<p>I concur with jazzymom’s analysis. Both are great schools, and if the OP needs merit money, s/he should look at those schools that offer it. (Also consider Rice, Emory, …)</p>
<p>But, assuming the finances are the same, it comes down to fit. Either OP likes a small, college-town feel (Hanover, Hamilton-NY…), or one prefers a more urban-suburban setting. Size is also a factor: undergrad at WashU is nearly 2x that of Dartmouth. Add in WashU’s grad programs, and that college has a much, much bigger “feel.” As a result, Dartmouth is more LAC-like than WashU, which can be a positive or negative, depending on the student.</p>
<p>[On a personal level, I can’t understand why the calendar is a factor; the D-Plan offers more plusses, than minuses, IMO.]</p>
<p>Bigred: which schools in your state have you liked and why?</p>
<p>full disclosure: have a rising Soph at Dartmouth, who also considered WashU, but much preferred Hanover.</p>
<p>Slipper: Isn’t that you mentioning RP in #33. Maybe my eyes are going.</p>
<p>BRD: I understand your dilemma. </p>
<pre><code>One of my best friends gave her D these parameters: we will pay for any private college up to the amount we would pay for four years in a UC. D was accepted to Bowdoin, Kenyon, Scripps, Denison, and four UCs, including Berkeley (spring admit). Bowdoin and Scripps offered no assistance; she would have had to take out loans herself for the difference ($80,000 or so for four years.) She dropped them from consideration. Kenyon also would have required loans, though not as much. She chose Denison for the generous merit aid, which meant she would graduate from a private college debt free. Berkeley was not a good fit for her and its score on someone else’s prestige-o-meter did not enter into her reasoning.
</code></pre>
<p>There is a lot you can learn in these forums about merit aid, particularly as it pertains to someone interested in pursuing a medical degree later. One longtime poster, Curmudgeon, has posted tons of valuable info on this subject. His D was admitted to Yale but turned it down for a full-ride, tuition and cost of living, at an LAC (Rhodes College) and she has already been included in research that will help her goal of attending medical school. </p>
<p>You can go to the college websites and look for the FA estimator that will help you figure out what your family’s expected contribution would be. Every college determines “need” their own way, but if you qualify for need-based aid and you get in to D, D will apparently meet your need. Though it could be loans. </p>
<p>WashU offers merit aid and need-based aid. The student financial services part of the website describes all the fellowships and scholarships available, Also, you could do a post search on the WashU forum for discussion there and PM some of the participants for more info and advice irt WU. The big-amount scholarships involve pretty fierce competition, though.</p>
<p>BB: I didn’t see a problem with the D plan either, but I wasn’t the one who was going to be attending. And I wasn’t going to push him to apply to a college that he visited and decided for his own reasons that he didn’t want to apply to.</p>
<p>or a very active and successful funding solicitation department. I’m very happy with AIDS research and would gladly support the cause, but I wouldn’t give anything w/o being asked.</p>
<p>And WashU’s alumni giving rate and rank is the same as MIT’s and Brown’s and beats Northwestern’s. Therefore, WashU’s alumni are measurably happier and more satisfied than NW’s, I suppose.</p>
<p>Jazzymom, the thing is WashU might beat Brown, MIT, and NU on one metric, but Dartmouth beats WashU on EVERY metric. Alumni giving is just fuel to the fire. Dartmouth is a better school bottom line.</p>
<p>The two are not so very far apart. Dartmouth’s overall score is 89; WashU’s is 87. Dartmouth’s PA score is 4.4; WashU’s is 4.1. The other metrics:</p>
<p>Graduation and retention rank:
Dartmouth: 6
WashU: 17</p>
<p>dartmouth’s average freshman retention rank is 98%, not 97%.</p>
<p>washu’s acceptance rate is 21% while dartmouth’s is 16% (not 19/17 like you said)</p>
<p>dartmouth’s endowment per capita is $599,760, washu’s is $586,660, financial resource rank discrepancy occurs because washu is 2x the size of dartmouth.</p>
<p>E:
In the 2007 edition of the USNWR, which is all I’ve got until the new one comes out, those are the figures (from 2005). Your update doesn’t alter much, though since 98 and 97 percent are pretty darn close. I’ll accept that D’s acceptance rate is 16 percent, if you say so, but the last figure I’ve seen for WashU was still 19 percent, so I’m sticking with it. Still pretty close. And per capita endowment of $599,760 vs. $586,660 is very, very close as I see it. </p>
<p>Going back to the OP, the choice between D and WU could go either way based on finances and/or fit. WashU is not an inferior choice for the OP’s intended major and if he ends up there, he has no reason to feel that he got the short end of the stick. That’s all I’ve been trying to get across. If you see it as a “battle” to be won or lost, then, here, you have the field. I have other things to do.</p>
<p>well the NYT article that cites Wash U as a new safety to the ivies certainly does not help its reputation. Remmebr that this is a nationally released paper that reaches people all over. It clearly said that Wash U waitlists top candidates.</p>
<p>slipper while i agree with you in every way, please don’t quote the wall street journal feeder rankings in any serious argument, it is possibly the least scientific, most misleading, and irresponsible set of “rankings” out there. don’t even get me started. all they actually measure is “schools that may or may not send more students to east coast professional schools than others.”</p>
<p>best of its kind to measure what schools has a large population of preprofessional students, maybe</p>
<p>it in no way provides any indicative data as to the strength of a school in getting its students into the top programs.</p>
<p>in this case, washu could be better at getting its students into top programs than dartmouth except that it is bigger, it has less preprofessional students both overall and as a proportion, the students from dartmouth that are applying to these programs are stronger than the ones from washu that are, and also, that all the washu grads are going to northwestern’s business school and not harvard’s (which is a better business school, anyway)</p>
<p>all that ranking concludes is that dartmouth is a more preprofessional school, by proportion, to east coast professional schools.</p>