<p>I would like some perspectives regarding Dartmouth v. Williams. I fell in love with Williams last fall and got accepted early write (making me love it even more). I'm attending Previews next week. However, much to my surprise, I have also been accepted at Dartmouth. How do these schools compare? Can anyone talk about Dartmouth in general? (You don't necessarily have to do a side-by-side comparison.) Also: I have been strongly encouraged by many people to go to Dartmouth if I want to be successful in life and not some liberal arts-educated drifter (that's almost exactly what a teacher told me). Is Dartmouth that much more prestigious than Williams? I know one should just follow the heart, yadadada, but it is something I want to be honest about, even if I still attend Williams. </p>
<p>Look at WSJ’s feeder schools to elite programs. Williams ranks higher than Dart. I think this is a case in which you really can go with your heart. The schools have different flavors: Dart has Greek life and the quarter system; Williams has semesters, Winter Study and no Greek life. Both have their fierce advocates and fierce detractors. My S chose Williams over Dart; so do many students. However many make the opposite choice.</p>
<p>courteau, I wouldn’t say that Darthmouth is more prestigious than Williams but I would say that it is better known. the Ivy League is a global brand; the Williams name is only recognized by a small percentage of the population. Having said that Williams IS well known and well respected by people who may matter – a lot – in your future: graduate school admissions, hiring committees for Fortune 500 companies and not-for-profit organizations.</p>
<p>Three years out from graduation my son and his friends have racked up some substantial accomplishments in jobs and graduate school admissions. Williams has to be a part of their success.</p>
<p>These are two very good choices. To me the decision comes down to size, i.e., medium sized university vs small liberal arts college, which affects a lot of the day to day ambience, and the influence of the Greek System, or lack thereof.</p>
<p>Follow your heart, but if you choose Williams don’t be surprised if your friends, neighbors and relatives question your decision.</p>
<p>The lack of Greek life at Williams doesn’t mean the social scene at Williams isn’t very, very much like that at Dartmouth. Preppy frat culture is the reigning norm at both schools.</p>
<p>If that doesn’t appeal to you in large way, go to Dartmouth. It’s larger and it will be easier to find people who aren’t into beer pong and drunken hookups. </p>
<p>If you have some notion of a vibrant intellectual community at Williams, a picture-perfect liberal education, drop it. The students at both Dartmouth and Williams will be of approximately the same distribution of interests and values, and from similar backgrounds.</p>
<p>Dartmouth professors are usually better published and well-known in their fields; Williams professors are still fantastic, however.</p>
<p>There are plenty of reasons to go or not to go to either school, but believing the absence of Greek life at Williams makes its students somehow different from those at Dartmouth is not a good one. Neither is romanticizing what Williams has to offer in terms of liberal education. Dartmouth is a primarily undergraduate liberal arts institution too; it’s just basically Williams’ bigger twin.</p>
<p>Dartmouth is the number seven feeder to Williams’ five, according to WSJ. The difference isn’t significant. But people will have heard of Dartmouth. Oh, I’m a Williams student, just so you know.</p>
<p>We love what we have seen at Williams - particularly the great faculty and the personal attention to students. Drinking is much more prevalent on all college campuses than my D would like but I’m hoping someone can say that beer pong isn’t the norm here as that is one thing that very much turned us off to Dartmouth. At this point she is considering W very strongly with Midd and Harvard as two other options. Thanks!</p>
<p>I don’t really know because I’ve never been in dorms at night on the weekend, but S has said he has never played beer pong, and I believe him.</p>
<p>The second thing to think about is that it’s so different from our experiences on all campuses. If there is a “party” it probably won’t start until 11 pm. That means that the kids may already have seen a movie, gone to a concert, done a different activity. The party scene starts so late that usually my S is back in his room doing school work then.</p>
<p>I know that as a frosh when he occasionally wandered into a party that was out of hand in his entry he <em>did</em> enjoy being sober and helping and making sure everyone was okay. I think he felt parental during those times.</p>
<p>He never mentioned the alcohol scene as something that disturbed him, but then again, he is very easy going.</p>
<p>My son had to choose between Dartmouth and Williams and chose Williams. He was also given similar advice–especially to attend Dartmouth because it was an Ivy and would afford better opportunities after graduation. Don’t agree. My son had a great experience at Williams.He and his friends have all ended up at fantastic graduate programs at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Oxford, Cambridge, U of Chicago, etc.</p>
<p>It seems to me that Williams alumni are very successful. I could be wrong but there seems to be a very strong alumni network that increases the value of a Williams education. Forbes ranks it as the 5th best value out of all the colleges it rates. Dartmouth is not even close. Of course I know the significant limitations of such rankings. My daughter visited Dartmouth, Amherst, and Williams on the same day. She had a strong negative vibe from Dartmouth and Amherst and only applied to Williams. I never thought that Dartmouth would provide more opportunities. In fact, I thought the opposite.</p>
<p>" “Dartmouth professors are usually better published and well-known in their fields; Williams professors are still fantastic, however.”</p>
<p>Care to back this up? Any particular department(s) you have in mind?"</p>
