<p>Hooray for Dave Berry!</p>
<p>I really do love that movie.. never gets old -- although I have.</p>
<p>To the thread: I find it interesting that when posters are negative about Dartmouth or point out a concern or two, other posters of the Dartmouth faithful say their issues reside in some sort of bitterness and/or they should take their opinions elsewhere since they must be a completely jealous traitor. (Ok.. admittedly an extreme).</p>
<p>I honestly thought this thread might evolve into a discussion about which schools are intellectual and where Dartmouth might fit in the scale and mix. I've always been of the impression Dartmouth was where there are a lot of intellectual types but they don't start the conversation with, "let's have an intellectual discussion." The most interesting and intellectual conversations generally evolve in a very organic way if their based on more than "I know more than you" results <-- this is not my impression of Dartmouth students.</p>
<p>No school can be all things and I don't know why if people suggest a downside or two of the college culture (i.e., jocks and golden ticket legacies) they are thrown to the proverbial wolves. I just don't think that's really being true to the spirit of this website IMO.</p>
<p>Two types of intellectuals:</p>
<p>1) Analytical, intense intellectuals. Less big picture interest in the world, but have very acute academic intellectual interests. Tends to not like parties and identifies themselves by how much they love academics. Might wear dark rimmed glasses. Like schools like Swarthmore, Chicago, Columbia, (and a few others fit the bill.)</p>
<p>2) Exploratory intellectuals. Like to travel the world, not afraid to take risks, do very well academically but like to let loose on the weekends. Are very comfortable in their brilliance and do extraordinarily well at what they focus on. More social. Don't see being fun and smart as being mutually exclusive. Like schools like Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, and Northwestern.</p>
<p>Modadunn, do not confuse aerial's prepubescent fits of name-calling (which has thankfully been dealt with) with "suggesting a downside or two of the college." I'd be happy to talk about Dartmouth's culture, here or by PM, but not with trolls around. I will "throw" trolls to the "proverbial wolves" (I think you mean the very efficient admin team, whom I've notified of aerial's antics) every time, thank you very much.</p>
<p>I can see how the dominance of student athletes (I don't like the term "jocks") and trust-fund legacies can lead to some resentment within the student body. The Greek system certainly doesn't help, since many (not all) houses are overwhelmingly upper- and upper-middle-class, suburban, heterosexual, and white. Still, Dartmouth does a good job of creating opportunities for students of diverse backgrounds to interact. These opportunities, as I mentioned in the other thread, include Orientation activities, classes, work, student organizations, and off-campus programs. In my experience, "even" the so-called jocks and legacies are bright people (as in insightful, not necessarily just academic) in their own right, whose company I enjoy as much as that of those who are more like me. Among close friends, the class divide just isn't as important. The perceived anti-intellectual environment may rise from one's own discomfort with one's classmates.</p>
<p>@slipper</p>
<p>You forgot;</p>
<ol>
<li>The intellectual that doesn't necessarily attend a school based on people's perceptions of academia...</li>
</ol>
<p>It just seems to me that what you described are introverts and extroverts.</p>
<p>Except, since we're talking about grade A schools, those people also happen to be ridiculously intelligent/hardworking.</p>
<p>ex.
Analog of question:
Is fifth group U.S. Special Forces "badass"?</p>
<p>Analog of your answer:
Two types of badasses:
1. Analytical badass: Special Activities Division
2.Exploratory badass: MARSOC</p>
<p>The answer hasn't really presented a meaningful difference between the degree of badass-ness of either group, instead it's presenting one dichotomy (here it's branch service...1. CIA 2. Defense Dept.) masqueraded as another ( how much skull they bash)</p>
<p>I would argue that unless schools admissions committee had a definite way to quantify "intellectual ability" and deliberately accepted a large number of a certain grade of student, there wouldn't be any way to say</p>
<p>Okay, student attends school X, thus, he is type of student x</p>
<p>Student attends school Y, thus, he is type of student y.</p>
<p>You can't extrapolate from nothing. College rankings/debates over academic merit are mostly loads of ego trips and crap.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wasn't the movie Animal House based on a Dartmouth frat?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think it was a documentary. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>It also reminded me strongly of the MIT frat where I spent a lot of time in the mid-70s... :D</p>
<p>My kid is an introvert and highly intellectual (as opposed to smart). Much to the surprise of many, he chose to go to D over one of the schools cited as oh-so-intellectual up-thread. Partially because he thought that if he went there he might become one of those people who spends all of their time in their room.</p>
<p>@DaveBerry
No problem. It's just I'm used to seeing the CC Senior advisors come in and be the 'adult' who says something like: Don't try and stereotype. And you come in and perpetuate the stereotypes! I don't mind though.</p>
<p>@Consolation
I wouldn't be surprised that there were similarities between an MIT frat and Animal House. The MIT students that I know seem to take life to the extreme. In that way, I think they are fairly similar to Dartmouth for being really smart students who have a non-academic outlet.</p>
<p>i guess Dartmouth is a 2 hour drive away from MIT ?</p>
<p>But if you're the kind of person who is seriously thinking about a place like UChicago or Swarthmore, it's a good sign that Dartmouth may not be a good place for you. People here are smart, but the culture isn't conducive to meeting new people by launching into a discussion of the merits of minarchism, the rationale behind the 1798 Sedition Act, or the arguments for legalizing partial birth abortion. As I've said before, that's a plus to some, a neutral to some, and a minus to yet others. I'm just fine with this, as are most of the other people I know who like thinking about these things."</p>
