<p>half_baked : awesome post . you are a realist . Totally random : Do you like cynical/sarcastic humour ?</p>
<p>OK half_baked…I like your posts…so I want to ask you if you know anything about Brown…?</p>
<p>I also liked your post, half_baked. I was rejected from the only other Ivy I applied to, Princeton, and I already catch myself “editing [my] personal history” like you said: “Actually, I’m almost happy Princeton rejected me. I’d idealized it so much that I didn’t pay attention to all the reasons why it might not actually be the best fit for me.” I guess I’ll see next year (and, to a lesser extent, next week) whether that actually holds true or if it’s just sour grapes. ;)</p>
<p>I didn’t mean to offend with my post about skiing; I just meant that the OP started out asking for serious stuff about Harvard, Princeton, and Dartmouth, and all of a sudden we were talking about the kind of bindings on the snowboards that can be rented. I agree that college is more than the academics; the quality of life is important, as is the climate. That said, I would have thought that simply the fact that Dartmouth has the Skiway is the point, not the bindings on the rented snowboards.</p>
<p>My S is going to Dartmouth in the Fall and plans on snowboarding four days a week. I just don’t think it should be the Major Reason to choose one school over another – unless all other things are equal (which they never are).</p>
<p>^^ Exactly.</p>
<p>Basically … you should consider Dartmouth because it is different from the other schools. Every school has a different feel, you want to be somewhere that you’ll enjoy for four years. I guess that was what I’m getting at. For me, yes, that was the opportunity to ski, and the opportunity to hike, mountain bike, and generally enjoy the woods of New England (the college has huge areas that it maintains)… and why I chose not to attend other schools some would say are ‘better’ than Dartmouth.</p>
<p>I guess these would be the reasons to consider D over HYP … if you’re just looking for straight academics, the first response on this thread said the academic difference wasn’t enough to make a choice … some would agree, some not. If you are prestige-concerned, by all means, don’t pick Dartmouth over HYP. If you are a city-lover, maybe Hanover is too small for your tastes.</p>
<p>It is the other factors that are going to make your decisions.</p>
<p>Yo, half_baked. Not all of us are Harvard/Yale rejects…easy on that inferiority complex thing.</p>
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<p>Better is all sujbective, and in half-baked’s case, likley means higher name recognition. But, hb also fails to acknowledge that ~1/3rd of the class applied ED, so these students chose to reject HYSPM et al by never applying. For their own personal reasons, Dartmouth was a better fit for the ED’ers.</p>
<p>First, to quote:</p>
<p>“Especially in light of the fact that many of us are Harvard/Yale rejects”</p>
<p>I’ll concede that not ALL of us applied to better schools. However, I think it’s reasonable to say that somewhere around the 50% mark of Dartmouth students also applied to better schools (50 percent being an underestimate… it’s probably more realistically like 2/3, pretty much everyone who didn’t ED). Assuming only 50% applied to “better” schools, let’s assume that a full 20% of that sample got accepted to HYPS and chose to come to Dartmouth because it was a better fit for them. This means that the remaining 80% of the 50% sample (40% of the undergraduate population) consists of individuals who, honestly speaking, would have gone to a better school had they been admitted. It’s hard to nail these numbers down because of the tendency of Dartmouth students to misrepresent their ability (or lack thereof) to get into schools that are more competitive than Dartmouth. In either case, if we can think of 40% as a ballpark (or, if you’re like me, an underestimate), I think it’s very fair to say that MANY of us are Harvard/Yale rejects.</p>
<p>Second, in response to MovieBuff: I wrote this a while back about Cornell, but the exact same thing applies to Brown. In fact, it was the same scenario of not bothering to waste the money on the application:</p>
<p>"Umm… here’s some background. I come from a pretty well-off family. When I applied to college, I didn’t even fill out the FAFSA form because I knew there was no way I’d get financial aid.</p>
