Dartmouth Wealthy Children

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the insights everyone.

I understand the atmosphere a bit better now.

Anonymous wrote:Here’s what I like about being not-wealthy at a place like Dartmouth: most socializing takes place on campus and revolves around campus events. Boston is a very long drive away. There isn’t much to buy or do with money on campus. It’s not the most fashionable place because by November everyone just gives up and decides to be warm and dry vs. stylish.

One of my kids was at Dartmouth and one at Yale. Yale was a more challenging place to be not-rich, because there was such easy access to NYC as well as people’s family homes in the tri-state area. Wealth showed more obviously there.

If we could do it all over again, I would choose isolated campuses vs ones near cities and easy transportation, because that dampens the impact of family wealth within the student body.

This is what I was worried about. From a different angle.

The small class sizes... So my thinking was if the class size is so small, a poor kid could end up in a class with wealthy kids who would prefer to socialise amongst themselves.

Or who lead lifestyles that he/she can't, meaning a bit of isolation.

Thanks for the 1st hand insight!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Dartmouth and am friends with people whose kids recently went to or are currently attending Dartmouth. As the PP noted above, Dartmouth is not a place where wealth is obvious. Everyone lives in dorms and dresses very casually and the vast majority of students don't have cars. When I was there, I had no idea who had money and who did not, except for the one time when a hallmate was lamenting out loud that she had to fly coach for the first time because all first-class tickets to head home were sold out.

When you were there, how small were the classes?

Happy to know kids just wear casual clothes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s what I like about being not-wealthy at a place like Dartmouth: most socializing takes place on campus and revolves around campus events. Boston is a very long drive away. There isn’t much to buy or do with money on campus. It’s not the most fashionable place because by November everyone just gives up and decides to be warm and dry vs. stylish.

One of my kids was at Dartmouth and one at Yale. Yale was a more challenging place to be not-rich, because there was such easy access to NYC as well as people’s family homes in the tri-state area. Wealth showed more obviously there.

If we could do it all over again, I would choose isolated campuses vs ones near cities and easy transportation, because that dampens the impact of family wealth within the student body.

Yale undergrads do not head into NYC on any kind of regular basis. The vast majority of socializing is on campus.

Re: Yale and NYC, I disagree- there is a big crowd of wealthy and international kids that do, but it’s also common among normal kids. I’m the mom that posted and also an alumna and I was lower middle class. Even then and with almost no pocket money left from my campus job, I still went to NYC once every other month or so. It’s accessible and cheap via metro north, and at the time we had zero affordable stores in New Haven so it was a reasonable way to stock up on cheap groceries in Chinatown, or to buy a pair of jeans or a winter coat. But the way I spent my time in the city was very different than my suitemates who went to St. Paul’s or were from the UES.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Dartmouth and am friends with people whose kids recently went to or are currently attending Dartmouth. As the PP noted above, Dartmouth is not a place where wealth is obvious. Everyone lives in dorms and dresses very casually and the vast majority of students don't have cars. When I was there, I had no idea who had money and who did not, except for the one time when a hallmate was lamenting out loud that she had to fly coach for the first time because all first-class tickets to head home were sold out.

When you were there, how small were the classes?

Happy to know kids just wear casual clothes.

NP and some classes are tiny but some are larger lectures of >100 people. It’s like any small school that’s not a SLAC. I never found people’s wealth in a classroom setting to be obvious, although sometimes classroom discussions or sections during my freshman year were dominated by prep school and private school kids who better understood how to operate in discussion-based classes than us public school kids. It doesn’t take long to learn how to play the game, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. Two people I know who went there came from a UMC family (not wealthy) and an MC family (lots of aid). There are more uber-wealthy kids at NESCACs than Ivies. Dartmouth has too high of an academic standard to take only wealthy kids.

Yes. At any good school, more than 60 percent will be receiving grants. $400,000 is pretty expensive for most families. The 1 percent are still over-represented, but that's because money brings access to opportunities. Middle class families do think about the costs for a crew regatta or a model UN meet in NY. For the rich that are buying admissions and dominating the social milieu, that would be the NESCAC schools and a few other mainstream colleges - SMU, TCU, USC. If you are not rich, you are going to feel it at those schools. Dartmouth will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Dartmouth and am friends with people whose kids recently went to or are currently attending Dartmouth. As the PP noted above, Dartmouth is not a place where wealth is obvious. Everyone lives in dorms and dresses very casually and the vast majority of students don't have cars. When I was there, I had no idea who had money and who did not, except for the one time when a hallmate was lamenting out loud that she had to fly coach for the first time because all first-class tickets to head home were sold out.

When you were there, how small were the classes?

Happy to know kids just wear casual clothes.

It's the Southern sorority culture and the Ole Miss and Auburn, etc schools where they wear ridiculously expensive brands and material obsessed. Ivies and New England in general are more 'stealth wealth'. Not flaunting it in your face. In fact, they take pride in not doing that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Dartmouth and am friends with people whose kids recently went to or are currently attending Dartmouth. As the PP noted above, Dartmouth is not a place where wealth is obvious. Everyone lives in dorms and dresses very casually and the vast majority of students don't have cars. When I was there, I had no idea who had money and who did not, except for the one time when a hallmate was lamenting out loud that she had to fly coach for the first time because all first-class tickets to head home were sold out.

