Dartmouth College
- Thread starter C.K
- Start date
omIV
Active member
I'm a sophomore at Dartmouth and couldn't love the place any more. Actually that's a lie; I love it more every day.
What follows is a compilation of some PMs/thread posts directed to people considering Dartmouth. They're mostly oriented towards prospective undergrads, but I've chosen some that I think will be relevant to you.
One of my closest friends is an acting major, and I have friends in other fine arts departments. I would be happy to put you in touch with them, and I'm positive that they'd be happy to tell you more than I can about arts in particular. Our grad programs are wickedly small; you'd be interacting with undergrads on a daily basis, so I think they could really give you a sense of what you'd be in for.
Please please please shoot me an email (I've PM'd you with my address) or a PM. If I don't know the answer to a question, I'll see what I can dig up.
Also I swear that I'm not getting paid for this. Dartmouth people tend to be enthusiastic.
General Impressions/Feeling of the Place:
Dartmouth's really got it all. Today was the first day above 70 degrees this quarter (you know about the d-plan, yes?), and the green was filled with people sunbathing, playing soccer, throwing frisbees...the campus radio station set up a sound system outside and played music all day. This place is literally a paradise.
The Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC), celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, is so sweet. It runs hiking trips, canoeing trips, snowshoeing, fishing, skiing, and pretty much anything else you could do outside. The College owns a county in the norteastern corner of the state which it has kept completely undeveloped; the DOC maintains a trail and cabin network for students to use. Skiing is hella close by, with the college-owned Dartmouth Skiway 20 minutes up the road. The Skiway doesn't have much of a park scene, but me and my friend from Durango are working on starting a DOC club to do park work. There are rides every day to Killington and Stowe as well, so you're never going for want of skiing.
Dartmouth students tend to drink a lot. We're a very fraternity-centric school, but our frats aren't sketchy like most other places. You rush in your sophomore fall, which gives you time to figure out where you fit. The fraternities/sororities are all very open; even when you've pledged somewhere, you still go to other frats parties. A little more than half of eligible students are in greek life.
The work can get pretty tough. I came in here this fall with a 1490 SAT (2290 w/ reading), and I've gotten one A out of 6 classes so far. The professors are great though, office hours are clutch, but they do expect a lot from you. I've had some amazing profs, and learned a lot, so all-in-all I'm pretty happy with the academics here.
Dartmouth isn't for people who want to get a degree. Dartmouth is for people who want to go to college. The people you meet every day, the friendships you build over time, even the professors all are the biggest reason Dartmouth kicks ass.
Honestly, weather/skiing aside, Dartmouth is fantabulous for one reason: people. You can literally walk up to anyone, introduce yourself, and make a new friend for life. Dartmouth people take care of Dartmouth people; you just don't see this sort of love anywhere else. I completely understand that you would be inclined to go CC and stay near the Rockies, but Dartmouth has such an amazingly awesome mix of people that I can't imagine being anywhere else.
------
Frat Centric-Culture/A note on drugs
It is probably true that during the course of the year 80% of students will drink. But on a weekly basis, the number is probably closer to 40%. If you want to, you can very easily get drunk for free at fraternities five days a week. I probably averaged twice to three times a week of drinking "to excess." The drinking culture at Dartmouth is nearly completely centered around pong. Dartmouth, as you may have heard, plays a very specific variant of beer pong (we use paddles and a totally different set of rules). Going out as a freshman usually entails going over to a friend's room at like 10:30, having a few shots while socializing with other freshmen, and going out to a fraternity at like 11:30. At the fraternity you'll probably get a beer, socialize with friends who you meet there, and get on line to play beer pong. If the line is long, you and your pong partner will probably bounce to another frat and try there. My average night probably ends at around 3 am, having visited around 3 fraternities.