<p>Having said that, when the conversation came up about applying to Cornell, my parents laughed and said that they didn’t want to waste the $60 on application fees. I don’t get the point of Cornell - it has by far the least prestige of any of the Ivy league schools. Additionally, I hear it’s also the toughest. They don’t grade inflate, meaning you have to work even harder: you need to get better grades at a worse institution than most of your peers. It’s kind of a mirror image of Harvard, really. Harvard’s the most famous, potentially easiest of the Ivies. Cornell is just a really raw deal.</p>
<p>Besides, what you’re ultimately going to is a state school anyway. Except you’re paying Ivy league college dues to be there. If you’re thinking about graduate school of any kind (law, med, business, academics), then in my mind, there’s only one statistic that should interest you about a college: placement. How much easier does the school you’re going to for undergrad make it to get into a top grad school? Well, there’s a study done on this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/p...ege_092503.pdf[/url]”>http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/p...ege_092503.pdf</a></p>
<p>The Wall Street Journal ranks Dartmouth at #7 and Cornell at #25, making it both the bottom of the Ivy league and behind such non-Ivies as UChicago, Pomona, Georgetown, and Northwestern. Ivy League? In name only."</p>
<p>Much of the same logic applies, with the key difference being that Brown is actually a pretty easy Ivy in terms of academics and grade inflation. The problem, though, is that this is a widely known fact - actually, Brown as a reputation for being a school where rich people send their stupid offspring.</p>
<p>To its credit though, Brown is actually #12 in the WSJ rankings. It’s the second-bottom of the Ivies, but not all that bad overall. Those rankings are somewhat skewed though: Brown does a better job than it gets credit for in terms of putting people in law school but a worse job putting them in business or medical programs. </p>
<p>I applied to almost all the Ivies in more or less a shotgun approach to college. I didn’t worry about “fit” when I was applying; I only started thinking about that when I had a set of schools in front of me that I was accepted to and had a real decision to make. Ultimately, I ended up choosing Dartmouth over UMich, UC Berkeley, and Columbia. I didn’t apply to Penn proper, either; I applied to Wharton and got rejected. At that point, I’m not sure whether I had the option of going to the regular college, but I didn’t see the point - Penn, again, is only valuable for the business school.</p>
<p>Oh, and I did indirectly define “better” by defining “best”:</p>
<p>“Dartmouth is NOT the best Ivy, or the best (ie, best able to get you a job/into grad school)”</p>
<p>The quality of an institution of higher education, to me, is all about the ability that institution has to get you into a top graduate program/job upon graduation relative to all the other colleges in the country (when, of course, you control for all other variables such as GPA, test scores, etc). It’s possible (though, in my opinion, foolish) to value other criteria about a college as well, but as supergaut24 said, I’m a realist.</p>
<p>Additionally, I think it’s deeply flawed to assume that all 1/3 of the Dartmouth population who applied ED rejected HYPS out of hand. It could (and probably was) a very pragmatic, strategic calculation for most of them. If they knew they had no chance of getting into HYPS anyway, the marginal increase in chance they could have had by applying early would have been wasted. On the other hand, if they were borderline candidates for Dartmouth, ED becomes a far more attractive, useful application strategy.</p>
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<p>Half_baked, how apt a handle for you. Now you’re insinuating that you Harvard/Yale rejects are better than those who chose to apply to Dartmouth ED. Wow, just wow. Lets evaluate the facts:
- You applied to HYPS, got rejected. Applied to Dartmouth got accepted.
- We applied ED to Dartmouth, got accepted. But it’s conceivable that if we have applied to HPYS, we might be accepted, afterall there is no proof that we have been rejected. Don’t you think if anyone, we ED people have a better claim, superfluous it may be, that we are in fact better than you Harvard/Yale rejects?