When you were there, how small were the classes?

Happy to know kids just wear casual clothes.

It's the Southern sorority culture and the Ole Miss and Auburn, etc schools where they wear ridiculously expensive brands and material obsessed. Ivies and New England in general are more 'stealth wealth'. Not flaunting it in your face. In fact, they take pride in not doing that.

Old timey thinking. Have you seen a Colby student lately? It's Ole Miss level status indicators.

[Anonymous]

I went to the LSE ... one of my classmate's father was a head of state, another was in the newspaper because he had a 100MM pound dispute with the UK tax authorities. My parents worked in factories. In school, we were just Natalie, D, and me. These things can just evaporate in school. But after we graduated, we went back to our lives, it wasn't as if they got me jobs in top ministries or anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Dartmouth and am friends with people whose kids recently went to or are currently attending Dartmouth. As the PP noted above, Dartmouth is not a place where wealth is obvious. Everyone lives in dorms and dresses very casually and the vast majority of students don't have cars. When I was there, I had no idea who had money and who did not, except for the one time when a hallmate was lamenting out loud that she had to fly coach for the first time because all first-class tickets to head home were sold out.

When you were there, how small were the classes?

Happy to know kids just wear casual clothes.

It's the Southern sorority culture and the Ole Miss and Auburn, etc schools where they wear ridiculously expensive brands and material obsessed. Ivies and New England in general are more 'stealth wealth'. Not flaunting it in your face. In fact, they take pride in not doing that.

Old timey thinking. Have you seen a Colby student lately? It's Ole Miss level status indicators.

thats every college girl these days

[Anonymous]

The top schools are barbells at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Dartmouth and am friends with people whose kids recently went to or are currently attending Dartmouth. As the PP noted above, Dartmouth is not a place where wealth is obvious. Everyone lives in dorms and dresses very casually and the vast majority of students don't have cars. When I was there, I had no idea who had money and who did not, except for the one time when a hallmate was lamenting out loud that she had to fly coach for the first time because all first-class tickets to head home were sold out.

When you were there, how small were the classes?

Happy to know kids just wear casual clothes.

It's the Southern sorority culture and the Ole Miss and Auburn, etc schools where they wear ridiculously expensive brands and material obsessed. Ivies and New England in general are more 'stealth wealth'. Not flaunting it in your face. In fact, they take pride in not doing that.

Old timey thinking. Have you seen a Colby student lately? It's Ole Miss level status indicators.

Agree. NESCACs now are rich kids flaunting rich indicators, no longer kids maxing out with LLBean and driving the hand me down volvo to college.

[Anonymous]

My son's friend is there. Middle class family. Loans. He loves it.

[Anonymous]

I graduated a million years ago. A lot of what people said about rural campuses being better is true. But as a lower-middle income kid (not first gen) on financial aid, there were lots of students who just didn’t get it. Studies show that you’ll likely end up with friends of a similar economic background and that was true for me. The wealthier kids (not just 1%) were really unaware of their privilege and didn’t seem to understand that others had to work to cover a lot of our expenses. Perhaps that has changed somewhat. Perhaps not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Dartmouth and am friends with people whose kids recently went to or are currently attending Dartmouth. As the PP noted above, Dartmouth is not a place where wealth is obvious. Everyone lives in dorms and dresses very casually and the vast majority of students don't have cars. When I was there, I had no idea who had money and who did not, except for the one time when a hallmate was lamenting out loud that she had to fly coach for the first time because all first-class tickets to head home were sold out.

When you were there, how small were the classes?

Happy to know kids just wear casual clothes.

It's the Southern sorority culture and the Ole Miss and Auburn, etc schools where they wear ridiculously expensive brands and material obsessed. Ivies and New England in general are more 'stealth wealth'. Not flaunting it in your face. In fact, they take pride in not doing that.

Old timey thinking. Have you seen a Colby student lately? It's Ole Miss level status indicators.

I have not. I had no idea!! That's a huge change from back when I was in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Dartmouth and am friends with people whose kids recently went to or are currently attending Dartmouth. As the PP noted above, Dartmouth is not a place where wealth is obvious. Everyone lives in dorms and dresses very casually and the vast majority of students don't have cars. When I was there, I had no idea who had money and who did not, except for the one time when a hallmate was lamenting out loud that she had to fly coach for the first time because all first-class tickets to head home were sold out.

When you were there, how small were the classes?

Happy to know kids just wear casual clothes.

It's the Southern sorority culture and the Ole Miss and Auburn, etc schools where they wear ridiculously expensive brands and material obsessed. Ivies and New England in general are more 'stealth wealth'. Not flaunting it in your face. In fact, they take pride in not doing that.

Old timey thinking. Have you seen a Colby student lately? It's Ole Miss level status indicators.

Agree. NESCACs now are rich kids flaunting rich indicators, no longer kids maxing out with LLBean and driving the hand me down volvo to college.

How so? (I am a New Englander so kind of surprised to hear!)