I would be lying to you if I said that there was a completely developed non-drinking scene. There absolutely are plenty of things to do not involving alcohol on a nightly basis. There are board game clubs, live music, movies, and so on. But fraternities and sororities are pretty important to the core culture of Dartmouth. For many people, its a way of life. So I would say that you could very reasonably come to Dartmouth expecting to not drink very often. But its not likely that you won't drink at least occasionally. However, there absolutely is no pressure to drink to excess. Many people go out having had only one or two drinks, and will only drink later on while playing pong (which works out to about two beers per game, a game taking about 20-30 minutes with about an hour wait in between games). There is never pressure to get wasted.
As a note on drugs, there definitely exists a hard drug scene. If you go looking for cocaine and ecstasy, you'll find them. But if you're not interested, drugs will never be a part of your life. I don't think that this is unique to Dartmouth, and most students will never come into contact with hard drugs.
------
Tips if you're going to visit:
by far the best restaurant in town is Murphy's on south main street, one block south of the green on the east side of the street. fantastic food and its fairly priced.
the dartmouth coop is also on south main near murphy's; its got a much better selection of dartmouth logo stuff than the bookstore does. i personally don't believe in the t-shirt curse; i bought a dartmouth skiing shirt before i got in.
the tour is fairly comprehensive in terms of seeing the campus and getting an idea of what dartmouth has to offer. however you don't get to see a dorm room. if you're interested in seeing one, let me know asap and i'll try and get in touch with someone on campus.
you may want to eat on campus. since its the summer most of the dining is closed, but you can try the Hop, which is my favorite place to eat anyway. ask your tourguide and he/she will be able to direct you better than I can via NS messaging.
one thing that i really suggest you do is try out the library. this was one of the things that sold me on dartmouth. just walk up to any blitz terminal, open firefox, and go to library.dartmouth.edu (this should be homepaged anyway). search for anything. when i was there i searched the library catalog for "hearldry", since i had been studying chivalry and knightly codes in high school. it sent me deep into the basement of the stacks (which seriously feels like a submarine), but whatdayaknow, there were at least 15 books on healdry, some from the early 1800s.
alternatively, you can go to Rauner special collections in Webster Hall (next to the library) and take out the oldest atlas in the world. i ended up finding it there when i was doing research on the spanish armada; aparantly there was a good chance that Francis Drake had a copy of this atlas with him, which would have been instrumental in his defeat of the spanish fleet.
Author: Ortelius, Abraham, 1527-1598.
Title: Theatrum orbis terrarum
Call #: G1006 .T5 1571
if you're up for a 20 minute drive, you can check out the dartmouth skiway. its going to be dead because its summer, but still worth seeing in my opinion, since you'd be spending a decent amount of time there (especially if the student-run park crew that I'm working on gets off the ground).
directions to skiway from campus: Head North on Route 10 for 11 miles into the town of Lyme. Continue around the common and Turn right at the fork in the road at the white church. Continue 3.25 miles on Dorchester Road to the Skiway.
lastly, if you want to spend some time at a frat, also let me know. they're kinda iffy about letting non students in, but i'll give it a shot if you're interested.
------
Why Dartmouth:
this place isn't hamilton college small, but its absolutely a liberal arts college.
dartmouth was far and away my first choice, but i also applied to places like colgate, uvm, stanford, harvard. shot a 1490 on the sat (i'm really good at standardized tests; not actually that genius)
the place is just really laid back. people playing frisbee on the green, girls tanning in bikinis outside their dorms, bros barbecuing, etc (at least in the warm periods...it gets pretty fucking chilly too). the school is very oriented towards outdoor leadership. we own a few thousand acres of wilderness with maintained cabins and trails, which people use regularly. we are also responsible for 70 miles of the appalachian trail, so if you're out there doing trailwork you get to meet some crazy hippies and shit.
classes are pretty tough, not gonna lie, but our schedule helps. we're on the "dartmouth plan", meaning every season is a "quarter" (including summer), and you have to be on campus or on a foreign study program for credit for 12 quarters (total of 36 classes). So thats only three classes a term, which is nice. plus since you can do summers on-campus (you have to do at least one), you can take winters off. im planning on going to austria junior winter (ive been taking german) to intern at UBS Zurich and ski on the weekends.
the place is a paradise. people go out mondays and wednesdays as well as on the weekends (the way the schedule works, its really easy to avoid tu-th classes). i'm exaggerating a bit, the work can get really stressful, and its easy to get distracted, but people get their shit done when push comes to shove.