Needless to say, acceptance to HYPS is not on each own an indication one is a better student than those going to other ivies/top schools as there are students accepted in HYPS but rejected from others. The only students who adhere to the supposition of HYPS above all else are prestige-whore types like you who thinks “well, it’s HYPS, everyone must want to go there first ahead of other schools”.</p>
<p>It is also noteworthy to point out that Cornell, despite some of their schools receiving state funding, is NOT a state school as you claim. Yes, I saw your juvenile post in the Cornell forum. No wonder every Cornellian and other CC members think Dartmouth students are stupid because of posts such as yours. Cornell’s a state school? Yeah Einstein, that’s why you got rejected by Harvard/Yale. What’s the matter, you paid the wrong Asian kid to take your SAT’s?</p>
<p>half_baked… thanks for the good laugh!</p>
<p>But you need to be careful when you make some statements, because otherwise you will lose credibility… (gasp!) Actually, Brown premeds have the highest number of premeds from all ivies who get their first choice of medical school and medical programs.</p>
<p>But again, thanks for the good laugh !</p>
<p>simpletruth, moviebuff…i hate to say it, but i think half baked is pretty much right on all accounts.</p>
<p>bulldogbull , I pretty much agree with everything half_baked said too . I admire him for having the courage to speak his mind.</p>
<p>bulldogbull, let me see. Also a Harvard/Yale reject? Probably. Half_baked right on all accounts? Wrong. All of my classmates and me who are coming to Dartmouth are far stronger students than our classmates who are going to Harvard and Yale. But we don’t regard their accomplishment (some of whom are very close friends) anything less just because we are the better students. We chose Dartmouth because of what it offers in terms of complete undergrad experience, they chose theirs because of their own priorities. Our group in Dartmouth actually will be hosting a Winter Carnival high school reunion next year with classmates coming from Harvard, Yale, Brown, Williams, Amherst, MIT, Middlebury, Bowdoin, some flying from Stanford, likely Penn, Columbia, Duke, Gtown, and Cornell too (though those guys are kinda balking at the driving time), others (those guys are gonna kill me for forgetting their school). It would be interesting to see how they will react if you have the nerve to show up and tell them those of us who went to Dartmouth you consider second stringers.</p>
<p>To half_baked and the likes: Be grateful that you have Dartmouth as your fallback from your “dream” unreachable school but don’t insult the intelligence of those who put Dartmouth as first choice. We don’t have a problem if you Harvard/Yale rejects talk like this among yourselves, but you’re not gonna do this in front of us. Big ego you say? You betcha. </p>
<p>We’re coming to Dartmouth this year and if we ever encounter you and your cohorts who speak disparagingly of other Dartmouth students because Dartmouth is only you’re fallback, you will know it’s us. And we will enjoy doing it too. I’d like to think our group will be part of that generation that joins Dartmouth and put and end to the days when you Harvard/Yale rejects think you can lord the campus. You have a problem with that? Bite us!</p>
<p>Did I mention we’re also war freaks?</p>
<p>Sgd (Ungrateful Harvard/Yale rejects worst nightmare).</p>
<p>PS.
supergaut: I don’t get you. Someone calls you second rate and you say bravo? I understand if you don’t stand with us (EDrs) but at least have the courtesy not to stand against us. You can twist all you want what was said in the paragraph quoted but despite all the civilities in presentation the bottom line of that message is : The Harvard/Yale rejects are better than anyone who applied ED to Dartmouth because the ED guys are so scared of getting rejected to Harvard/Yale, so they applied ED to Dartmouth. You’re coming to America, my advise is learn to fight for your dignity, or the likes of half_baked and bulldogbull will walk all over you. Sadly, we have a lot of them in this country.</p>
<p>half-baked:</p>
<p>Some applicants do indeed game ED, but gaming a school only a few spots down from HYSM is not a real smart strategy. A much better gaming strategy is to drop 10 slots down and apply ED to Northwestern or Hopkins or other fine school. </p>
<p>fwiw: on the west coast, Cornell is much more highly regarded than Dartmouth if only bcos Dartmouth is not well known (like other NE LACs such as Williams and Amherst). Moreover, I was really surprised at your parents’ view of Cornell, since the individuals of Indian descent that I know (worked for a Bangalore-based company) think extremely highly of Cornell, particularly given its strong physical science and engineering program…why do your parents feel it is no better than a state school?</p>
