<p>Hi. I am applying early decision to Dartmouth and have a question or two.</p>
<p>I understand that the community is amazing and everyone is very friendly. How is the diversity (meaning preps, goths, hippies, etc)? I am much more on the liberal side and while i don't consider myself a hippie, thats what people tend to think of me....because yes, I like phish.....</p>
<p>Also, I know that people drink alot of campus but is there alot of smoking that goes on? How does that go over. Not saying I actually smoke but just curious. Thank you</p>
<p>id say dartmouth is historically pretty mildly conservative
but theres lots of mid atlantic kids attending nowadays so its a pretty lax attitude about politics im sure... no one gets upset if u say " i like john kerry" or something.</p>
<p>its a real nice place...and drinking...every school above the dixon mason line drinks 1 can of beer more per week for each 5 degrees latitude on the map :P</p>
<p>While Dartmouth may have been conservative back in the day, you will find a healthy mix now of liberals and conservatives. In fact, in the last presidential election 70% of Dartmouth students voted for John Kerry. </p>
<p>I'm from California, and had never worn a polo in my life before I came to Dartmouth. While it is certainly more preppy here than back home, I'd say there are still lots of other types of people. There are several coed social organizations that are much more hippie-ish than the frats. A lot of people are involved in the Dartmouth Outing Club, political groups, cultural groups, etc. You'll find a place where you're comfortable, believe me. However, I would say that there are very few outwardly goth/punk people. </p>
<p>Some people smoke here, but probably a lot less than at other schools. ... cigarettes, hookah, that sort of thing.</p>
<p>Basically, the conservatives on campus have been reduced to the editor's boards of the Dartmouth Review and the Beacon, and nobody pays them any attention anyway.</p>
<p>It was almost single-handedly through the efforts of several Dartmouth clubs that New Hampshire was the only state to switch from red to blue in '04. True story.</p>
<p>It was almost single-handedly through the efforts of several Dartmouth clubs that New Hampshire was the only state to switch from red to blue in '04. True story.</p>
<p>Please, people. Republican =/= conservative. Many, if not most of my conservative friends, recognizing Bush as the most liberal president since FDR, voted for Kerry. Political ideology does not correspond to party affiliation.</p>
<p>And, Xanatos, I do dispute your claim that Dartmouth "almost single-handedly" switched New Hampshire from Democrat to Republican. Look at the poll results--the Grafton County 2000/2004 swing was about 4000 Democratic votes. On a superficial level, the 2000/2004 swing was about 16,500 votes Democratic; however, had one included all but 4,400 Nader votes (which in 2000 were about 22,000; 4400 is the number of NH votes for Nader in 2004) for Gore in 2000, Gore would have won by about 9,600 votes--not that much more than the 9,274 that Kerry won by statewide. Do the math. It doesn't add up.</p>
<p>Perhaps it was a bit strong. But I'd maintain it's mostly true.</p>
<p>Bush Republicans: tax cuts, increases in entitlement programs, a Wilsonian foreign policy (except in non-deference to the UN), expansion of government power in education, surveillance and the like, gun rights, anti-abortion, pro-welfare reform, etc.</p>
<p>Kerry Democrats: decrease in government power, increases in entitlement programs, a mostly conservative foreign policy (except for deference to the UN), more 'progressive' tax code, generally anti-gun, and anti-welfare reform, pro-choice, etc.</p>
<p>Granted, these are but a small sample of the possible issues to choose from, but I feel like they're fairly representative. Of the Republican attributes, only a few could be reasonably correlated to the works of Burke or even Goldwater (note in particular the presence of utopian thought, anathema to both). Likewise with many Democrats--many facets of their proposed platform would be foreign to many great liberal thinkers.</p>
<p>There is some correlation between ideology and affiliation when it comes to single-issue voters, to be sure, but that begs the question as to whether their beliefs are correctly labeled an ideology in the first place.</p>