<p>Okay, this is such a misconception. Swarthmore is intellectual, but being intellectual doesn't revolve around debating the rationale behind the Sedition Act. People at Swarthmore generally don't talk about these things at dinner.</p>
<p>I think "intellectualism," as it seems to be defined on this thread and associated with my school, is very overstated. I group myself in a category of people who a) likes academics, b) enjoys talking about academics, and c) enjoys talking about academics in non-academic contexts. I also enjoy things that have little to no relation to school. It sounds like at least as far as this thread is concerned, I'm not so different from some Dartmouth students. </p>
<p>I've met a lot of Chicago students who like to talk about academics, though not everybody talks about them all the time. In fact, most of the time, most students are not talking about academics. One thing that surprised me about Chicago was how non-"intellectual" it was compared to what I was expecting. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing for me. It's gone both ways.</p>
<p>I would even say that the typical weekend at Chicago and the typical weekend at Dartmouth and the typical classroom at Chicago and the typical classroom at Dartmouth would look the same to the person who is searching for specific things. As in, the student who wants to party hard will find that at Chicago and the student who wants to talk about the categorical imperative will find that at Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Like dchow, I think the assertion that somehow my school or ones like it are filled with hyperserious students who don't talk about things besides academics is like saying that Dartmouth is filled with white male jocks who destroy their livers and brain cells. In other words, neither is true, and both images are based on an extremely inflated image mostly perpetuated by people who don't go there.</p>
<p>(I should mention that I have a handful of Dartmouth friends with whom I compare notes on our college experiences, so I feel somewhat justified in writing this).</p>
<p>It seems to me that “Intellectual,” in these discussions, is too often an analogue of “geekish social moron.”</p>
<p>--Will you have to continue to endure repeatedly having sand kicked in your face?
-Certainly not! …you are no longer in high school; this will, happily, end.</p>
<p>--Will you be loved and socially elevated for affecting a deeply worried intelligence?
-Sadly, probably not.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>all the kids i know from dartmouth talk about 80's television, food, and talladega nights: the ballad of ricky bobby</p>
<p>You know the wrong kids.</p>
<p>the profs at dartmouth are great. the administration is great. however, the student body...not so much. the culture is extremely male dominated and heavy HEAVY into drinking. definitely a jock culture and women take a back seat.....in every way possible. are kids there smart? sure. is that prized in the culture? definitely not.</p>
<p>Not sure how long your DS has been at Dartmouth ddad. As someone who has hired kids at the top of Dartmouth's classes for 25 years, I've seen that being smart there is very much prized.</p>
<p>Kids may not wear their intellect on their sleeve as they do at some colleges, but these are ambitious kids with their eye on the ball. They are fierce competitors for top jobs and top grad schools, and getting these are a prize that requires top grades. </p>
<p>So while they may party hardy, don't take that as meaning their education and being competitive and successful are not their priority in most cases.</p>
<p>One of the things that I don't like about many top Colleges is drinking. James Wright is one of the college presidents who signed some kind of petition to lower the drinking age to 18. I think that sent the wrong signal. I definitely advise kids not to drink in college, but I don't know how that is going to affect their social life.</p>
<p>ddad, I agree with you that intellectualism isn't highly valued at Dartmouth, at least not more than sports and fraternities. However, there are some students who prize intellectualism a lot and once you're in that group, it's easy to block out the anti-intellectual noise and find what you want within that group. </p>
<p>hmom5, I prefer to think that being intellectual is not the same as being ambitious career-wise. Sure, a lot of Dartmouth students get highly-paid jobs and go on to professional graduate schools, but how many of them end up pursuing PhDs or become book-writers or researchers or educators? Very few. I've been looking at other universities' websites, at their faculty lists, and very, very few professors went to Dartmouth for their undergraduate degree. Probably one Dartmouth graduate for every 20 Harvard graduates. I'm guilty for using "intellectualism" in the extreme ivory tower/nerdy/arcane knowledge sense, but you get my point.</p>
<p>Dartmouth does produce its fair share of soulless i-bankers, based on my own empirical data.</p>
<p>Xanatos, that's another one of my disappointments with the school. I don't understand how and why the students here see Dartmouth's high placement rate in I-banks as a good thing. I mean, it's great that you're likely to get a job on WS, but it's a bad sign that so many students here are flooding WS.</p>
<p>hmom5, (and Consolation) I think you misunderstood what I was saying. The question, I think, was about the culture at Dartmouth, not about how smart the students are. Obviously Dartmouth kids are smart. Their SAT scores and class rank support that. They do great things, both at Dartmouth and beyond. I would hope so; it's an Ivy League school. The faculty is superb and extremely supportive of the students. My point is that the overwhelming STUDENT climate, for some reason, does not encourage or value an intellectual atmosphere. Perhaps this is today's norm at all the top schools. Maybe we should ask a Cultural Anthropologist.</p>
<p>If there were some way the admissions people could "screen" for students, that might help. Efforts to minimize athletics and fraternities may be an attempt at this. But maybe the kids who elect to go there LIKE that culture, and for them, it's just right. Nothing wrong with that, but it is NOT an intellectual culture. My child, for example, refused to apply to Harvard or Yale because people there are "stuck up and elitist." Are they? Is that a bad thing? Who knows. But that's the vibe.</p>
<p>PS: I think James Wright is an excellent president and will be missed. He's done great things for the school during his tenure. I wish lowering the drinking age was some kind of magic bullet. If only the answer were that easy.</p>