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ammarsfound, I started it because I don't understand why Dartmouth is so well ranked within the US but so poorly perceived internationally.
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<p>To be fair though, why did you begin off the thread with a couple of attacks on Dartmouth? I'm just curious.</p>
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Also, UC Berkeley tops all the international university league tables, but fair poorly for the US ones.
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<p>I'll concede that, definitely. However, Berkeley also tops the graduate school rankings on the USNWR rankings, so it's not like Berkeley is doing poorly in the United States. However, there are better choices for an undergraduate education, as sakky will tell you.</p>
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It is operating on a completely different model from Caltech. Undergrad life at Caltech just cannot be nice.
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<p>I'm sure a lot of Caltechers are having a great time. Caltech is a very close-knit environment, and the students there have a very odd sense of humor. The biggest turnoff for a lot of people is that it's just too hard. There also aren't as many connections/opportunities after graduation.</p>
<p>I started it because I don't understand why Dartmouth is so well ranked within the US but so poorly perceived internationally.</p>
<p>Thats not what i mean. Brown, Northwestern and Princeton, as well as all the LACS, suffer quite a bit in the world rankings too. You started this thread in several different forums (from which i can infer that you wanted an answer/reaction somewhat desperately), asking specifically about dartmouth. Someone doesn't do this simply out of curiosity; theres generally a personal touch involved. What REALLY made you start this thread?</p>
<p>"I'm sure a lot of Caltechers are having a great time. Caltech is a very close-knit environment, and the students there have a very odd sense of humor. The biggest turnoff for a lot of people is that it's just too hard. There also aren't as many connections/opportunities after graduation."</p>
<p>No they're not :-p trust me on this. One of my best friends' sister is at caltech. Shes quite possibly the smartest/most hardworking person i know, and she abhors caltech. Theres too much studying, too much science, too much cutting of the throats, very little social interaction, and enormous grade deflation. She says she looks at uchicago students and gets jealous by their 'lax' lifestyles. I pulled my application from caltech after talking to her.</p>
<p>Jobs/grad schools disadvantage you quite a bit if you have a gpa of less than 3.5 . A 3.5 at caltech is equivalent to like a 3.9 at any other university. The problem is most places don't care. They just want to see the magical 3.5. If you don't have it youre pretty screwed. Its one of the reasons caltech did so poorly in the wsj rankings.</p>
Actually Brown is another similar case to Dartmouth. It is ranked as a university in THES and Shanghai Jiaotong and faired poorly. But Dartmouth was a more extreme case hence I used Dartmouth. </p>
<p>For Northwestern, it is fine because it is also not very highly rated within the US and it does quite well for THES actually.</p>
<p>For Princeton, it does quite well on THES also, though tends to be on the low side (like ranked behind Imperial for this year) when compare to Harvard. In domestic rankings Princeton can exceed Harvard.</p>
<p>The LACs like Williams and so on are not ranked by THES.</p>
<p>I started this thread at the Dartmouth sub-forum first, because I guess that's the place to get the most reaction. Then I wanted some international perspective as well, so I went to the International Student sub-forum. Finally, I want to see how Harvard students think of Dartmouth's performance internationally (remember Harvard tops all the int'l tables), so I started one in the Harvard sub-forum as well.</p>
<p>I think you meant grade deflation. Because Caltech has no grade inflation - none, zero, zip, zilch, nada.</p>
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She says she looks at uchicago students and gets jealous by their 'lax' lifestyles.
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<p>I find that statement funny. UChicago students aren't the most relaxing kids in the world - they too seem to have a lot on their plates. But compared to Caltech...oh boy.</p>
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A 3.5 at caltech is equivalent to like a 3.9 at any other university.
