Pros and Cons of a Dartmouth Education.

Colleges and Universities A-Z Dartmouth College
1

<p>I haven't really done a lot of research on Dartmouth Acadmics.. from talking to friends who are currently Dartmouth students, they did say a lot of nice things about the school.. but then again, i feel they're a bit too biased since they go there.. so i'm ask you: what do YOU think are the Pros and Cons of a Dartmouth education...</p>

<p>i know that Dartmouth is very like Princeton - focus on undergraduate education... the location is a bit of a con since it's in the "middle of no where."</p>

<p>what do you think?</p>

2

<p>The isolated location is the only con I really know about. But when you think about it, most of the top private schools are in small towns anyway. Some of the other schools a near a city, but how many times will you really be venturing into the city? All that work, school activities and other things will occupy your time.</p>

3

<p>pw,</p>

<p>You might want to consider that the views of Dartmouth students themselves would be the best and most informed views you can get--if you’re interested in trying honey on your toast, but you’d first like an opinion on what it tastes like, don't ask your chemistry teacher to explain the taste, ask someone who has actually had honey on toast.</p>

<p>When Dartmouth wants to find out if you are the kind of student they want, they’re not going to go to an expert on students, they’re going to look at the recommendations of people who actually taught/know you and how they graded your work.</p>

<p>"since it's in the "middle of no where."</p>

<p>No, it's in the middle of somewhere; although you may not like where that somewhere is, a whole lot of well educated and well rounded students/alumni/people do.</p>

<p>If it doesn't sound like you'd be happy in that environment, don't rationalize it simply because it's the best school you were accepted at. That's a formula for disaster. Hopefully, you also applied to some urban schools, like Penn, UChicago, NYU.</p>

<p>Good luck in your search!</p>

4

<p>Complaints I have heard about Dartmouth include that classes are big by some Ivy standards, that there is too much emphasis on drinking for social life--any comments?</p>

5

<p>
[quote]
Complaints I have heard about Dartmouth include that classes are big by some Ivy standards

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If you are doing intro classes like bio,chem, some math classes, intro to psych, are they big- yes. but they are big at every school. But all classes are taught by professors, not TA which is a standard at Ivies, that are not as focused on their undergrad because the bread and butter comes through research done in graduate programs. Daughter's roomate, a chem major is spending this year doing research through Women in Science Program (WISP). She has also becoming an eating disorder Peer advisor. My daughter is involved in the student assembly on issues such as student life, diversity and religion. She is looking forward to doing genetics research when she returns for the spring term.</p>

<p>She has a number of friends who will be doing First Year Summer research projects.
<a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Efrstyear/work/fysr.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~frstyear/work/fysr.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Regarding the too much emphasis on drinking for social life. The sad reality is that drinking occurs on almost every campus on the country.My daughter is not a drinker, she has friends who are not drinkers, doesn't feel pressured to drink and has a lot of things to do that don't involve drinking.</p>

<p>Regarding the middle of nowhere, yes, it's true Dartmouth is in the middle of nowhere, but my child who has lived in NYC all of her life, beleives that there is NYC and everywhere else, and is well traveled considers a lot of places in the middle of nowhere. She thought Penn and Harvard were in the middle of no where. Dartmouth being in the middle of nowhere has been a good thing afor them because it helps to foster a level of cohesiveness amongst the students. You ever wonder that when you meet Dartmouth students, they are so happy and so connected to each other and their school. In the middle of nowhere also means that it is not a suitcase school where everyone is running off campus on the weekend because there is always plenty to do on campus.</p>

<p>She took classes and NYU and Barnard during high school, and me who have attended both NYU and Cornell, I knew that my child would have not been happy in either of those enviroments, but instead of saying I told you so, I let her find out for her self. My sister a Columbia grad, and a die hard alum who worked at Columbia for a number of years ,spent the better part of my daughter's life extoling the virtues of a Columbia education, the greatness of the Core Curriculum. </p>

<p>Daughter went up, spent the night attended classes, found the core curriculm too restrictive for her and felt it did not allow her the flexibility to pursue other subjects just for the sake of doing so.</p>

<p>They are home on spring break, last night she went out with some of her friends from high school and said that she was the only one of her friends that is truly happy in their first year at school. She said that when she spoke to her friends, she realizes what an amazing opportunity she has being at Dartmouth.</p>

6

<p>What would you say about Dartmouth's resources (in terms of access to libraries, experts, labs)? Some of those things could be hindered by the location.</p>

7

<p>Dartmouth is "hindered by the location" only to those who don't know what it has to offer.</p>

<p>Libraries: Dartmouth has one of the largest collegiate libraries in the country. Also, through BorrowDirect, students and faculty can get any book from the libraries of Yale, Penn, Cornell, Columbia, Princeton, or Brown within 2-3 days. And if you need a book not available through BorrowDirect, they'll order it for you. Also, Rauner Library is the best special collections library in the Ivy League. You can do things you can't do anywhere else, like walk in off the street and ask to see Shakespeare's First Folio, or Daniel Webster's hat and socks; the library staff will give them to you, not require gloves when handling, and let you peruse them as long as you like.</p>

<p>Experts: Dartmouth has probably at least two lectures a day by visiting experts. And, every student is guaranteed at least one go with the New Hampshire primary. In the past year, I've seen: Ken Burns, Howard Dean, Bill Frist, Dennis Kucinich, John Kerry, John Edwards, Wesley Clark, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun, the former Crown Prince of Jordan, at least five Pulitzer Prize winners, one Nobel Peace Prize winner, and so on. I should mention a lot of these meetings were at small dinner gatherings, less than 15 or 20 students. And those are just the non-academic speakers. I can't even begin to count how many academic lectures I've gone to. </p>

