Friday, August 22, 2003MoreI know Grossman linked to the new Princeton Review rankings, but, for what it's worth, I'd like to explicate the Quality of Life categories for folks who haven't read them.These are, you may remember, top 20 lists compiled by students: Happy Students Dartmouth - #3 Harvard - NR Princeton - NR Yale - NR Great Food Dartmouth - #6 Harvard - NR Princeton - NR Yale - NR Palatial Dorms Harvard - #13 Dartmouth - #17 Princeton - NR Yale - NR Beautiful Campus Dartmouth - #9 Harvard - NR Princeton - NR Yale - NR Quality of Life Dartmouth - #4 Harvard - #9 Princeton - NR Yale - NR The moral of the story? Dartmouth provides the number 1 quality of life of in the country, combined with a top 10 academic experience. Combining these two measures yields what is very likely the best overall undegraduate experience to be had. I freely admit that Harvard, etc. are currently better schools if one only factors in academics (SAT scores and the like). Incresing D's National Merit haul, for instance, is a worthy concrete goal. But for people who realize that college is a place to live, not just to learn, Dartmouth is the unparalled choice. I'd love to see this fact disseminated more widely (i.e. higher prestige). I'd love to see Dartmouth #1 in U.S. News. However, neither should occur at the expense of our wonderful quality of life. Moreover, much worse than its aims (which I don't so much mind), the way BlabberForce has communicated its message is 1) silly (worrying about three/four universities with more prestige when thousands have less) and a slap in the face to everyone (read: all D students) who've recognized the value of the Dartmouth experience. And I say all this as a former prestige whore who once had his little high school heart set on attending HYP. Posted by Scott at 11:32 AM Comments Post a Comment (we enforce our comments policy) |
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