<p>SimpleTruth : I agree with you on the ED part. ED kids , like us, chose Dartmouth. And therefore it would be wrong to hypothetically come to the conclusion that we did it for strategic reasons or whatever. I like Dartmouth , I applied ED , I got in and I am VERY grateful. I think my classmates will extremely bright and talented , as good as those at HYP if not better.</p>
<p>All I am saying is most of what half_baked says makes sense. I don’t take what he says personally. I don’t know if his hypothetical figures (40% etc.) are accurate and but they seem logical. </p>
<p>“You’re coming to America, my advise is learn to fight for your dignity”
Thanks for your advice.</p>
<p>SimpleTruth, thank you so much for your response!! You have lived up to your screen name! That was just a very eloquent simple truth!</p>
<p>SimpleTruth - you are the guru. Great response.</p>
<p>Half-baked looks at the world in logical black and white terms, matters of the heart are not important. The notion of not saying something a demographic group might find offensive doesn’t matter due to the logic behind freedom of speech. Similarly choosing Dartmouth over Harvard or Yale doesn’t make sense to him, because prestige and elitism are his ultimate goals perhaps even over personal happiness.</p>
<p>Whew - now that I’ve put hell week in ec26 behind me, I can finally get back into this.</p>
<p>First, I didn’t say that kids who applied to tougher schools and got rejected were any better than the kids who applied ED. There’s a reason why SimpleTruth didn’t quote me anywhere directly saying that; he/she didn’t even try to construe something I said to mean that. This is stupid partisan hack argumentation on his/her part - if I disagree with him/her, I must be attacking this individual and their identity directly. No one’s saying that people who applied ED to Dartmouth are any less qualified than those who didn’t; the only real conclusions that you can draw are that they might be slightly more risk-averse, that they might genuinely have only wanted to have come to Dartmouth, or that, as I had argued, that they didn’t believe they had a great shot at a tougher school so hedged their bets with Dartmouth. Any three of these could be true - you’d be hard pressed to argue that there aren’t at least some individuals who fit into each of these categories. </p>
<p>Here’s a workable premise: if cost is irrelevant (if you didn’t have to pay application fees), and even if Dartmouth is your first choice, it’s better to get into Dartmouth and a dozen other schools than to simply get into Dartmouth and nowhere else. It doesn’t matter that you’d go to Dartmouth anyway. The fact that you have a choice is valuable in itself.</p>
<p>So why might people choose to give up this potential benefit of having more choices by applying ED? Well, the first reason is that, knowing that Dartmouth is their top choice, they don’t want to spend the time/effort applying to other schools. You can’t possibly deny that, for other individuals, another very probable reason is that these individuals trade the opportunity to have multiple choices for the increased admission chances of ED. This is the risk-averse category of people for whom Dartmouth was their utmost reach. This is the category that didn’t think they had a chance at a more competitive school. Try not to be overly dogmatic about this: there are many people for whom Dartmouth would be a great fit, a dream school. However, if someone who fits this description has a 2.5 in high school, THEY JUST DON’T APPLY TO DARTMOUTH. On the other hand, someone who’s on the borderline for getting into an Ivy league school, such as someone who has a 3.6 and no really spectacular extracurriculars, really needs to be careful about which school they ED to. Think of ED or EA as a magic ticket of sorts - it automatically adds between 1 and 2% to your base chances of being admitted. Based on how tough you perceive certain schools to be, you could use this tool very much to your advantage, or you could squander it.</p>
<p>A lot is also based on psychological makeup. What do you consider to be a “good shot” of getting into an Ivy? I figured it to be about 20% for myself. If I had that much of a chance to get into an Ivy and I applied to more than 5, I had a decent shot of getting into one. Now think about the best way to use ED - if you have a 19% chance of getting into Dartmouth RD (or you think you do anyway), ED could really help - it could boost you into the low 20’s, transforming you into someone who has perhaps a better chance than most of the applicants of getting in. On the other hand, if you perceive your chances at HYPS to be somewhere around 15ish, then ED or EA there is a waste - you go from being an average applicant to still being an average applicant. For those of you who lack the ability to think critically, keep in mind that all of this analysis ONLY applies to those individuals for whom Ivy League acceptance in any form was something of a reach. I DO NOT mean to imply that there wasn’t anyone who could have walked into any Ivy that they wanted and came to Dartmouth anyway because of preference. As a matter of fact, one of my best friends who’s sitting across the table from me right now turned down Princeton and Yale to come here.</p>