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<p>I would say that's a little too generous as well. Caltechers work *****ing hard. At Dartmouth, I could go to an awesome party, get a massive hangover the next morning, wake up for drill at 7:45, and still do good enough in my classes. That's a pretty good deal haha.</p>
Actually I kind of like this kind of environment... drinking water from fire-hose.... impossible exams..... all-nighters.... endless deadlines..... That's why Caltech is my dream school. </p>
<p>But I just don't like the grade deflation part, because it is unfair. Very unfair. Maximum outlay for minimum return.</p>
In general, very few students at Caltech feel that it has a cut-throat environment. Also, the housing system socially caters well to the majority of undergrads. It's a pretty common complaint that there's too much studying, but that kind of comes with the territory. Finally, I don't know what definition of grade deflation you're operating under, but Caltech's average GPA (for graduating students) has been constant (at ~3.2) for the past 30 years or so.</p>
<p>Also, the housing system socially caters well to the majority of undergrads.</p>
<p>I think she meant everyone is forced to study so much theres hardly any time for socializing. I didn't mean socializing as in study groups and stuff. </p>
<p>Most caltech students i know complain about grade deflation. I'm not using any 'definition', i'm passing on what a student there told me. And its probably 'cut throat' because classes are curved.</p>
<p>Colleges that rank highly in every US ranking as well as THES:</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, Duke, Columbia, Chicago
<---cmon, everyone knows theres more than 10 elite schools in America. The two rankings look at different things. THES is valuable IMO, but so is Wall Street Journal, US News, stats from National Merit, other things too.</p>
<p>AW5K
- Yeah, America is the best country in the world - what of it? Btw, I'm 20, lived in England for a semester. Sorry for being patriotic - but in this case, both patriotic and empirical. Irish beer is great though.</p>
<p>What do you mean? Washington is ranked one spot below dartmouth. Northwestern, one spot below washington, brown one spot below Northwestern, and Rice two spots below brown. They're all consecutively ranked on usnews.</p>
<p>ammars, there was actually an old thread with a greater number of participants where spencer kinda duked it out against the rest of us (including thethoughtprocess). </p>
<p>spencer began with a couple of ad hominems against Dartmouth, several people called him out and disputed his wild claims, and I actually didn't come in until several pages down in the thread (cuz it was getting into a really heated argument). The mods closed it, and then the next day or so, spencer started 3 threads on Dartmouth - I have no idea why he would start one on the Harvard forum to be honest. The mods closed 2 of those, as you've noticed, but they apparently missed this one.</p>
<p>Really, it's the same formula when you think about it. spencer starts a thread, calls Dartmouth a "crap school" and now he tries to take back his ad hominems and put the blame elsewhere. He still hasn't taken back his remarks against our future alma mater - which is a shame to say the least.</p>
<p>The truth is, he already had his questions answered in the old thread. He's just trying to be belligerent, that's really all there is to it. Look at his last 80 or so posts - all in this one thread.</p>
<p>I know you were trying to fathom that kind of answer out of him - but he just won't give it to you man. It's like what you said on Facebook, the guy is incapable of reasoning.</p>
<p>I'm sure he's motoring on about something now (stupid kid does not know how to shut up when he's not needed anymore) but yeah - the Ignore feature is pretty nice to say the least.</p>
<p>So basically you didn't pick the other schools that did poorly because that would've proved that the rankings are highly inaccurate. You picked Dartmouth just because it's an Ivy. So you could say stuff like 'It ranks high just because of it's Ivy status and it's actually the crappiest school ever!'.</p>
<p>You're just against the school because it's an Ivy and you feel it shouldn't be ranked that highly. Guess what? It's not about you.</p>
<p>Ok people, stop it please.
spencer certainly made a mistake and this debate between him and BigBrother1984 was pathetic; however, his initial question ("How can you explain that Dartmouth is a top-ranked college in the USA and a low-ranked college in international rankings") was perfectly acceptable and understable. While he should have stopped inquiring after getting the right answers (Dartmouth focuses on undergraduate), it is senseless and unnecessary to strike at him at the end of this discussion.</p>
<p>Lakshya M, my intention was not to demonstrate that rankings are inaccurate. In fact, I believe that rankings are products of extensive data gathering and research, and hence they should be more representative than general opinions.</p>
<p>Dartmouth is an exceptional case amongst the Ivies. It is considered an elite college (part of the Ivy League) in the US, ranked high in domestic tables, but fair poorly in ALL international rankings, THES Shanghai Jiaotong Newsweek included. Brown has a similar situation but it is not so severe.</p>
Haha, Big Brother 1984 and ammarsfound are both going to Dartmouth soon... I guess just the topic of this discussion alone irks them --- whether the school that they would be going to is sub-standard.</p>