What's happening to Dartmouth?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Dartmouth College
41

<p>Dartmouth will never live down its drunken frat boy image until it stops living up to it. But the constant low-level drip, drip, drip of news stories about Dartmouth drunken parties, rule-breaking frats, racial and sexual insults and incidents, occasional outright crimes, and general thoughtless misbehavior only serve to keep the stereotype alive. </p>

<p>My opinion is that Dartmouth is, for the most part, a terrific place and an excellent school. But my opinion is also tempered by a sense of “where there is smoke there is fire.” And various groups and individuals associated with the campus can unfortunately be relied to keep the smoke plume at least smoldering - and occasionally billowing.</p>

<p>Dartmouth is nowhere near as terrible as its critics allege, but it’s probably also not nearly so wonderful and trouble free as its defenders and boosters would have us believe. But one thing I do know is that its reputation is never going to improve until the frats and other bad citizens decide to clean up their act and stop supplying their critics with ammo to fire back at them.</p>

42

<p>^^ Agreed. </p>

43

<p>Second, all in favor say aye, and let’s move on…</p>

44

<p>Sure, Dartmouth has a large plurality of anti-intellectual drunks, and a not insignificant incidence of sexual assault, but - hey - “let’s move on.” Indeed, that’s what the College, against the better judgment of a few presidents and the faculty, has done at least since the 1970’s. But it seems that finally, in 2014, with societies changing and the Internet providing easy access to all sorts of information, along with the College’s price tag of $250,000, that’s not going to happen. Dartmouth is going to have to change - radically - or slowly but steadily drift into irrelevance. This time, there’s no “moving on.” This time, with a federal Title IX investigation bearing down, there’s a good shot at institutional accountability.</p>

45

<p>I think everything that might be said on this thread has been said. No one’s position is going to change. Au revoir. </p>

46

<p>Plenty of people follow read these conversations and never comment – their minds might be changed, or made up.</p>

47

<p>The problem I have with this non-stop talk-radio negative rant is that it ignores the fact that there are many current students who are receiving a great education and going on to great medical schools, business careers and graduate schools. Get some help please.</p>

48

<p>Well, if their careers are going so well, and Dartmouth is so great, I’m sure a few comments - good or bad, no matter how cogent or truthful - on an obscure college advice/discussion site won’t matter.</p>

49

<p>

</p>

<p>DartmouthAlum, you may have missed my question, but you have 6 posts since then. It would be valuable to give everyone a sense of your place at Dartmouth in terms of your year, major, and EC’s. This will help students that overlap your interests to put weight behind your concerns. Thanks.</p>

50

<p>My ds is a dual degree student at D and therefore although he considers it his school, it’s not his “home” school. He is also friends with many other Dual Degree students. These kids go to small liberal arts colleges that include, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Amherst and Hamilton to name a few. I would tell you that he doesn’t find his social experience all that different at Dartmouth nor do they. So I’m not totally sure where DartmouthAlum is coming from. Some of the differences that he did point out;</p>

<p>Pros: The alumni network. He has already found a summer internship in engineering that would never have been possible without Dartboard and the amazing loyalty D alums exhibit. He had conversations with two separate alums and they were caring, giving and extremely helpful in getting him placed. </p>

<pre><code> Resources: In clubs and in the classroom… he has felt that the amount of money made available to students is exceptional compared to his home school. I will point out that his cousin goes to Yale and when she joined the rocket club, he was amazed to find out their budget was something like 25K and he was in awe so I suppose there is a spectrum, but Dartmouth ain’t bad!

   Research Opportunities:  Before he even arrived on campus he wrote to a professor who was doing some work in an area that he was particularly interested in.  All he asked for was a meeting to discuss the work the guy was doing, instead, he was invited to join the team.  He meets with that prof weekly now and he is gaining real experience on how this guy is taking his work to the market and implementing it in the real world.  Hardly an atmosphere where intellectualism is downplayed or disrespected.

</code></pre>

<p>Cons: D term for him tends to compress the same amount of work into a shorter period of time and he doesn’t feel it allows for the same level of critical thinking inspired in his LAC atmosphere. This could be partly due to the fact that he’s now taking engineering classes vs. Physics classes, however, he felt the same way about a history class he took.</p>

<pre><code> Food… which for him seems to be big. With the exception of the Amherst kid, the rest feel the food is a step down from what they’re used to with the likes of organic farms, non pay as you go plans etc.
</code></pre>

51

<p><a href=“http://www.dartbeat.com/2014/02/21/stuff-dartmouth-kids-like-my-dartmouth/”>http://www.dartbeat.com/2014/02/21/stuff-dartmouth-kids-like-my-dartmouth/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

52

<p>after reading all these posts I think that Dartmouth would be wonderful place to study but not for my child…</p>

53

<p>Consolation: great link. Thanks.</p>

54

<p>A poster up-stream noted that maybe helicopter parents are urging their kids not to apply. I completely qualify! Not that my kid was going to get in anyway, but I took Dartmouth off the (in my head) list as soon as I read the piece in the Times about all of the drinking. Why spend $60,000 a year to a school that seems to be having problems with that issue…</p>

