@saffysmum No, he is part of Allen House, they go on the 13th. Good luck to your daughter, I’m sure it must be stressful right now. Not knowing is always the worst! But obviously they HAVE to work something out for her!
stayed at a Quality Inn across the river for graduation, and it was normal rate. Only a two night guarantee required.
Like@Magnum PI, we stayed in the dorms for graduation. One of the best parts is being able to park your card and not have to move it again. At that time rooms were $40/night :-j
Not real thrilled to log into Facebook this morning to see Dartmouth College at the top of my Trending feed, because of the Blue Lives/Black Lives Matter mess at the school. It was covered by Fox News. When the incident at the library happened earlier this year it was also near the end of a term, so the issue seemed to disappear when the students went home, and now once again they just have to wait it out another couple of weeks and it will fade away. That coupled with the letter sent to the administration from the outgoing class officers, which I read on the Dartblog, makes me feel that there is a high level of dissatisfaction on campus in general. Being a parent and far away, I’m wondering if it’s true that the school is in total disarray or if that is just the impression I’m getting from the isolated articles I read.
@b1ggreenca I’ve had long talks over the past two days with my daughter and her take is everyone seems to be angry about everything. Pick a group and they are angry at slights, perceived slights and outright “attacks”. She’s more irritated than anything. Her opinion is you have a small, vocal, organised group that is making the waves. Her perception is that the majority of the students are like herself and just want to study and pass their classes. She feels the situation keeps festering because the College’s response continues to be tepid.
Dartmouth is not alone. In fact it didn’t even make the Atlantic list: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/04/campus-protest-roundup/417570/
Historically, dissatisfaction with the status quo spawns dissent and protest, I see no difference between my college years and the current situation throughout the US. Some students thrive on being vocal on the issues while some concentrate on their studies. After being in the workforce for so many years all I can tell my children is to learn as much as you can and enjoy your college years, because the reality of working for a living is your next chapter. Learning to deal with others with different views is just another part of the college experience. Hey @AboutTheSame don’t you miss those days?
Not totally, and I guess I’m not as sanguine about the current situation at Dartmouth and elsewhere. Trump has taken the 70’s nattering nabobs of negativism to new lows [personal political view: no responses needed], and the patent inability of Phil and his crew to deal with the Baker Library fiasco and Blue Lives/Black Lives and such is troubling. Dissent is one thing; letting issues be decided by who can yell the loudest and threaten others the most is another kettle of very smelly fish.
I think that the Blue Lives Matter display was intended, very deliberately, to be provocative, and that they got the response they were hoping for. Now they can be shocked, SHOCKED! that anyone would object to their co-opting the name of a group devoted to rooting out police violence against black citizens. (Which is quite obviously a very real problem.)
If their goal was simply to honor police officers, they could have done so without using the BLM reference.
Should the BLM people have responded by vandalizing their display? Obviously not.
That these events have a chilling effect of speech on campuses is virtually certain.
My son filled out his housing form (class of 2020!) and I believe put in his trip preferences. It’s getting real! He’s down to his last two days of classes in high school… so for room preferences I believe he put triple, and that he’s somewhat an early riser. My wife thinks there are no triples in the River cluster, and my son figures that with two roommates he stands a good chance at connecting well with at least one of them. Who knows?
We live in MetroWest Boston, about 2.5 hours from Dartmouth, I’d guess. We’re debating whether to stay up in Hanover the night before drop off…it would give us a bit more time to exhale, help him settle in, run any last-minute errands, etc. Opinions?
As to the freshman trip, he chose canoeing as his first preference. He’s got a strong canoeing/hiking background (Eagle Scout), and I think he likes the idea of being able to swim on the trip.
I’ve been thinking about the IPad textbook option. I don’t think my son has thought about it at all. It seems a very light and portable way to have all your books at hand, but costly if damaged or lost. Does anyone here have any experience with this?
Also: we do not plan to send our son up with a car, though it will basically sit in our driveway for the year. I’m not sure whether freshman can even have cars on campus.
It’s an exciting and somewhat turbulent time for our son–he’s got a very close group of high school buddies that are going to be somewhat far-flung come September.
As to the first question, you can find dorm blueprints here and I believe you should be able to tell if there are triples in any given dorm: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~orl/housing/communities/
Freshmen are not allowed to have cars. I recall looking that up last year, when my son was looking ahead to starting there. I’m not sure why I looked, we’re from the west coast and the logistics for getting him a car were simply not in place anyway!
I agree, either get there the night before or leave home early the next morning so you’re there in plenty of time, whatever makes you the most cool, calm and collected. We found we had a lot of errands to run on move-in day, not sure why, and we didn’t even make it to the lunch or any other events because of it!
My son was in Cohen this year, in the Choates cluster, and I don’t think it had any triples. Seemed to be almost all very traditional doubles.
@Mirmark I had no idea there was an iPad textbook option so unfortunately I can offer no help on that, my child opts for buying traditional books.
With your living so close more than likely your son will be on an August Trip and will return for Orientation in September. I would advise booking a room now as the hotels will fill up. The Hanover Inn is already sold out September 4th & 5th (leads up to New Student Orientation+ Labour Day week-end) and September 9th & 10th which is campus wide move in. You can always cancel if you chose not to stay but at least you will have a room if needed.
I believe the canoeing option requires him to pass the Dartmouth swim test before he leaves on the trip. Make certain he has a swimsuit handy. The benefit of doing it first off is he can get the requirement out of the way and be good to go for graduation!
Some First Years will also be placed in McLaughlin which are primarily 2 room doubles and singles, no triples in that cluster.
S had a 3-room double in the River freshman year: two tiny bedrooms and a tiny living room. The big advantage is that there is a place all your own where you can go in and close the door.
Thanks @b1ggreenca The blueprints are very cool. I imagine for many of the kids, this might be the first time they’ve actually shared a room! We’ll see how this all shakes out. Now onto health forms, etc… all fun stuff.
A while ago in this thread, someone–maybe @AboutTheSame or @“Magnum PI” --had mentioned adding something to the “tips” section. I’ve scanned the thread, but haven’t waded through the entire 124 pages. Was this a facetious reference or is there a consolidated place with suggestions for the new Dartmouth parent?
It was facetious, alas. 
I believe I might have made my annual offer of Logan to Hanover driving tips and might have suggested that such a thread could be useful.
When I first found this thread at this time last year, I took days to go through each and every post, jotting down whatever I thought might be useful later. It was worthwhile! I recommend it! That’s how I found out that True Value has a storage service, which we are about to start using! Many helpful details here.
:)>-
@b1ggreenca , sounds like you’ve already done most of the work!
Time to get typing, lol. B-)
I regret my earlier post! :))
Hi Everyone! My son is a Dartmouth 20 (yay!!!) and we live in NJ. Amtrak is probably the best way for him to get back and forth for short trips home. How do the students get to the train in White River Jumction, VT from Dartmouth? Does anyone know if there will be transportation to and from the station at the time of the outdoor trips?