Dartmouth College Top Questions

My classmates are generally very motivated at whatever they are passionate about.

My classmates are passionate, compassionate, focused, engaged, deeply thoughtful, musical, dynamic, talented in a huge variety of ways - three of my best friends are a music/computer science major, a classics/physical chemistry major, and a studio art/pre-med major, respectively - considerate, active, entertaining, and altogether a group of people I feel lucky to have met and feel glad will be part of the generation that shapes the way the world develops next.

Friendly, outgoing people who like to drink and party but still do well in school.

Fun-loving kids who party hard but always surprise you with their passionate outlook on school and their accomplishments.

Freewheeling, neo-hippie, Ultimate Frisbee-playing, outgoing, crunchy outdoorsy types.

Smart, bright, hard-partying, hard-working

My classmates are very focused, intelligent, and hardworking. The people that go to Dartmouth are among the best in the nation, and it shows in every individual student.

Diverse in perspective. Excellent. It's a vibrant campus that is made vibrant by the student body. People actually love Dartmouth. You don't just go here because you have to you go here because you like to.

As I mentioned before, the student body is unquestionably smart, hard-working, and accomplished, but everyone puts up a good fascade that they don't try too hard and are just an average joe. Some will lead you to believe that all they do is play pong and "hang out", while others have no problem telling you they spent the past three days holed up in Berry library, but there is never a competitive or "look at me, I'm so smart" vibe. The student body is pretty diverse - racially, religiously, ecomonically, geographically and sexual orientationally (if that's a word). Some minorities have their own Greek organizations and many of the typical frats/soroties are predominantly white, so in this respect the school isn't as integrated as it could be. I don't think there is ever any hostility, just a chosen separation. The school and its history are fairly conservative with an "old boy" mentality prevailing until recent years, but the student body is rather liberal, in line with most college student bodies. There are active political groups, but republican and democrat, but on the whole students are too political. There is a tendency to get sucked into the "Dartmouth bubble", where you are unaware of outside current events and tend to think that everything else in the world is secondary to what's going on in the Dartmouth world. There are your typical groups: the athletes, nerds, frat boys, sorority girls, alternative druggies, crunchy hippies. But there is enough cross-over that you'll meet the soccer player/frat brother/econ whiz who dates a girl who works at the organic farm and is involved with student assembly.

Dartmouth RAVES about its diversity. In my class alone, we have people from tens of countries, from every race, speaking many languages, having different sexual orientations, etc. But even though we are all so different, we're all very similar, too. All of us LOVE Dartmouth, we all want to get a great education and be successful with our lives, we're all ambitious, and we all like to have fun, too. Everyone is very welcoming, and there aren't any cliques unless you include the Greek system, but that's what really brings people together: it doesn't divide them. Politics is obviously a big deal at any university. Nationally, many of the students are very aware of what is going on in the world, and because New Hampshire has some of the first primary elections in the country, there are always candidates coming to Dartmouth. Most lean to the left, but that's because they haven't made their own money yet; once people are working EXTREMELY hard and becoming successful, they'll want to keep the money that THEY've earned, not just hand it over to someone else. As far as wealth goes, Dartmouth is very fortunate. Many people are on financial aid, some with full rides, which is only possible because of the people, including myself, who are paying the full tuition, which is over $50,000 a year.