Which has a better undergrad experience?

posterX
Tue, 22 Aug 2006 15:59:49 +0000

You should visit each school for a few days - preferably a few weekend days as well as a normal class day - because that’s the only way to narrow it down. Visit at least two this fall so you can see if you’re on the right track (in my opinion, your list has a number of very, very different schools, so you might also want to look at places like Williams or Wesleyan). If you can’t visit all of them now, apply to more of them and visit later when you have the choice to make. Yes, visits are expensive, but this is a huge decision for you to make - it’s four years here - and choosing the best college can have a huge impact. Visiting can also help your chances of getting in, by letting you tailor your application better. So, sell everything you own and just do it.

Out of your list, I would say Yale offers the best overall undergraduate experience. I won’t go into the academic reasons why because I think Yale’s undergraduate program, academically speaking, is almost universally regarded as the strongest out there among people who have studied the success rates of its alumni, the amount of resources, grants and fellowships available per student, the amount of advising, class sizes and the like. It is also the most selective university in the country, which says something. That said, all of your choices have decent academics - especially Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth - so I don’t think you should feel bad if you don’t get into 3 of the 5 and end up at the fourth or fifth choice.

Socially, they are all very distinctive as well, and it is really worth looking into the differences. Some have very compact campuses with tons of campus life and undergraduate dormitories all in close proximity with each other, while others are comparatively spread out over a very wide area and/or have campuses that are pretty much totally dead at night and on weekends. Remember, a lively campus during the day may be totally dead at 8 p.m. on a Friday - or not. You won’t know unless you visit!

I’ve visited all of these places extensively, so will spare you a full report on each, but here’s a list of a few things to consider when you’re visiting: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=2861108&postcount=24