I don’t really know Amherst/Dartmouth CS well in terms of specifics, but make sure there is sufficient course depth at each. If they both check out, neither will give you a leg up in recruiting for most CS positions, though Dartmouth could carry a prestige edge for fields like finance. I’d be focusing more on fit than CS strength here. Sorry if that’s a repeat of previous advice.
That hasn’t been my experience. Different, but similar, country. Different, but similar, schools. Overwhelmingly, Cornell and UMich garner widespread respect. Williams, not so much. Does it matter? To our family, so far not in the least, but if my son were to attempt to work in Asia I believe his Cornell degree would be a boost and his Williams degree might even be a negative. To the OP, it depends on where she ends up after getting her BA.
15 years ago Amherst and Dartmouth were nearly identical culturally (though Amherst had already abandoned its Greek system). About that time Amherst veered notably to the left and made diversity of all sorts the hallmark of its admission strategy. Dartmouth has remained in the more conservative middle road, though in the past few years it has tried harder to tone down its party-hard reputation. Wesleyan leans left too, but, to me, its social justice warriors seem less grimly determined and more good natured.
I think you will find academic intensity and very smart kids who take their education seriously at all three. Amherst and Wesleyan kids may be a little more concerned about social advocacy. Dartmouth kids more career focused. But the calibre of the faculty and the level of intellectual curiosity is similar.
All of the selective LACs (except Harvey Mudd) have had to play catch up in computer science. This is a major that barely existed ten years ago, and now CS departments are receiving significant funding across the board. I’ve always thought of Amherst’s strengths to be in humanities and social sciences, less so in science and math. They may have caught up, but I would still give Dartmouth and Wesleyan the edge for CS and math.
My advice would be to reach out to current students at all three schools who are majoring CS, math (and engineering at Dartmouth). I’m sure the admissions department would tell you how to contact current students by email. Ask them to tell you more about their experiences, how challenged are they, what kind of internships have they held, what do they plan to do after graduation?
Varsity sports are quite serious at both Dartmouth and Amherst, but there are plenty of intramural and club opportunities. Both schools attract sporty, active and outdoorsy student bodies.
@momrath She is looking at CS now at Dartmouth. It is a four year plan. Not the four year engineering lite degree.
New Hampshire has quite a drug problem. From the first person narratives, Dartmouth kids are using cocaine and heroin and who knows what else. The old Animal House movie seems quaint in comparison. A perfect storm of wealth, youth, time and that you’re isolated and indoors more in the winter is a recipe for trouble. Dartmouth is the top party school in the Ivy League and I think it attracts people who like that nihilistic Greek party scene because the Greek system is still a prevalent part of social life.They’re work hard, play hard.
They are selling Dartmouth as the “Great Outdoors” and how else are you going to sell rural NH. But for a student with limited $ it won’t be so great. You need $ for proper equipment and activity fees. The Dartmouth Outdoor Club rents equipment for activities. How much $ is Gigi going to have for this? Most likely Gigi will spend most of November through March indoors. The days will be short and it will be really cold. Painfully cold in January. September and May will be the best for day hikes. October and April mixed. It is April 2nd and we have snow today. People get cabin fever and winter blues.
I really think Amherst, while it has outdoor activity opportunities, is a lot less isolated. Amherst is a really nice college town with the college consortium. While they may not be angels, the Greek system is not allowed.
@momrath I think you are driving this 15 year old to a choice that will be less safe and personal difficult for a potential prestige bump.
@gearmom disagreeing is fine but accusing me of endangering a child is over the top.
Dartmouth is right now not where I’d send my daughter. Academics have nothing to do with it and if party-experienced kids want to go to Dartmouth for the work hard/play hard ethos, it’s fine, but I wouldn’t send my daugher there, so I don’t see how I could in good faith recommend it for a precocious kid who’s NEVER been in that culture or even close to what American kids experience as “work hardplay hard”. (Compound that with the insularity and the cost of most social activities).
This isn’t to say that there aren’t kids who drink at Amherst, but kids who choose that college don’t do it for that specific culture it’s so well-known for - they may choose it for the open curriculum, the consortium, the small interactive classes with topnotch peers… When you choose Dartmouth you choose it in part because or despite the specific Greek/party culture. It is always a major factor in the decision. There are so many questions on this forum about Dartmouth’s party culture because even among American teens there are worries and doubts (Animal House represents the 50s and is really tame compared to 21st century Greek culture at Dartmouth. And keep in mind some teens and some parents approve of that culture, and actively seek it - some see “wild parties” as essential.)
That Gigi isn’t asking “party” questions regarding a college where getting obliterated is so much part of the culture there had to be an administrative move to put classes on Friday (students deliberately avoided those since they knew they’d be too incapacited to go to class so faculty had stopped offering them) shows you the chasm between what Gigi assumes and what Americans assume about Dartmouth. Or, as a student succinctly put it “you don’t go to parties to talk”. And, if you’re not into that scene - or can’t get into it because you’re lower income, have no connections, and/or are too young and thus too much of a legal risk- you can end up being excluded from what the college offers.