<p>Labs: Dartmouth's location actually helps its access to labs. In addition to the large departments in the sciences, students also can get into labs at one of the largest research/teaching hospitals in New England, Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Access to labs is outstanding.</p>

8

<p>Funny, I just posted about this on another thread! The "middle of nowhere" aspect is what drew me to Dartmouth. Go to the Columbia board and you will see students honestly talk about how the school has no community. Conversely, I have never met any school where the students/ alumni feel more connected to than Dartmouth.</p>

<p>Why? You will have the rest of your life to live in a city. You only get to be part of one of the most intelligent/ intellectual/ awesome communities once in your life. You trade hanging out at clubs downtown in for swimming in rivers and hanging out with your classmates. You trade a couple more restaurants for some of the best friendships you will ever have. Its an experience that I personally wouldn't trade in for almost anything.</p>

9

<p>I asked my interviewers about the middle-of-nowhere aspect. They said that it was really good for the school. Harvard kids run around Boston at night, but Dartmouth gets a much stronger community feel because there isn't anywhere to go.</p>

10

<p>Kane,</p>

<p>I've been told the same; dartmouth's location helps create the best college atmosphere in the country! Do you want to go to college or the mall? I'll take an awesome college life over the life of a mall-rat any day.</p>

11

<p>Kane,</p>

<p>"Harvard kids run around Boston at night, but Dartmouth gets a much stronger community feel because there isn't anywhere to go." </p>

<p>the same trend would likely be true at Penn, Columbia, NYU, Yale (maybe not New Haven) and most other inner-city campuses.</p>

12

<p>My biggest concern about Dartmouth is graduate placement in the sciences.</p>

<p>Yes yes yes, I know Dartmouth has incredible placement for law and business, the criteria most rankings use for grad school placement.</p>

<p>BUT, Dartmouth is really nothing special in some areas when it comes to research, computer science for example. I KNOW the teaching is good across the board, BUT if the research and faculty aren't special it might be impossible to get into a highly regarded grad school in computer science.</p>

<p>Thats my big reason I'm more likely to take up Cornell's likely letter than Dartmouth's.</p>

<p>Try not to flame me to death. Any constructive responses?</p>

13

<p>Well, I guess I'd respond with Cornell's notorious grade deflation, PARTICULARLY in the sciences. Dartmouth has an excellent biochemistry and pre-medical program (this, I know); although I am not as familiar with engineering, physics, or computer science, I'd opt for the less cutthroat, competitive undergrad program.</p>

<p>Edit: Now that I think about it, Dartmouth has a pretty darn good computer science program too. Wasn't it one of the first campuses to go wireless? And the Blitzmail system got rated something in the top five for computer savviness.</p>

14

<p>Dadaist,</p>

<p>Please don’t take this wrong, but it would be easier to comment on your post if it was more than a personal feeling and actually reflected something beyond an intuition. Have you seen the grad school placement numbers? I have and they don't reflect your fear and apprehension.</p>

<p>For instance, if I said that Cornell has really so-so placement for Med-Law-Bus school it would be no more than gossip if I failed to refer to the WSJ grad school placement ranking which places Cornell pretty poorly (#25, compared to say,…Dartmouth, at #7). Without some objective grad school placement numbers in the sciences it’s hard to know how to address your critique of Dartmouth grad school placement in the sciences.</p>

<p>Although, I know how you feel, it’s a big decision and they are both great schools. </p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

15

<p>The WSJ rankings just repeat what I've already said. Dartmouth has good placement in professional programs. Law, Medical, Business. That comes as no surprise whatsoever given Dartmouth's LAC-like nature.</p>

<p>I fear, however, that it doesnt in graduate science programs like physics, math, computer science, whatever.</p>

<p>See the point I'm trying to make? I know Dartmouth is good for medical, business, law, but I'm wondering whether a more research-oriented school will have better grad science placement. Any knowledge of that?</p>

<p>By the way, do you have the WSJ rankings link? I don't remember where to find it.</p>

16

<p>I think the best thing you can and should do is check out their web pages and programs and see if the degree programs, courses offered research opportunities catch your interest.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Ephysics/academics/major.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~physics/academics/major.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Research Groups, Centers & Institutes </p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/home/acad-research/research/centers.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/home/acad-research/research/centers.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

17

<p>Here's the links to WSJ Elite Grad School placement survey:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.wsjclassroom.com/college/feederschools.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.wsjclassroom.com/college/feederschools.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.wsjclassroom.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.wsjclassroom.com/pdfs/wsj_college_092503.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

18

<p>Dadaist2,
I think the graduate school placement for sciences is not related to whether you attended a major research institutions or not. I think most good schools have enough research opportunities available on their campuses to prepare you for a graduate school. Studies show that those who attended small LACs obtain PhD's at a higher rate than those who attended big research univeristies as undergraduates. For example, 4 out of top 5 PhD producing schools in sciences proportionally are LACs. Carlton College even produced more chemistry PhD's in absolute numbers than Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Princeton.</p>

19

<p>I recommend you join this same conversation over at the CC graduate school board. The WSJ rankings are not considered reliable.</p>

20

<p>Its too bad there's a lack of concrete data on grad science placement. I tried going to graduate students' pages at various top universities, but only very rarely do they say where they got their bachelor's degrees.</p>

<p>But you have a point ther Pennstergo, any college that has research opportunities should be able to send its students to grad school. Especially since grad school's don't look at the significance of the research, only the student's ability to do it well. But, my suspicions linger. I have to figure out some way to look into this more effectively than by just guessing.</p>