or UChicago in the same list. Do students really find those options equally attractive? I get Dartmouth and Colby, Colgate, Williams, Hamilton, Kenyon etc. even BC, Northwestern (sort of, at least Evanston is rural-ish) Cornell or even Yale or Princeton but do most students really think they would be equally happy and engaged among 25000 students in West Philly as they would in the hills of New Hampshire?
I wonder how many students have considered location and vibe in your lists? I get kids that love the idea of spending 4 years someplace rural and self-contained and somewhat sequestered with hiking and skiing etc. And I get the idea of kids wanting to spend 4 years in a bustling city with a million things to do right outside their door. I just wonder if there are that many students who think either scenario is equally as engaging…
Ok, OT I know, but it interests me.
Lol @CaliDad2020. You are right. Dartmouth/Hanover is a totally different world from Columbia, USC, and every other college located in a gigantic city. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, so my list included schools in both very rural areas and very urban areas…and I would have been fine in either environment. In the end, I chose Dartmouth because of the size (or lack thereof), the drastically different environment from what I was used to, and MY very own experiences on two different visits.
Having visited almost all of the colleges I was accepted to, I don’t know for sure if any of them would have been as engaging as the next (“engaging” is relative and how the heck would I know from a 1 off visit to each school?). I chose the school that checked off more of the boxes in my 17 year old head…it just so happened to be 3,000 mies away, 3.9 million people fewer, and 39 degrees colder than my next favorite option. Doesn’t always make sense when I think about it, but I haven’t once regretted my decision.
It will for sure be different from LA! (pack warm!!) And to be clear, I wasn’t slagging on anyone who chose Dartmouth, it’s a great school, Winter Carnival is a blast and the academics are top-notch, it’s just interesting to me that such variety of environments, sizes, locations etc. get mixed into kid’s lists these days. Part of it is the common app lets you apply to more place more easily, of course, but I just find it fascinating. Like Pomona Consortium kinda make sense with Dartmouth. USC is as different as you could get.
Have fun in Hannover!
Thanks @CaliDad2020! I’ve actually been at Dartmouth for two years now (it’s sophomore summer now) and I love it.
When it came down to it, Dartmouth was my #1 with Pomona, USC/Viterbi, UCLA/Samueli all tied for a very close 2nd (weird, I know). Dartmouth won me over with the smaller class sizes, D-plan (opportunity to make up for the lack of a more renowned engineering program with “off term” internships every year), and the personal growth that comes with being in a totally different environment a world away.
Guess the “97” should have given it away!
Glad it’s been a good experience for you. It’s beautiful country up there. I’m in SoCal now and miss the Fall drives up to see the family and climb Mt Monadnock!
Here’s a post related to Dartmouth and cross admits:
I chose Dartmouth over, Cornell,Brown, Penn, Tufts, UCB
@Boothie007 Parchment cross admit data is very questionable, as the data is self-reported. For example, it says that Washington University in St. Louis wins 40% of cross admits against Harvard.
@xDFFmp3 Parchment is not extremely accurate in terms of getting a definitive split but it is pretty good at showing which school has the lead over which, in other words what is the overall dynamic.
Also their ordering of what ivy wins over which definitely coincides with the relative difference in yield rates of all the ivies which could be used as a rough proxy for revealed preference. In fact last year Dartmouth had a lower RD yield (~38%) than all ivies including Cornell (~40%). This year it is probably higher than Cornell though since Dartmouth had an uptick in the overall yield rate.
Also the blogpost in the link provided above has a reference to another survey conducted by interviewing Dartmouth students and the results support the Parchment story, namely that Dartmouth wins the cross admit battle only against Cornell out of all the ivies.
Regarding the WUSTL vs Harvard split one reason could be because WUSTL provides merit scholarships. A person good enough to get into Harvard is probably gonna get merit money from WUSTL and for some people the cost of Harvard might not be worth it given than WUSTL is very good school.