<p>Sure, the easiest way is to pick the three or four departments with which one most identifies and then to compare the publications listed on faculty websites. So, for example, Dartmouth’s philosophy prof’s are, on the whole, much better published than those at Williams. It’s helpful to have some acquaintance with the disciplines you’re looking at, because volume is no necessary indication of influence. But as a rule Dartmouth profs come to give talks at Williams, not the other way around. Two have come this spring in fact. I am stating a fact, not disparaging the philosophers at Williams. They are, almost uniformly, fantastic teachers and respected in their fields.</p>
<p>For a hard-nosed empirical study, look at the study done by the Williams economics dept. As their department homepage suggests of their publication citation record, “we compare favorably to departments at mid-tier research universities in that regard.” A Williams professor of economics with tenure is three times less likely to be cited than one at Brown. </p>
<p>This is roughly normal for faculty members at top-tier liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>BTW, if all your “S’s” friends made to graduate schools of that caliber, he was certainly hanging with only Phi Beta Kappas. Those are certainly not the normal outcomes for Williams students applying to graduate schools. Williams has a very strong record in this regard but it isn’t helpful to unduly inflate prospective students’ expectations.</p>
<p>My wife went to Williams; her brother went to Dartmouth. (I’m the peasant who went to a public school.) </p>
<p>I don’t think you can go wrong at either school. Go with your gut.</p>
<p>Dartmouth has nurtured some more conservative students, politically, some outrageously conservative, IMHO.</p>
<p>Williams does seem to graduate more noted people in the arts, Stephen Sondheim, John Sayles, John Frankenheimer, and Frederick Wiseman.</p>
<p>Among those who aren’t aware of Williams status, I wonder if they would even recognize that Dartmouth is an Ivy. </p>
<p>Williams does have a recognition problem, but among people who don’t make grad admissions or job recruitment, not a problem. My wife recently changed jobs, and it didn’t hurt that a couple of other people in the firm were Williams graduates.</p>
<p>But I mentioned to the mother of a friend of a daughter that my wife went to Williams, and the response: “Is that in Rhode Island?” Aside from Roger Williams, it’s also confused with Willam and Mary, although not, I think, with Williams Bible College.</p>
<p>Hey morandi: Talking 'Bout My Generation. I love that film (which does have David Strathairn, of course, and John Sayles wife, Maggie Renzi), and the Big Chill is just a big yuppie version of it.</p>
<p>mythmom-- agree completely. David Strathairn was a classmate of Sayles and the scene of the two posing for the ‘girls’ while skinny dipping is one of many great scenes. Big Chill just doesn’t meet Sayles standard.</p>
<p>Dear person. Actually my son was not hanging out with Phi Beta Kappas. I have been incredibly impressed with the experiences of kids getting into these amazing programs after Williams. I think most of the kids were above average there, however.</p>
<p>“I could be wrong but there seems to be a very strong alumni network that increases the value of a Williams education.”</p>
<p>You are not wrong. As I mentioned in another post, my wife’s Williams connection was not irrelevant to her recent job offer. The firm had hired a couple of other Williams alums and was pleased about it.</p>
<p>And there is something to the old boys and now girls network. Since she has graduated it is not uncommon for her to contact other alums–not always ones she knows–or to be contacted herself related to jobs, recommendations, etc.</p>
<p>My S took a very hard look at Dartmouth before applying to Williams ED. He was turned off by the frat//drinking culture at Dartmouth. He saw Williams as a much more supportive environment, particularly the freshman entry/JA program, which has no real parallel at Dartmouth. He was very impressed when several Williams professors made time to see him when he visited last fall. He is excited about the Oxford tutorials. Dartmouth is a fine school, but my S opted for Williams and hasn’t looking back.</p>
<p>My boys both felt Dartmouth was boozier-even the student giving the tour bragged about the “great parties” .It also felt more remote to them than Williams.
Honestly, the demographic will be very similar at either,and we are really just splitting hairs.
If you visited, go where you liked it better.</p>
<p>In many cases, the entry system introduces students to the fratty drinking culture at Williams. My JAs, together with the JAs from the neighboring entries, bought us beer and vodka and encouraged us to drink. To me this was no problem, but some in our entry, the non-drinkers, felt excluded from entry weekend life.</p>
<p>My JAs also were unable and at times unwilling to offer meaningful support to those in the entry who needed it most. One girl, who is black, never felt welcome in the entry; another girl, also black, ended up taking time off because of major personal issues that our JAs were unaware of, even though many in the entry were. </p>
<p>But every entry is different. My JAs happened to be white kids from privileged backgrounds who were very much involved in the athletic culture, which may go a long way in explaining what I mentioned. But a lot of JAs would not fit this description in whole or in part.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that I would strongly caution prospective students from too quickly assuming the entry system is a positive thing that works to provide an inclusive and welcoming environment for new students. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. I wouldn’t bank either way.</p>
<p>There have been complaints from several quarters (for example, the Queer Student Union) about the JA selection and training process, and its role in maintaining undesirable features of Williams campus culture.</p>