What follows is a compilation of some PMs/thread posts directed to people considering Dartmouth. They're mostly oriented towards prospective undergrads, but I've chosen some that I think will be relevant to you.
One of my closest friends is an acting major, and I have friends in other fine arts departments. I would be happy to put you in touch with them, and I'm positive that they'd be happy to tell you more than I can about arts in particular. Our grad programs are wickedly small; you'd be interacting with undergrads on a daily basis, so I think they could really give you a sense of what you'd be in for.
Please please please shoot me an email (I've PM'd you with my address) or a PM. If I don't know the answer to a question, I'll see what I can dig up.
Also I swear that I'm not getting paid for this. Dartmouth people tend to be enthusiastic.
General Impressions/Feeling of the Place:
Dartmouth's really got it all. Today was the first day above 70 degrees this quarter (you know about the d-plan, yes?), and the green was filled with people sunbathing, playing soccer, throwing frisbees...the campus radio station set up a sound system outside and played music all day. This place is literally a paradise.
The Dartmouth Outing Club (DOC), celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, is so sweet. It runs hiking trips, canoeing trips, snowshoeing, fishing, skiing, and pretty much anything else you could do outside. The College owns a county in the norteastern corner of the state which it has kept completely undeveloped; the DOC maintains a trail and cabin network for students to use. Skiing is hella close by, with the college-owned Dartmouth Skiway 20 minutes up the road. The Skiway doesn't have much of a park scene, but me and my friend from Durango are working on starting a DOC club to do park work. There are rides every day to Killington and Stowe as well, so you're never going for want of skiing.
Dartmouth students tend to drink a lot. We're a very fraternity-centric school, but our frats aren't sketchy like most other places. You rush in your sophomore fall, which gives you time to figure out where you fit. The fraternities/sororities are all very open; even when you've pledged somewhere, you still go to other frats parties. A little more than half of eligible students are in greek life.
The work can get pretty tough. I came in here this fall with a 1490 SAT (2290 w/ reading), and I've gotten one A out of 6 classes so far. The professors are great though, office hours are clutch, but they do expect a lot from you. I've had some amazing profs, and learned a lot, so all-in-all I'm pretty happy with the academics here.
Dartmouth isn't for people who want to get a degree. Dartmouth is for people who want to go to college. The people you meet every day, the friendships you build over time, even the professors all are the biggest reason Dartmouth kicks ass.
Honestly, weather/skiing aside, Dartmouth is fantabulous for one reason: people. You can literally walk up to anyone, introduce yourself, and make a new friend for life. Dartmouth people take care of Dartmouth people; you just don't see this sort of love anywhere else. I completely understand that you would be inclined to go CC and stay near the Rockies, but Dartmouth has such an amazingly awesome mix of people that I can't imagine being anywhere else.
------
Frat Centric-Culture/A note on drugs
It is probably true that during the course of the year 80% of students will drink. But on a weekly basis, the number is probably closer to 40%. If you want to, you can very easily get drunk for free at fraternities five days a week. I probably averaged twice to three times a week of drinking "to excess." The drinking culture at Dartmouth is nearly completely centered around pong. Dartmouth, as you may have heard, plays a very specific variant of beer pong (we use paddles and a totally different set of rules). Going out as a freshman usually entails going over to a friend's room at like 10:30, having a few shots while socializing with other freshmen, and going out to a fraternity at like 11:30. At the fraternity you'll probably get a beer, socialize with friends who you meet there, and get on line to play beer pong. If the line is long, you and your pong partner will probably bounce to another frat and try there. My average night probably ends at around 3 am, having visited around 3 fraternities.
