von_herrs

alrite guys, could someone tell me if Dartmouth is super-difficult to get thru, like Cornell, or is it more laid back, like Brown/Penn?

Utopia19

Oooh morangotango, now I know who you are! I don't know why we're on this site-we have sooo much work to do. And that part about you not drinking, I'm not so sure about.

von_herrs-I wouldn't say any of the Ivies are "easy" to get through. That's an assumption people with serious inferiority issues make about the Ivy League and peer schools. It really depends on what you're aiming to do. If you want to get into med school or Goldman Sachs or if you're in Wharton or Brown's biomed program, college will be hard.
As to your question, Dartmouth isn't as intense as Cornell but though there are some people here bopping around who will graduate with like a 1.9, most people are pushing themselves to do well. So it isn't easy and professors do not give high grades to everyone especially in the larger departments.

shackleton55

morangotango: suck it up and deal with it. You can pound a few beers it wont kill you.

Sachmoney

I was wondering how the change in the administration's stance on alcohol changed the environment at Dartmouth? I was talking to an alum about how he said he felt it was more dangerous because things have been forced to go underground as supposed to before when everything it's out in the open.

Xanatos

Just to give you an example Sachmoney - it's generally acknowledged that having kegs for parties is actually safer than cubes. This is because if you have kegs only one person can be served at a time and you have to find brothers to pour for you, so it generally speaking slow down most people's rate of consumption, unlike if you just have cubes of Keystone lying around. One of the first things the Wright administration did back in 1998 was it heavily restricted the use of kegs at frats in favor of cubes. Why? PR. Kegs are associated with the "Animal House" image which the administration has been trying to shed. Bottom line, they ignored the ACTUAL safety considerations in favor of a better perceived image.

Or take the Zete situation (disclaimer, I am a Zete) - last year, when the College rerecognized Zete, one of the reasons it cited was that having a derecognized (and thereby unregulated) fraternity on campus was dangerous (not that I think our drinking was out of hand compared to other frats on campus but it's a reasonable point). Now I don't know if you are aware, but one of the provisions of the rerecognition agreement is that Zete must be dark until the fall of 2009, to flush out all the current Zete undergrads (we had members through the class of 2009). Our alumni tried to strike a compromise, arguing, "if you shut down the house, all you are going to do is drive their drinking even more underground than it already is and thereby potentially make the situation even more dangerous for the next 2 1/2 years." The administration naturally ignored this argument and proceeded with the dark period.

These are the kinds of things I constantly cite to people as examples of the incompetence of the current administration. It's not an ideological issue for me, I don't side at all with the nutty alums that are suing the College right now, but it's simply that they consistently and continuously make these baffling stupid and, I'd even go so far as to say, self-centered decisions that really don't benefit Dartmouth College.

Sachmoney

Yeah, I don't think changing from kegs to cubes/cases changes the reputation or protects the reputation of the school at all. Furthermore, if frats...etc are underground and doing dangerous stuff, that can harm the school's reputation. You make a good point about the kegs though. I mean I just did a Tips training (which is all about liability) for Aramark, and one of the things they said was give your patrons time...

Xanatos

I didn't say that changing kegs to cubes changes the reputation, I said that's what the administration thinks, and that's the kind of criteria that it uses to make decisions.

Sachmoney

I was just suggesting that it could. Didn't Dartmouth get a new president/dean who is more lenient on Greek life? I was reading about something in the review (I had to read what all the controversy was about).

eiei

hey guys! i'm a junior in high school and i really love dartmouth! if i were to get in, i was thinking of joining a sorority... i just don't know which one. i've heard delta delta delta is great from a few friends of mine that go to dartmouth but can someone tell me which sororities are the good ones and which i should stay away from?

sybbie719

IF you attend Dartmouth, the first thing you will find out is that no one is allowed to pledge anything freshman year. This will give you enough time to find out:

1. If greek life is for you
2. The pros and cons of each of each of the 10 sororities at Dartmouth.

eiei

what year can you pledge at dartmouth?

sybbie719

You cannot rush/pledge until sophomore year

Xanatos

They're all ultimately the same. What kind of differences would you expect them to have? Also, you have much less choice in choosing a sorority than guys do with frats.

VeryHappy

I don't understand why, as a junior in high school, you're asking which sorority to pledge when you're finally able to, in -- uh -- three years.

Xanatos

Exactly. The only difference between them is what people are in them at the time that you are pledging.