<p>I think S would make the most of either experience. At Dartmouth, he excited about the class he took, the opportunities for study abroad, the internships that everyone seemed to have, the undergrad academic experience, etc. He is not actively seeking a frat experience, open to all types of people but doesn't get the desire to over imbibe in order to have fun. (the drinking culture at any college will be a shock to him at first, but he will get over it). Hanover is much more bucolic and safer than South Bend and he loves the idea of the ski hill. </p>
<p>ND has the school spirit, football thing ( he loves college sports) and he is interested in the marching band. We visited on a Fri before a football game and I must admit it was pretty impressive.
He is undecided in major, possibly pre med but likes humanities and sciences, languages. (likes the language philosophy at Dartmouth). Any thoughts? We are in the middle of the country.</p>
<p>Our family is Catholic and D was accepted at both Notre Dame and Dartmouth and under pressure to pick ND… She chose Dartmouth mainly due to the negative vibe at South Bend visit. She thought it was a snob school, Dartmouth much more a small, close knit atmosphere. Also, South Bend is a crummy town having grown up in Indiana. Dartmouth a much better education. </p>
<p>While the marching band at Dartmouth is different from the marching band at ND, Dartmouth does have a marching band. Check out their page on facebook. D is a freshman and the things she did with marching band last fall are among her fondest memories of freshman year, including parades through Hanover before each home game to traveling to Harvard for an away game. Just like Dartmouth, the marching band is a close knit group of inclusive students. </p>
<p>@dnfkona - Is your daughter involved with the Catholic center on campus? Thanks for your response! I appreciate hearing about your decision. My son actually had a good overnight visit to ND but admittedly is probably not as sensitive to social vibes. Not something he would pick up on a quick visit ( which concerns me about his visits in general-he seems to like whatever campus he just visited) @whatsnext -S did check out the band site and told me it was a scatter band. I looked at the site and thought it looked like a lot of fun with fun people. His hs doesn’t have a marching band so he has no marching experience anyway. I told him D’s band might not have as intense of a practice schedule as somewhere like ND. Has your D. been able to fit it into her schedule without problems? How have their social experiences been? Obviously the press about the protests, drinking culture, assaults is on the mind of the the parents of kids who are making decisions.</p>
<p>I am willing to be that there is plenty of drinking at ND, as well as sexual assault. Any school dominated by big time sports is going to have it. Protests, maybe not, since the students are probably far less likely to be rebellious types. :)</p>
<p>Personally, I find the whole big-time college football thing totally off-putting, and would not want to attend a school where being a fan of a bunch of semi-pro athletes is the major feature of student life. Clearly, many do not agree with me! :)</p>
<p>I am assured there is plenty of drinking at ND and they have certainly had their share of controversies as I am finding for every college I google. The protests per se don’t bother me. I went to a school with lots of protests but would like to know if a kid isn’t in a frat, can they have a decent social life or is it greatly diminished at a school like D? Are you considered an outcast?
I went to a huge school that had all kinds. One of my friends was president of her sorority but I wasn’t in one and it was not the predominant scene, so I have no experience of what it would be like to be at a school where it is a much bigger scene. Do the current students feel that the admin is working to improve the areas of concern? From the letters and links we have gotten from D, it seems like they are motivated to make positive change. Are the majority of kids on campus comfortable with how things are being handled?</p>
<p>Mrspepper, the vast majority of kids are very very happy at Dartmouth. Sure, there is always room for improvement, and the administration is bending over backwards to address the issues. The Washington Post just ran a great article. These issues are not unique to Dartmouth…they are at every school. Google any negative word and a college name, and you will get pages of results. My daughters sorority is very diverse. She has many friends that are not Greek. They have had a wonderful experience. I’m not sure if Magnum PI will see this, but PM him. His son did not join a fraternity, and he has loads of friends and a very active social life. Also, feel free to call me. I think you have my phone number. College is a big decision, and no school is right for everyone, but there is no school that I’d rather send my kid to than Dartmouth. It’s a great education, a safe town, and a very inclusive social scene.</p>
<p>Yes, the marching band is a scatter band. My D has been able to participate in the marching band, a club sport, and the Ledyard Canoe Club. She also has been working on a research project through the Women in Science Program. No longer having a commute to school and the time wasted between high school classes permits an organized student to be involved in a lot of things and still stay on top of their classwork. D also has spent time at many fraternities attending their dance parties and playing pong with male friends who are not members of the fraternity. One of the things that I think may be lost on the people who complain about the fraternity culture is that not everyone who participates in a fraternity event drinks --it is ok at Dartmouth to play pong with something that is not alcoholic. </p>
<p>D feels supported by the administration and thinks that Pres. Hanlon is on the right path. Her friends feel the same. As you might have read on other threads, the fraternities at Dartmouth have open parties so you can attend parties without joining. </p>
<p>D is enjoying her time at Dartmouth so much she doesn’t want to take any quarter away from the school. S who was a '10, and Thayer '11 felt the same way and so worked in Hanover during his Junior summer. </p>
<p>I am sure there’s plenty to do at Dartmouth. Did any of the students she met seem bored? I think this is a pretty easy choice if the money is close.</p>
<p>As I just posted in the Notre a Dame thread on this topic, my son just today chose Notre Dame over Dartmouth. It was a very close call and you can’t go wrong with either place.</p>