I would be lying to you if I said that there was a completely developed non-drinking scene. There absolutely are plenty of things to do not involving alcohol on a nightly basis. There are board game clubs, live music, movies, and so on. But fraternities and sororities are pretty important to the core culture of Dartmouth. For many people, its a way of life. So I would say that you could very reasonably come to Dartmouth expecting to not drink very often. But its not likely that you won't drink at least occasionally. However, there absolutely is no pressure to drink to excess. Many people go out having had only one or two drinks, and will only drink later on while playing pong (which works out to about two beers per game, a game taking about 20-30 minutes with about an hour wait in between games). There is never pressure to get wasted.
As a note on drugs, there definitely exists a hard drug scene. If you go looking for cocaine and ecstasy, you'll find them. But if you're not interested, drugs will never be a part of your life. I don't think that this is unique to Dartmouth, and most students will never come into contact with hard drugs.
------
Tips if you're going to visit:
by far the best restaurant in town is Murphy's on south main street, one block south of the green on the east side of the street. fantastic food and its fairly priced.
the dartmouth coop is also on south main near murphy's; its got a much better selection of dartmouth logo stuff than the bookstore does. i personally don't believe in the t-shirt curse; i bought a dartmouth skiing shirt before i got in.
the tour is fairly comprehensive in terms of seeing the campus and getting an idea of what dartmouth has to offer. however you don't get to see a dorm room. if you're interested in seeing one, let me know asap and i'll try and get in touch with someone on campus.
you may want to eat on campus. since its the summer most of the dining is closed, but you can try the Hop, which is my favorite place to eat anyway. ask your tourguide and he/she will be able to direct you better than I can via NS messaging.
one thing that i really suggest you do is try out the library. this was one of the things that sold me on dartmouth. just walk up to any blitz terminal, open firefox, and go to library.dartmouth.edu (this should be homepaged anyway). search for anything. when i was there i searched the library catalog for "hearldry", since i had been studying chivalry and knightly codes in high school. it sent me deep into the basement of the stacks (which seriously feels like a submarine), but whatdayaknow, there were at least 15 books on healdry, some from the early 1800s.
alternatively, you can go to Rauner special collections in Webster Hall (next to the library) and take out the oldest atlas in the world. i ended up finding it there when i was doing research on the spanish armada; aparantly there was a good chance that Francis Drake had a copy of this atlas with him, which would have been instrumental in his defeat of the spanish fleet.
Author: Ortelius, Abraham, 1527-1598.
Title: Theatrum orbis terrarum
Call #: G1006 .T5 1571
if you're up for a 20 minute drive, you can check out the dartmouth skiway. its going to be dead because its summer, but still worth seeing in my opinion, since you'd be spending a decent amount of time there (especially if the student-run park crew that I'm working on gets off the ground).
directions to skiway from campus: Head North on Route 10 for 11 miles into the town of Lyme. Continue around the common and Turn right at the fork in the road at the white church. Continue 3.25 miles on Dorchester Road to the Skiway.
lastly, if you want to spend some time at a frat, also let me know. they're kinda iffy about letting non students in, but i'll give it a shot if you're interested.
------
Why Dartmouth:
this place isn't hamilton college small, but its absolutely a liberal arts college.
dartmouth was far and away my first choice, but i also applied to places like colgate, uvm, stanford, harvard. shot a 1490 on the sat (i'm really good at standardized tests; not actually that genius)
the place is just really laid back. people playing frisbee on the green, girls tanning in bikinis outside their dorms, bros barbecuing, etc (at least in the warm periods...it gets pretty fucking chilly too). the school is very oriented towards outdoor leadership. we own a few thousand acres of wilderness with maintained cabins and trails, which people use regularly. we are also responsible for 70 miles of the appalachian trail, so if you're out there doing trailwork you get to meet some crazy hippies and shit.
