Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont and Dartmouth
College in Hanover New Hampshire share many characteristics besides their rural
New England locations. Both schools have
a strong emphasis on undergraduate teaching (Middlebury is a liberal arts college
so by definition has no graduate programs, and Dartmouth’s graduate school
population is quite small like Brown’s).
Both have broad distribution requirements so that even though they do
not offer Brown or Amherst’s open curriculum, they still allow students a lot
of choice in developing their own programs as well as the flexibility to double
major or, in Dartmouth’s case, “modify” a major to combine requirements of two
or more programs.
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| Middlebury dorm lounge |
Middlebury developed the first environmental studies
department and is well on its way to being a carbon neutral campus with a new
biomass energy plant—it really “walks the talk” of sustainability. Dartmouth also stresses environmentalism in
several of its majors and interdisciplinary programs. Both schools own their own ski mountains and
attract students who love the outdoors (winter sports in particular ).
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| Middlebury dorm exterior |
Most noticeably, and what has attracted Lily the most, is
the two college’s strong curricula in international studies, language studies
and study abroad programs. Between 40%
and 60% of juniors in each institution study abroad and they benefit from
excellent language departments that offer a wide variety of foreign languages
including Arabic and Portuguese—the young woman we met at Dartmouth was taking
both.
The most obvious difference between the two is size: Dartmouth is actually a university despite its “college” name and its total undergraduate enrollment is about 4,200. (It remains the smallest of the seven Ivy League universities.) Middlebury has about 2,400 students enrolled or 600 per class. I’ll list below other differences that I think are important to consider if one had to choose between the two schools:
*Middlebury has a distinctive residential system in which
freshmen and sophomores live in the same “commons” or housing area staffed by
residential faculty who often become mentors to the students they get to know
over two years.
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| Dartmouth campus |
*Dartmouth has set up what it calls the “D” plan in which
freshmen and seniors spend three terms on campus and sophomores all spend their
summer at Dartmouth, giving them a special term all to themselves.
*About 90 students per first year class at Middlebury enter
in February rather than August. They
bring a new perspective on campus when they arrive and tend to bond in special
ways as “Feb Start” students.
*Dartmouth is on the quarter system, which allows students
to take more classes in a four year undergraduate curriculum.
*Middlebury has a 4-1-4 calendar, two semesters bridged by a
short term in January. During this term
students have the opportunity to take non-traditional classes like jewelry
making or log rolling or go on internships or short study abroad programs.
*Dartmouth students benefit from the professional schools of
Medicine, Business and Engineering just off campus. Students can take classes at the business and
engineering school and participate in the medical school’s programs at the
local teaching hospital.
*At Middlebury, there is an open door policy at dining
halls. No card swipe is necessary and
one can eat as often or as much as one chooses.
Middlebury is known for great food using ingredients from local Vermont
farms.
*Fraternities and sororities are still a big part of the
social life at Dartmouth. Approximately
60-70% of students pledge—but they can’t do so until sophomore year.
Despite these differences or perhaps because of some of
them, we came away with very positive impressions of both Middlebury and
Dartmouth. They are well worth exploring if you are not limiting yourself to
urban or suburban college environments.
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