<p>I do want to correct one error, though. Yes, football at Notre Dame is a big deal and it really pulls the community together. All the students go to the home games, they stand the entire game, and they scream their heads off. It is a blast. But they are screaming for their friends and fellow students, not semi-pro athletes. There are no athletic dorms or majors at Notre Dame. And virtually all the football players graduate with real degrees in real majors. In fact, a couple years ago when the football team was #1 at the top of the BCS poll, it was also #1 in football player graduation rate, besting Stanford and Northwestern in that regard, the first time that that had ever happened at any school. So you might not like big time sports or how commercial college football has become at most schools (and that’s a legit position), but it actually IS different at Notre Dame. Which is one more thing we and my son liked about it.</p>
<p>@ SXSW123 - If your point is that Notre Dame football is different from, say, Alabama or Southern Cal football, fair enough. But an assertion that Notre Dame football players are, by and large, normal Notre Dame students is dubious at best. There are exceptions—I have a relative who is married to a former ND captain—but the typical Notre Dame football player has little business attending a major university. Notre Dame football’s recipe for academic success is simple: farcically high levels of tutoring. I suppose that’s better than what goes on at the Alabamas and the Auburns of the world, but I wouldn’t consider it a source of pride. For what it’s worth, Duke operates its revenue sports under the same model as ND football: admission minimums that are on par with those of the typical powerhouse programs combined with spoon-feeding the coursework to the athletes to keep the graduation rates high.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Stanford and Northwestern have the highest admission standards in 1A football. While the average Cardinal or Wildcat football player would have no chance at gaining admittance to his university minus his football ability, he actually is smarter than the average man on the street. He can function as a normal college student to a certain degree, and he doesn’t require the hand-holding that the average ND player receives. If you want to criticize Stanford and Northwestern for the compromises they make as power conference schools, fair enough. Just be aware that they’re less severe than those made at ND and Duke.</p>
<p>I don’t wish to start a debate here. I suspect I’m not going to change the opinions of ND’s supporters. However, I’ll add that I know not only current and former students but also current and former faculty and staff members at those four institutions. It’s old data at this point, but the Scout.com site for Stanford has postings with information consistent with the experiences of my friends and relatives affiliated with those four schools (for example, <a href=“http://stanford.scout.com/3/1997_SAT_Analysis.html”>http://stanford.scout.com/3/1997_SAT_Analysis.html</a>).</p>
<p>You say you don’t want to start a debate – and then dispute virtually everything I said. I’ll just say this. I have intimate experience with the football programs at Notre Dame and Stanford. I’m not just chit-chatting with “friends and relatives affiliated with” the schools. And not one thing you have said about the football program at Notre Dame is accurate. The idea that those players are morons (or kids who have “little business attending a major university” as you colorfully put it) is both offensive and wrong. So is the notion that they are “spoon-fed” their academics. I can’t conceive of where that idea came from, because it didn’t come from the reality at the school. And, by the way, both Duke and Northwestern have easy jock majors and classes for their football players (something Notre Dame does not) – and each has a dedicated tutoring staff that is the equal of anything at ND and Stanford.</p>
<p>I don’t think this is accurate either. I doubt the academic standards for football players at Stanford are anything but slightly higher than at Notre Dame. I remember reading in Sports Illustrated that Jarrett Payton (Walter Payton’s son) was rejected from Notre Dame;Notre Dame was his first choice. He ended up playing at U. of Miami. He ended up seeing the field as a running back and was MVP of the Orange Bowl, so Notre Dame could have used him. That was 15 years ago. </p>
<p>The academic standards at places like Notre Dame and Stanford are in flux. My guess is that when Harbaugh was recruited to Stanford as coach, he made it a condition that the academic standards were lowered. </p>
<p>1000 SAT is average, so you can also make the claim that the average football player at Notre Dame is slightly smarter than the average college student.</p>
<p>Stanford avg. football team member SAT score: 1176 (1990s through mid 2000s)
Another source listed the average SAT score in 1997 as 1108
Stanford football avg. high school GPA: 3.63 (1990s through mid 2000s)</p>
<p>I’m going to guess that the avg SAT score is now lower than what it was in the 1990s through mid 2000s, considering the sudden rise in the rankings of the Stanford football.</p>
<p>Dartmouth people, apologies for hijacking the thread.</p>
<p>The reason I didn’t want to start a start a debate is that most Notre Dame supporters, more so than other student/parent/alumni groups on CC, seem incapable of discussing their school objectively. My basic point is that there are some people within as well as without the Notre Dame Family who take a more skeptical view of the football program. And yes, SXSW123, my view too is based on intimate experience. And please don’t ignore my point–I tried to make it in my first sentence–that things are different still at other institutions. (See, for example, Michigan’s handling of Brandon Gibbons. While it’s true that some of Michigan’s seeming tardiness in dealing with the case was due to operating within a since-changed policy framework, it’s also obvious that Michigan had been trying to shield the football program from scandal.)</p>
<p>collegealum314, that post on the Bleacher Report content farm made my head hurt. The author doesn’t even know that the SAT was recentered in 1995. Some readers, presumably older ND alumni, rightfully take him to task in the comments.</p>
<p>Now that it is past the May 1 national Decision Date and everyone has made their choice. Good luck to all of you, I knowthat you will go great things wherever you are. Closing thread</p>