classes are pretty tough, not gonna lie, but our schedule helps. we're on the "dartmouth plan", meaning every season is a "quarter" (including summer), and you have to be on campus or on a foreign study program for credit for 12 quarters (total of 36 classes). So thats only three classes a term, which is nice. plus since you can do summers on-campus (you have to do at least one), you can take winters off. im planning on going to austria junior winter (ive been taking german) to intern at UBS Zurich and ski on the weekends.
the place is a paradise. people go out mondays and wednesdays as well as on the weekends (the way the schedule works, its really easy to avoid tu-th classes). i'm exaggerating a bit, the work can get really stressful, and its easy to get distracted, but people get their shit done when push comes to shove.
vandersteeze
Active member
Its on the fuckin ice coast
YUNG_HIPSTER
Member
end fragment
salomonskiier12
Active member
go to clarkson instead...actually don't...go anywhere else.
skifree919
Active member
just graduated from dartmouth, class of 2010. Best four years of my life. I gotta run right now, but PM me if you are interested in asking questions from a slightly older perspective
Gillis1257
Member
... sounds like you go to dartmouth to me.mt sunapee, hands down best place to ski on the planet.
BMskier
Active member
salt hill is way better than murphys, bro.
also, dont go to the dartmouth skiway when whaleback is closer and way better. i understand that dartmouth students get a good deal to the skiway, but its 99 bucks for a student at whaleback and they have a decently fun park and its the best place to ski pow in the conneticut river valley
also, dont go to the dartmouth skiway when whaleback is closer and way better. i understand that dartmouth students get a good deal to the skiway, but its 99 bucks for a student at whaleback and they have a decently fun park and its the best place to ski pow in the conneticut river valley
steezenskis
Active member
dartmouth has its own ski mountain, and its super prepy. thats the extent of my knowledge.
steezee5
Active member
I graduated from Dartmouth in 2008 and absolutely loved it - the perfect place, at least for me. omIV nailed a lot of good points with his long post, but - playing the devil's advocate - take it with a grain of salt. That's one person's perspective, from one experience. That being said, I agree with some of what he had to say, and would chalk the rest up to our running in different academic/social circles, based on how he seemed to see things.
****All this aside, you're going for grad school, and grad students don't mingle with undergrads at all. they really don't, no matter what anybody says. If you're going to med school or Tuck or Thayer, the business and engineering schools, you'll just be hanging out/living with your fellow grad students. That's about it, based on what i saw and the grad students i knew/know now. So yeah, almost all of what omIV said won't really apply to your experience, in terms of social/classes. and i stand by that pretty strongly.that being said, i'm considering Tuck for getting an MBA, so i back it!
****All this aside, you're going for grad school, and grad students don't mingle with undergrads at all. they really don't, no matter what anybody says. If you're going to med school or Tuck or Thayer, the business and engineering schools, you'll just be hanging out/living with your fellow grad students. That's about it, based on what i saw and the grad students i knew/know now. So yeah, almost all of what omIV said won't really apply to your experience, in terms of social/classes. and i stand by that pretty strongly.that being said, i'm considering Tuck for getting an MBA, so i back it!
![[BRI]noceros](/data/avatars/m/103/103267.jpg?1745610613){kind=avatar}
[BRI]noceros
Active member
wish i had the grades to get into Dartmouth. it's a beautiful school and campus, and the vibe there is amazing. the one downside is you have to spend your sophomore summer there and none of the dorms have a/c, but that's really a minor downside
skifree919
Active member
you dont HAVE to spend your sophomore summer there, but about 97% of the class does. But, this definitely isn't a downside. I took easier classes my sophomore summer and had tons more free time since I wasn't training for track and field either. It was definitely the most fun ive had in a summer in my life
steezee5
Active member
^i was on the ski patrol for 4 years and there have been "Park Crews" in the past, the park at the Skiway will never amount to anything/much at all, trust me, unfortunately the management doesn't want to liablity, and you don't get the hard features as there's no money to spend on them, and no enough snow/cat time to make real jumps...truth be told.
