Dartmouth College

I procrastinated this too much. It’s 12:54 a.m. and I’m watching I Love Lucy in my room. Despite taking so long to start, plenty of time is going to be spent on the remainder of this article to convince as many of you as I can to apply to Dartmouth. My writing is going to be pretty informal -- I hope what I’ve already said has established a casual tone. Let’s start with the basics: Dartmouth is an Ivy League school located in Hanover, New Hampshire. It’s a liberal arts college, but has the resources to be a research university too. This means that as a liberal arts college, you’ll have some general education requirements(please click the links as they come along as a reference) to fulfill and as a research college, you’ll have plenty of resources to more than satisfactorily experience your prospective major outside of class through clubs, internships, research opportunities, etc. By now, you may have noticed that I’ve continued to say “college” and not “university.” It is, after all, Dartmouth College and not Dartmouth University. This is because Dartmouth makes their undergraduate program a priority compared to some other institutions of the same caliber. The graduate programs at Dartmouth are not weak, however. On the contrary, they're outstanding. The Tuck School of Business and Geisel School of Medicine are amazing. My main point with this is that you are applying as an undergraduate student and should therefore look at each school’s undergraduate program. That’s why I advise high school students to avoid top ten lists about colleges at this point because those sometimes focus solely on each school’s graduate program, not their undergraduate programs. From what I’ve seen, if ranking is a personal value of yours (as it was mine to some extent), Dartmouth usually rests around number seven for its undergraduate program and 11th for its graduate program. Aside to that, Dartmouth is structured in trimesters. We call this the D-Plan. You take three courses at a time in ten-week terms. This proves advantageous because it allows you to partake in study abroad programs, jobs, and internships throughout the entire year rather than only during the summer. Also, you’ll be able to focus on three classes at a time rather than five or six. While ten weeks of condensed information may be challenging, you’ll likely form study groups and visit office hours to prepare for your midterms and finals. And if you’ve made it into Dartmouth, that means you’re smart or a hard worker or both (don’t doubt yourself!). So you’ll survive. Most, if not all, students earn median gradesof B+’s to A-’s in their courses. Remember that you aren’t in high school anymore so B’s aren’t the end of the world. For the class of 2017, 40% of admitted students were valedictorians, 10% were salutatorians, and the remaining 50% are at least equally accomplished and qualified. Everyone is reaching for an A, so it’ll be much harder to earn (keyword: earn) your A. Now, I was instructed to write about “why you chose your school, its resources and benefits, and maybe even, what you plan to do there.” I’ll use this opportunity to talk about my college research, my financial aid, and a little about me. Feel free to skip the part about me. If you care enough to read it, I love you. I spent a good chunk of my summer between junior and senior year researching each of the QuestBridge schools. I made an excel sheet listing and checking off my personal values and a word document that was brutally honest about each school based off of online student reviews. (I try to reserve my personal QuestBridge work with QuestBridge Scholars from my high school) For Dartmouth, I wrote, “The Greek life is real here. What does that mean? It means sororities and fraternities and some other things. Personally, I’m not for or against fraternities. I’m just indifferent toward them. Any student on campus will tell you the Greek life on campus is inclusive to outsiders and easily avoidable if that isn't your style. According to Ms. Brabeck’s son who attends Williams, Dartmouth’s unofficial mascot is Keggy the Keg. It sounds like the students know how to be social while prioritizing academics. It’s the closest you can get to a liberal arts education of the Ivy League colleges.” I ranked Dartmouth as my first non-binding school because 1. Dartmouth is a social Ivy, meaning the students know how to work hard and play hard, 2. Dartmouth is an Ivy League school (I did like the title. It hurts being honest about that for some reason.), 3. Economics is their most popular major, 4. Doing a study-abroad program is really common here, and 5. Their networking system is so, so good. To those still researching colleges, my best advice is to avoid collegeconfidential and look into how your personal values (your passion/major, preferred weather, liberal arts or research school, type of students you want to be around) match with the college you’re interested in, like Dartmouth for instance. Feel free to skip this paragraph: Fast-forward six months later after my summer of college research and I get matched to Dartmouth. All I can say now is that I’m excited to attend Dartmouth. Excited and nervous. Anyways, if you do want to talk about Dartmouth, try messaging me on Facebook Messenger. I usually respond the same day, or even the same hour... yeah, I should get off my phone. I plan on studying English and Economics. Maybe I’ll join some dance group to get out of my comfort zone. The rest of my plans have yet to be laid out. The financial aid is perfect. Recently the class of 2017’s matched scholars from other schools have noticed that they still have some debt to pay despite being matched. For Dartmouth, 100% has been paid. We get a free laptop, up to a price of around $1,500. Insurance is paid for. There’s a listed work-study at $2,450 and a summer contribution of $1,000; those are not billed to you. They are simply recommendations. If you want to work a work-study, you can. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Everything is what QuestBridge promises. I asked two QuestBridge Scholars from my high school if they had any questions. I’ll just directly lay out the information paragraph by paragraph here on out, so I won’t be transitioning as much between paragraphs. The dorms are nice. Freshman students are usually housed in Choates, which is near the river. There are dorms you can apply for called Living Learning Communities (LLC) (click the “Communities” tab), which allows students to live in residential communities that focus on some common theme. For example, I applied for the Thriving Through Transitions LLC which helps students who are nervous about transitioning into college get involved with things like undergraduate research. There are cultural LLC’s (like the AfroDispora LLC), language communities, STEM communities, and lots of other communities. Of course, you don’t have to apply to an LLC. Those who do get into LLC’s are housed in McLaughlin, which is closer to the main part of campus and typically more desired by students for its proximity. For supermarket products, the nearest CVS is five minutes away and the nearest Walmart is a ten minute drive away. Dartmouth’s cookies are apparently legendary. I haven’t heard anything bad about the food, so I’m assuming it’s good. With a $76,000 year price tag, it’s probably really good. Dartmouth won the national rugby championship recently according to the Welcome Class of 2016 video. You should watch the video. It gets really impressive after around the first 40 seconds. In 2017, Dartmouth’s Women’s Ultimate Frisbee won the Ultimate College Division I Championship. And for the past two years, Dartmouth’s Men’s soccer has taken first among the Ivy League. Dartmouth isn’t in an urban area. Instead, it’s in the middle of nature. If you’re into the outdoors, then Dartmouth’s environment is definitely for you. The Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC) is America’s first outdoors club. During your first week at Dartmouth, you’ll be directly involved with them on first-year trips. They offer financial aid, so you can afford it for sure. Over 90% of students participate on these one week trips out in nature. The options are listed in the provided link. Usually, you rank something like your top three choices and go the week before orientation. Students in the first-generation orientation (FYSEP) usually go on their first-year trips the same week. It’s fun. You’ll love it. The networking opportunities are awesome. When you graduate, you’re put into this alumni system that allows you to connect with past students. Employment rates three months after graduation for Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business is above 95%. You won’t have problems finding job or internship opportunities when you’re at Dartmouth. Lastly, student employment opportunities are listed here. I hope this article has given you some insight into Dartmouth and has convinced you to apply. Having the opportunity to attend Dartmouth is incredible and I couldn’t have gotten here without QuestBridge. Please don’t ever hesitate to ask me any more questions over Facebook. Taking time to talk to interested students is always a joy. Good luck!