Hey, Dartmouth sophomore here. I’d like to try and help inform your decision from the Dartmouth side of things. As you may know, we have a number of successful alumni from our acting and theatre program, like Mindy Kaling, Aisha Tyler, Rachel Dratch (SNL) and Shonda Rhimes (creator of Grey’s Anatomy and How to Get Away With Murder) who have been very successful in their careers. I personally know a number of theatre kids here, and there are frequent extremely well attended productions run by Dartmouth as well as by students (a number were in fact hard to get into when I was there). This has continued even via zoom (e.g. The Radical Joy Project | Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth).
We have partnerships with a large local theater where students frequently intern and perform at. The actors and directors form there frequently come to give guest talks and performances at our college classes in the humanities. The performing arts department is much beloved by students for its engaged faculty and interesting classes. A freshman I know who came in as an intended chem major took one acting class VIA ZOOM and decided to switch to theatre. So, you will definitely have a fulfilling academic experience in your field at Dartmouth.
However, both Dartmouth and Williams would put you in a good place for a top graduate school of theatre, though Yale in particular might favor Dartmouth grads a little more. Both Williams and Dartmouth have small class sizes, accomplished faculty who also love to teach, and liberal arts curricula. Dartmouth may have more students, but the student to faculty ratio is the same so in terms of undergrad focus they are the same. The main difference that comes with the number is that Williams is about half athletes, whereas Dartmouth is about a quarter athletes. Therefore Williams has a much larger preppy athletic culture than we do (though that is not the only culture present for sure). However, both schools are very quirky and generally diverse so you should be able to find your place. Another difference I felt when I was considering these schools is that the small LACs lik Williams and Vassar seemed just too small for me. I realized I wanted more options in terms of academics, social life and people to meet than those colleges seemed to offer me. In that regard, Dartmouth seemed the perfect size, combing the close sense of community and individual academic attention of an LAC, with the diversity of people, programs and opportunities that come with its larger comparative size.
In regards to greek life, I wouldn’t listen to what other people have said on this thread. None appear to be connected to Dartmouth. Here is a response I gave to someone else about them (warning: it’s a bit long):
Hey! To be clear, every elite school had a frat centric or finals club centric social atmosphere of something of that nature like 40 years ago. It was just very white guy dominated at the time. Dartmouth is only known for it due to the Animal House movie, based on a now ended frat.
In the last few decades, finals/eating clubs and frats have reformed at top institutions, and Dartmouth has really led the way on that. We had to, since that ridiculously overexaggerated movie made us unfairly well known for greek life.
As a result, unlike most schools, almost all parties and events at frats have become open to everyone with a Dartmouth ID. This is important, since these spaces cannot be dominated any longer by the same demographic. Places like finals clubs at Princeton on the other hand, are largely exclusive i.e. you need to know someone on the inside to get into events.
Furthermore, a lot of frats have changed or popped up which are very different from traditional frats. Many are just like student societies, focused on social justice, or playing board games or video games together. The general use of the term greek life does not really represent the majority of societies we have here. Several are gender inclusive.
Also, most students involved in greek societies don’t live there, also unusual. Most live in college housing. As a result, people’s involvement in greek societies generally only represents a fraction of what they do at Dartmouth. So, it’s quite easy to have an active social life at Dartmouth without rushing a society. I don’t plan on it, for example, and I’m not all worried. I will always have access to parties if I want it, and besides there are tons of other things going on in the weekends, like movies, theater productions, game nights etc. These are all very well attended, and I’ve often chosen not to go to a party to attend some of these
Of course, like any college, the party scene is alive and well. So the majority of your daughter’s friends will be going out on the weekends. But as I said, there’s always other options, and plenty of people who don’t choose that. But people at these schools are a lot more interesting and less traditional party people than in high school. I never partied in high school but now I do on most weekends for one night at least. And the first few times, I didn’t even drink, and there was NO pressure on me to do so.
Hope I helped, lmk if you have any more questions!