Yeah I definitely agree with the fact that if you're in grad school, your peers and people you socialise with will more than likely be in the same faculty etc. I've heard the same thing from tons of people. Pretty much like now as an undergraduate, i have only hung out with people in the same social circle, lived in the same dorms or have had classes throughout the 4 years of university. That being said, I suppose the overall impression counts the most for me. Class ratios, diversity of academics and living conditions. You'll always find people who you'll get along with, click well and have similar interests.
Italian.Stallion
Member
Can someone help give perspective on gpa and sat requirements to go here? Also anything that is good to know while applying would be nice. Thanks.
skifree919
Active member
id say general requirements for SATs are 2100 and mostly As or A-
Dr.Professor
Member
I feel like you'd be lucky to get in with that^, unless you're a recruit for a sport, of course. There are A LOT of kids across the country -- across the world -- with As and A-'s and 2100s that will apply and not get in to Dartmouth. You have to do other things to show them why they should accept you.
mackattack
Member
best friend goes to Dartmouth! stayed with him for a week in his fraternity last summer and thought it was a blast. really friendly, brilliant people who generally are looking to have a good time. went to a panarchy rave/frat parties....but since i was visiting my trip was basically all partying...
butteredpretzel
Active member
I'm probably Dartmouth bound as well. Triple legacy, Dad is on the board of trustees, much money donated. See you there.
Style+eeze
Active member
Dick...
You should seriously hook me up!!!
You should seriously hook me up!!!
BeastoftheEAST
Member
Hey man Dartmouth is your typical ivy league university. Amazing campus and in am amazing area. If i had the grade to get into Dartmouth I wouldnt look much farther.
You get a true New England experience when you go there, I can only say this because my mom used to be a Prof. there she now is at Harvard and cant believe she left Dartmouth. Go for it man and good luck!!!
You get a true New England experience when you go there, I can only say this because my mom used to be a Prof. there she now is at Harvard and cant believe she left Dartmouth. Go for it man and good luck!!!
blah..
Member
Question: if I attend dartmouth, utilizing a pre-med track, so taking classes in chemistry, biology, and math. Graduating with a major in either of the listed. And aim to attend Dartmouth Med. Would I be allowed any advantage over say another Dartmouth Med applicant? From another school. Because of attending Dartmouth as an undergraduate?
skifree919
Active member
ehhh not really, maybe a little bit. Also applying to med school is very different from college. I imagine if after your four undergrad years, you may end up ready to go somewhere else, but ultimately you will probably go to the best school that you can get into. I know somebody who went to dartmouth undergrad and was rejected from DMS, but also somebody who went to dartmouth undergrad and now attends DMS.
I'd say if you attend dartmouth undergrad, you have a great chance to go to many med schools, with dartmouth med being one of them
I'd say if you attend dartmouth undergrad, you have a great chance to go to many med schools, with dartmouth med being one of them
I could post some cool story bros about my experiences there at different times.
find
Member
haha WHAT?! do you know where the other ivys are located? have you been to Ithaca, NY and if so, can you please tell me one interesting thing to do there? maybe by "amazing area" you mean "nice campus surrounded by shithole," but you do not go to an ivy league school looking for location. my friends who go to Brown all tell me about how their administration keeps them confined to campus as much as possible because once you leave you're in a completely fucked area of Providence. if you want to say you went to an ivy league school, go to an ivy league school. otherwise, go somewhere else.
PopsicleStand
Active member
Undergrad degrees are not nearly as important as they are made out to be regarding medical school acceptances.
studentdoctor.net forums will answer your questions in excruciating detail; its all nerds trying to get into med school. They have every stat and metric broken down that you possibly could have.
No med school is going to truly give priority to someone that was an undergrad there over someone else, unless there are connections. Just get good scores and ECs and you will get in somewhere.