55

<p>If you think kids don’t drink at other schools, you’re just fooling yourself. I’m not going to repeat what I’ve said before, but I do think that people who are taking Dartmouth off their lists because of the Times article or the Rolling Stone article are making a mistake. That said, the administration has also made its share of mistakes in not responding adequately. It makes me very sad for many reasons. </p>

56

<br>

<br>

<p>How about Harvard? Would you take Harvard off the list since it cost nearly as much and has a lot of drinking too?</p>

<p><a href=“The Harvard Crimson”>The Harvard Crimson;

57

<p>“Dartmouth College leads the Ivy League in both on-campus drug arrests and alcohol arrests — the latter by a significant margin.”</p>

<p><a href=“Ivy League Colleges With Most on-Campus Drug, Alcohol Arrests”>Ivy League Colleges With Most on-Campus Drug, Alcohol Arrests;

58

<p>In the comments from above article. "Dartmouth is in a town of 8,000 locals with a student population of 4,200. Moreover, there is a standing police force (Hanover Police) that patrols campus. There is no Dartmouth Police Department. Why is this significant? Well its important because the small campus and centralized Greek scene is a place for Hanover Police to patrol since that is one of the few places students will be drinking–not much else is going on in a town of 8,000 for the police to Patrol. The fact that Dartmouth doesn’t have its own police force also means that violations can’t get swept under the rug like at other schools where it’s more internalized. Case in point, do you actually believe that Columbia, Harvard, UPenn and Brown didn’t have any alcohol related arrests? And that Brown mysteriously comes in at #5 for drug arrests? These statistics are 1) biased; 2) statistically flawed; 3) fail to account for confounding variables like institutional differences (police or no police force) and policy difference.</p>

<p>Read more: <a href=“Ivy League Colleges With Most on-Campus Drug, Alcohol Arrests”>Ivy League Colleges With Most on-Campus Drug, Alcohol Arrests;

59

<p>DartmouthAlum, no offense, but saying that Dartmouth has the worst alcohol/drug problem in the Ivy League is like saying the number seven ranked student in a graduating class at Harvard is stupid, or calling a nun slutty for wearing high heels. Yes, the seventh ranked student is not as smart as the five that precede him, and the nun’s heels might be considered a little “racey” when compared to Sister Margaret’s black cotton flats, but they are both in an echelon that is held to such a high standard (academics and conservatism, respectively) that when placed among those perceived to be “below” them in each of those categories, they stand out as one of the best. I believe the same goes for Dartmouth and drugs/alcohol. Here is the source from that Business Insider article:</p>

<p><a href=“College Drinking & Drugs on Campus - Drug Rehab Options”>College Drinking & Drugs on Campus - Drug Rehab Options;

<p>Although the author does not give the same detail about the Top 50 colleges for alcohol/drug arrests (number of arrests per 1000 students), Dartmouth appears neither on the top 50 drug arrests nor the top 50 alcohol arrests, and I doubt it is anywhere close to being after the top 50. When discussing the Ivy League, the author even says this about the arrests rates of the schools as a whole: “What’s obvious is that there weren’t very many of them.” </p>

<p>The only thing accomplished in your posting of that article was putting the school in the worst possible light. I know you do not like Dartmouth whatsoever and (apparently) did not enjoy your time there, and that is fine with probably 99% of people on CC and beyond, including myself. That being said, it does not mean you have to try ruin it for every prospective student, curious parent, and almunus. As much as you think you’re “saving” and “warning” people from such a “terrible place,” you’re not. Most parents and prospective students do not need your help in deciding their college choice. In fact, if they were smart, they would be able to look beyond all of the bad press about the school, as well as the extremists who back it, realize it for what it is, and that the value of the education is still the same. Those who cannot probably should not be looking at the school in the first place, so thank you for making Dartmouth’s job easier in weeding out those families in the admissions process. </p>

<p>Furthermore, I do not appreciate how you are trying to make Dartmouth look like the worst school possible. When I created this post, I was simply looking for insight into why Dartmouth applicant numbers were declining, and if that meant the value of the school was declining as well. I sincerely appreciated your initial contributions, but since then all you have been is as negative as possible, tearing down Dartmouth at any every opportunity. It has turned this discussion into nothing but a pit of opinion pieces, statistically faulty data, and your repeated sentiments, but expressed in different words each time. If someone with your attitude went to Dartmouth and hated it, then I cannot wait to get there next year because I know I am going to absolutely love it. I apologize for getting overly “ad hominem” in this post and my argument, but with the way you have been behaving on this thread, my actions have been more than merited.</p>

<p>Finally, just out of curiosity, why do you keep avoiding questions about your experience at Dartmouth (asked twice now I think), namely your EC’s, major, and year?</p>

60

<p>"The first guy reached his hand into the mouth of the second guy, attempting to pull his trigger for him, while the second guy did the very same thing to the first guy. Soon enough, they both succeeded in helping each other disgorge the beer. "</p>

<p>Read more: <a href=“In defense of hazing”>In defense of hazing;