<p>SimpleTruth, the fact that your personal friends who came to Dartmouth are stronger than the people you know who went to HYPS doesn’t mean anything; it’s a self-selected sample, and anecdotal evidence really doesn’t mean anything. The fact that there are other schools of similar caliber that have a lower percentage of accepted students and (perhaps more importantly), a higher yield means that those schools are TOUGHER TO GET INTO. I’m not saying they’re better; I firmly believe that Dartmouth is one, if not the, best undergraduate school in the country. It’s also one of the most selective, but certainly not THE most selective.</p>
<p>Let’s not lose sight of the larger debate here. Even if SimpleTruth is right on all points and I’m wrong, he still doesn’t win the original argument - that there are A LOT of HYPS rejects at Dartmouth. Even in my original analysis, I put the number in the minority. The fact that we’re a minority, however, doesn’t mean that it’s not a significant minority. You barely even present any arguments, and the ones you do are mostly emotional, ad hom, and irrational. I don’t need to insult your intelligence; you do that well enough yourself. I’d come tell you and your friends that to your face but I’d rather not have you cry about it all over again. I mean, I’m not knocking Dartmouth - it’s one of the best schools in the world (literally). Which is why it shocks me that a moron like you was admitted. Administrative oversight? I think so. For instance:</p>
<p>“What’s the matter, you paid the wrong Asian kid to take your SAT’s?”</p>
<p>The fact that I probably got a higher SAT score than you aside (based on your inability to analyze or argue), I’m Asian myself. But thanks for coming out as a blatant racist, it really helps your cred.</p>
<p>Dartmouth was not a safety school for me, and I’m not being a prick because I had to go here. I’m actually extraordinarily lucky to be here (long story), and being accepted to Dartmouth was probably the proudest achievement of my life. But try not to get too emotional about this: admitting that there could exist better (or at least more competitive) schools out there than Dartmouth DOES NOT MEAN you’re saying Dartmouth isn’t also a fantastic school. </p>
<p>And slipper, please don’t try to turn this into a segway into a free speech debate. This is a debate about truth - if something is true, you’d have to be a really stupid person to be offended by it. For instance, I could say, “Theta Delts, on average, have lower GPAs than Sig Nus.” If this is false, and I’m just saying it in spite, then you have an argument to make about why I might not be able to say it, and why Theta Delts might be angry that I said that. If, on the other hand, it’s actually true (and it is based on the report published in The D earlier this year), and there actually exists evidence that Sig Nu?s average house GPA is much higher than Theta Delt?s, then they have grounds to be upset and just have to deal with something that is a FACT. I?m pretty damn sure that if an objective survey could be done about the percentage of Dartmouth students on campus currently who also applied to and got rejected from HYPS, I?m confident that there would be a good number (again, NOT A MAJORITY) of people who fall into this category. Just because a lot of people at Dartmouth are ****ed off when they hear that there might be better schools out there doesn’t matter if it’s true. I’m not saying it is true - I’m saying discussions like this are key if we’re ever to find out. You’re right, I do think of things in rational terms (though not black and white - I’m not dogmatic). “Matters of the heart”, as you refer to them, is really just a euphemism for irrational prejudice and dogmatism. You’re both an incredibly intelligent person and an invaluable resource to people on this forum, which is why this surprises me from you. </p>
<p>By the way, there’s no similarity between valuing free speech and valuing prestige. Are you implying that the only people who value free speech are, as you term them, people who value “prestige and elitism”? That’s unbelievably short-sighted. And how far are you going to take this notion of offensiveness anyway? Now it’s offensive talk about the merits of one school relative to another? What’s next, you’ll tell me I can’t tell someone who goes to a community college that Dartmouth is more competitive than their school? Grow up please.</p>