Dartmouth vs. Cornell

slipper1234
Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:46:13 +0000

Spending per student matters. At Cornell 5.4 Billion is spread over almost 20,000 students and faculty vs. 3.6 Billion over 5500 students at D, most of them undergrads. Dartmouth’s greatest spending is on undergrads its a very real difference over most of the Ivies. For example, when applying to grad school a Dartmouth student has the advantage of countless study abroad programs led by Dartmouth profs. $10K grants for undergrad research are commonplace (I got one for my thesis research in the pacific). Presidential Scholarships for research are available to every sophomore with over a 3.3 (I did one too). Medical advising and career services are fantastic. The President of the college likely knows who you are, and if you want a meeting with him its yours. All these things matter. All these things get you into grad schools. All these things breed alumni loyalty (75-80% of the class turns up for 5th year reunions), which in turn helps with elite recruiting.

Access to a particle accelerator is for a particular subset of the population, and like a Cal for that set of research driven students Cornell is a better choice than most of the Ivies. For those looking to go into CS, Architecture, Hotel, and want to be engineers (as opposed to engineering majors who want to work in top business) I recommend Cornell over almost any Ivy.

As I mentioned Cornell and Dartmouth are very different places. I think its hard to find a better general undergraduate education than at Dartmouth. For those who are into heavy research or want to go into the workforce in a highly skilled area like architecture or Computer Science, Cornell is the choice over most of the Ivies.