It’s also important not to confuse Nigeria and China (or Asian countries) ’ cultures wrt to American education. In Nigeria, the universities that carry prestige on their own will be Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Harvard, Stanford, MIT. Yale, Amherst, Dartmouth, Wesleyan will mostly be unknown. Anyway, “prestige” doesn’t work the same way as in China.
From experience I also know that, although currently Gigi can’t imagine going to grad school, the BA/BS-> OPT-> grad degree route is the most likely, especially since she wants to get things done in Nigeria. But right now she shouldn’t worry about that, as it is a long ways away. What is certain is that, unlike Chinese applicants, the route isn’t “get a US degree/go back to country”. Chinese students leverage their undergraduate institution’s reputation into a position, in the same way a Tsinghua graduate does. Nigeria has no real way of integrating ambitious young women with a high-level American degree, except through family connections. So, the way it’s done is that the family-connection-less student has to build connections through professors, college resources, internships, roommates, and friends in the US. If Gigi chooses to follow CS, as a Black woman in tech, she’ll have lots of opportunities that she’ll then try and turn into venture capital. Her university’s reputation in Nigeria will have zero impact upon what she does with her life - it’ll all be based on what she builds and secures while in the US before she returns. Wesleyan, Amherst, Dartmouth aren’t different in terms of opportunities. They are different in terms of “vibe” or type of student who wants to attend, with Dartmouth at one end of the spectrum and Wesleyan on the other end, Amherst in the middle.
Things to do:
- reach out to Nigerian alumni at all three colleges
- reach out to the closest Nigerian church, ask for their +/- of each college from their point of view + anything they offer
- reach out to the Nigerian students on campus (ask Admissions to put you in touch)
- reach out to the chair of the CS department and ask questions
- reach out to the assistant coach of the women’s soccer team; ask if they accept walk ons and what you should do to see if you can participate; also reach out to the intramural soccer team’s captain.
^ditto what @MYOS1634 said. I am biased toward Wesleyan in that I actually see it as stronger in Physics and Math than Amherst but more nurturing than Dartmouth. I’m also a little confused by @gigichuck’s self-description as a lover of the outdoors. Is this based on actual experience? If not, I have to agree with what others have said about spending the bulk of New England winter indoors: Better be sure there are lots of options for music, theater and dancing. Especially, dancing!
@MYOS1634 I live in Indonesia not China. Socially and historically Indonesia has a lot of overlap with Nigeria.
I don’t see Dartmouth’s culture being as destructive as you paint it. I don’t know enough about Gigi’s personality— other than that she’s smart, determined and energetic— to know if she’d be exhilarated by Dartmouth and suffocated br Amherst or the opposite.
^@momrath, Do you at least acknowledge that student politics at Dartmouth are pretty fractured and have been for decades? It’s another reason I would tend to agree with @gearmom and @MYOS1634. A sixteen year old is apt to get swept up in the periodic battles between BLM and the resident Dartmouth Review writers. Wesleyan has occasional political food fights too, but, somehow they get sorted out.
@momrath I am not saying that you are endangering a child but I do strongly feel that it is a less safe option. I feel that it would be negligent not to be really frank with Gigi. I think you mean her the best. I really do. But like @MYOS1634 I wouldn’t send my nieces there and I wouldn’t be happy if my boys went there. I wouldn’t want them to be part of those frats. they go too far. Lord of the Flies
@circuitrider You know maybe Wesleyan should remain on the table. The consortium and UMass were pulling me towards Amherst.
@circuitrider I live in a rural area 
I’m going to contact alumni and coaches, as has been suggested, and see how it works out.
Yeah, I think Amherst versus Wesleyan is a good contest. I know that the 5-College consortium is a terrific talking point, but, I’ve never met an Amherst grad who spent an enormous amount of time, much less majored in a subject, at UMass. It would basically, IMHO, be the relative safety of the Amherst-Northampton-Pioneer Valley bubble versus the various academic peaks contained under Wesleyan’s one roof.
I know he’s not Nigerian (he’s a Kenyan), but, I think he would have a significant POV on Wesleyan:
http://skoll.org/contributor/kennedy-odede/
He’s a former trustee, so you should be able to get in touch with him through Wes.
@gigichuck Rural New England is going to be different than your rural home. The length of sunlight varies greatly. In December, it will be dark by about 4pm. You can easily spend most of your day outside of school or work in darkness. In August the days will be long and sunset isn’t until 8pm. And that doesn’t factor in the cold.
The same Appalachian trail that runs through New Hampshire, runs through Western Massachusetts and Connecticut. It isn’t as though one location has all the wildlife and forests and one location doesn’t.
http://cnyhiking.com/ATinMassachusetts.htm
Trails, bike paths Amherst
https://www.amherstma.gov/619/Amherst-Trails
@gigichuck I have been really impressed with your perseverance and your happy outcome!
