<p>I don;t think everyone wants to go into banking. I don’t really like finance to be honest. BUT the Ivies open doors into elite business. Dartmouth also excels at placing its grads, far better than WashU according to every top grad school I’ve seen publish data. I also think its a far more wholistic experience. I chose Dartmouth because it was the best fit that also excelled in so many relevant areas.</p>
<p>Personally I think Wesleyan is also an awesome school and like Dartmouth it excels at placing its grads. I would easily choose Wes over WashU.</p>
<p>I agree that WashU is trying to edge its way in as the ninth member of the Ivy League by luring desirable students in with merit money and waitlisting overqualified but not top students. One of my good friends was eventually offered full rides by WashU, Amherst, and Penn (WashU was the first to offer a full ride, then came Amherst, and then came Penn, eventually chose Amherst and made a great decision for himself). WashU is aware of the competition and is aggressively pulling against it.</p>
<p>Dartmouth, on the other hand, has squatting rights of being in the Ivy League and being as old as heck. On matters of prestige, Dartmouth wins, hands down. I still don’t think means it’s a better school. Besides, what goes on behind closed doors at a university has little effect on a college student’s experience. </p>
<p>For example, I don’t like a lot of the decisions about how Chicago markets itself. I don’t like that our USNWR numbers are massaged, and I don’t like that we even agree to participate in the program. I don’t like how we are stingy with financial aid in comparison to the Ivies, and that every year there are legions of students who WANT to come here and can’t, because, say, MIT offered them a better package. (My guess is much more money comparatively is going into funding graduate research than funding undergraduate financial aid).</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean I don’t gush about the school endlessly.</p>
<p>I highly doubt that WashU kids are at all like its admissions office, and I would venture to guess that the kids who are there end up enjoying their time, even if it wasn’t number one on their lists. Lots of Dartmouth kids initially pined for Yalevardton, too.</p>
<p>Another note: I know lots of smart kids who were rejected by WashU. The school doesn’t have to look all that hard to find strong students to fill its classes.</p>
<p>just bc you go to the ugly half sister of AWS doesn’t mean you have to come here defending your school’s “right to be elite,” did my comments upset you that much?</p>
<p>and jazzymom i’m not even going to respond to your post because no offense but that was the most patchy, bourgeois rebuttal you could have come up with</p>
<p>It’s tough to respond to the dreck you post. Why don’t we just agree to disagree? I believe my school and WashU are good - you’re an elitist snob that goes to a school ranked lower than WashU and thus you have a vendetta against it. Sad? Yes. Perhaps someday you’ll figure out why you come on here and bash other schools for no reason. Perhaps someday I’ll figure out why I waste my time replying to people like you. </p>
<p>P.S. - my comments about Wesleyan were in its defense, and not merely to refer to it as elite, but to counter your immediate attack on my school and therefore my own character - what we call an ad hominem. Your comments about WashU were out of your own personal spite. As much as you’d like to deny it, WashU, Wesleyan, and Northwestern are considered peer schools in most people’s eyes. </p>
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<p>You fail to focus on the discussion at hand and instead make snide remarks about my rebuttal, which merely includes facts. Best stick to banking after all. You’d never cut it in law school, no matter where you went for undergrad. Peace.</p>
<p>haha, T14 law school data by undergraduate is not available.</p>
<p>you’re going so far as to make up information to try and establish wesleyan’s “right to be elite?” You’re that insecure about what people think of it, to the point where you have to respond twice defending it?</p>
<p>come on man, it’s a pretty good school, you’re making the people who go there feel bad about themselves.</p>
<p>Law school placement data is available for Harvard and Yale Law School on their websites. The size of the graduating class is available on undergraduate college websites. If you’re interested, you could do a little research rather than making assumptions.</p>
<p>You’re the one who responded to Brand with “helps me sleep at night? i’m not the one going to wesleyan.” If one of the comments in this thread were going to make me feel bad about going to Wes (not that any did), it would have been that one.</p>
<p>Back on topic: I would pick WashU over Dartmouth. But I’m one to go for fit over prestige, so it’s just a matter of thinging WashU would fit me better.</p>
<p>I’ll have to disagree with your point about merit aid at the Ivies, with the exception of P’ton’s no loan policy which is clearly aimed at the middle class. Yes, there are some in the $150k income range that receive finaid from need-only schools, including Ivies, and UChicago, but those families also have extenuating circumstances, i.e., multiple kids in college, high medical expenses, etc. However, with the exception of P’ton, the finaid for that upper income group will be loans & work-study first, which is technically need-based aid, )but any money I have to work for or pay back is another name for self-help). Of course, that same family would likely recieve a similar need-based package from WashU.</p>
<p>I guess I just don’t understand how WashU could “fit” anyone better outside of location. Dartmouth has more prestige, better recruiting/reputation, a stronger social scene, a bigger “alternative” scene for those wanting to play outside, a more undergrad focused “LACy” feel, outdoors for those who want that, etc.</p>
<p>Oh BB: I was thanking you for a thought-provoking response that did not contain a personal insult, unlike a previous poster. I see that I worded it in a way that caused confusion. And I am thinking about what you posted.</p>
<p>slipper: Well, loaction is one reason I think I’d prefer WashU. The rest is rather speculative, since I don’t know more than general steryotypes about the two schools, but from what I’ve heard, WashU is more laid back socially, while Dartmouth is more Greek-beer-drinking-in-the-middle-of-nowhere like. That might be untrue/unfair to Dartmouth, but that’s what I was basing my statement on. And anyway, I’d imagine that there would be other reasons that a person might find WashU the better fit.</p>
Peace.</p>