Medicine is fast becoming an extremely difficult career, it behooves you to accrue as little debt right now as possible.
All that being said, Dartmouth is a great school at the undergraduate and professional school level.
studentdoctor.net forums will answer your questions in excruciating detail; its all nerds trying to get into med school. They have every stat and metric broken down that you possibly could have.
No med school is going to truly give priority to someone that was an undergrad there over someone else, unless there are connections. Just get good scores and ECs and you will get in somewhere.
Medicine is fast becoming an extremely difficult career, it behooves you to accrue as little debt right now as possible.
All that being said, Dartmouth is a great school at the undergraduate and professional school level.
blah..
Member
Since it's such a competitive field, I want to be prepared and do as well as I can, stay on top, you know? I mean I get good grades, and I've somehow always felt the urge to do something in medicine, I'm not sure what yet, but I just know. Right now in highschool I have an unweighted 3.5 and a weighted 5.7. 95's in pretty much everything. Im a competitive person, and I generally try to get what I want. But it's good to know that no priority would he given to me for undergraduate studies at any particular school. Right now I'm thinking: if I went to northeastern, graduated with a usable degree in something, and while I'm there get involved in a serious internship at massgen. Then after 4 years, I could get both letters of recommendation from profs at NEU and maybe doctors at massgen to boost my applicant for a school like Harvard Med!
Too bad you're going to end up working at mcdonalds anyway.
PopsicleStand
Active member
This plan will all change buddy. Just saying. Get into a decent school, get fantastic grades and grow as much as you can as a person. The rest will come. You are putting the cart way before the horse.
icon1234
Active member
I agree with this statement. If you want to go to medical school, just take the prereqs and try to keep your GPA as high as possible, ideally not lower than a 3.5, if things were meant to happen they will fall into place. As long you keep your credentials in good standing for medical school thats all that matters.
PopsicleStand
Active member
Let me clarify. ECs are often the most overlooked aspect of a med school application. I love the idea of an internship, but any volunteer experience is good. There is a saying at studentdoctor.net that goes "if you can smell the patients, it counts as experience." All I am saying is sometimes when people just starting this road don't realize how long and grueling it can be they burn themselves out, when perhaps a more realistic view would keep them fresh. Do what you have to do; it sounds like you have a great plan, just be a college student along the way. Don't be that kid that hasn't done any college yet and claims that he will go into either "ortho or plastics, whichever is easiest." Cause you will make an ass out of yourself, talking about two of the most competitive specialties on planet earth that you wont be able to even apply to for 8 years assuming you get into med school and do all the other ridiculous hoops just to match. Obviously your schools pre-med counselor will be the best source of info, once you get there. SDN forums are the place to be on the internet as far as pre meds and med students go.
Overall though, go to a halfway decent school that is an excellent fit for you, get good grades, get a good MCAT, jump through all the hoops but also try to have fun and do interesting stuff. They love that on med school app committees.
AND SAVE MONEY, meaning think hard about whichever school gives you the best fin aid package. Real talk... realize that the majority of new doctors starting out have 250k+ in loans...some even more than that. Its not as well paying as people think, and is going to go down in the future. You might be in debt till you retire...not a pretty situation even if you do love medicine.
Overall though, go to a halfway decent school that is an excellent fit for you, get good grades, get a good MCAT, jump through all the hoops but also try to have fun and do interesting stuff. They love that on med school app committees.
AND SAVE MONEY, meaning think hard about whichever school gives you the best fin aid package. Real talk... realize that the majority of new doctors starting out have 250k+ in loans...some even more than that. Its not as well paying as people think, and is going to go down in the future. You might be in debt till you retire...not a pretty situation even if you do love medicine.
joe-d
Member
My sister is a Sophomore at Dartmouth and she loves it Theres really nothing about it that she doesn't like, and the opportunities you get through it are great. Right now she's in France for the next 2 month on a semester abroad. From what I've heard from her I would highly suggest it.