I think Amherst might suit you better for a number of reasons, many of which have already been mentioned. I would like to emphasize the advantages of the Five Colleges Consortium. The opportunity to take courses at four different colleges and a flagship public university will open up all sorts of possibilities for you. If you want to pursue a particular subject in depth and it is not supported at Amherst, you will have four other campuses to explore. If you want to see what an all female campus environment is like, you could visit and/or take a course at Mount Holyoke or Smith.
Amherst has also worked very hard on expanding its cultural, racial, and socioeconomic diversity. As a liberal arts college, it is one of the more heterogeneous.
The surrounding area is beautiful, if you enjoy nature. There are also nearby towns to explore. While Boston isn’t exactly close, there are buses that can take you there for a weekend if you feel like visiting a city. I suspect there is probably a Nigerian community in Boston that you could contact if you end up feeling homesick.
My concern is that if Dartmouth isn’t a good fit for you socially, there really aren’t any other nearby options for you. At Amherst, you would have greater flexibility.
Congratulations on your acceptances!
This:
“My concern is that if Dartmouth isn’t a good fit for you socially, there really aren’t any other nearby options for you. At Amherst, you would have greater flexibility.”
That’s exactly why I mention name recognition as a factor in Gigi’s decision. Prestige is an emotionally weighted term and no one wants to admit to craving it, though we all seek it in our own way, on our own scale (including the virtue signallers at Amherst and Wesleyan). Name recognition is related to prestige but is somewhat different. American kids who attend elite small colleges can afford to scoff at name recognition. (Dave Berry on his alma mater, Haverford: We never heard of you either.) For students from underdeveloped countries, the picture is different, especially if their families are not on the tiny top of the economic pyramid. Their choice of college has to lean toward pragmatism – toward name recognition and professional degrees. This is a fact of Third World culture.
Dartmouth’s global standing may not be on the same level as that of Harvard, Stanford or MIT. In Indonesia Cornell is the crown jewel. Since Gigi’s career path is understandably in flux at this point (as it should be at her age) we can’t know how her hypothetical future employers might value Dartmouth. My opinion is that the Ivy League still carries considerable weight.
Every college has pluses and minuses. Bad things happen at good colleges, all of them, including Amherst and Wesleyan, but somehow the colleges continue to churn out well educated, accomplished graduates who go on to be healthy, wealthy and wise. For various reasons my son didn’t consider Dartmouth or Amherst – though he liked Wesleyan very much. And if collegiate sports and fraternities dropped off the face of the earth I would celebrate. But . . . there’s that but again. . . for the OP, I think Dartmouth has a lot to offer. Wesleyan and Amherst obviously have a lot to offer too, but none of the three is a perfect fit. I wish Swarthmore, Holyoke, Princeton or Brown had come through, but since they didn’t the OP will have to make some tradeoffs.
Dartmouth’s Living Learning Communities could be a positive option. (Thanks to @Kelvin82 for suggesting DEN space for aspiring entrepreneurs.)
http://students.dartmouth.edu/living-learning/communities/first-year-student-opportunities/llcs-open-first-year-students
The OP might contact some of the parents and students who posted on this thread for firsthand comments.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/dartmouth-college/2016993-greek-life-sober-at-dartmouth.html
The problem with finding the right fit for the OP is that we really don’t know much about her preferences – other than STEM focus, soccer and outdoorsy activities and rigorous academics. She may not know enough to identity her preferences either. We have to be careful when advising her on culturally fit and her 10 year plan educational plan that we don’t superimpose our own preferences. @Gigichuck, you would get more specific direction if you would elaborate on your thinking so far.
This is hyperbole. I would make less of an issue of the cold New Hampshire winters. My son left equatorial Asia for two brutally cold and snowy colleges. (Cornell, was in my opinion the worst of the worst.) On some days the temperature difference between Jakarta and Williamstown was 100 degrees fahrenheit. He survived and so have all the Indonesian nationals that I know who have braved New England and Great Plains winters. Most of the kids enjoying the four season experience, including playing in the snow – broomball, traying, snowball fights. If they’ve made it from their home country to an elite US college, then they’ve already displayed great resilience.
^Hmm. It’s very rare in a CC discussion of this type that no one - NO ONE - is willing to say, “You have three wonderful choices, you can’t go wrong.” That’s how confounding the three choices are. 
@momrath , It sounds to me like you are bending over backwards to give Dartmouth the benefit of the doubt despite its drawbacks, but you’re not willing to do the same for two of the finest small colleges in the country despite the fact that both have graduated hundreds of Asian and African nationals between them. I’m pretty sure it was a Dartmouth alumnus who once said, “It’s a small college, but, there are those of us who love it.” Give Gigi a chance to love her college.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: This thread is turning into a debate, which is not permitted by the TOS. I am closing the thread.